David Gordon Green’s first sequel-reboot take on “The Exorcist” series of horror pictures (of potentially three), “The Exorcist: Believer,” is an utter catastrophe that is as soulless as it is derivative in its genre conventions. And most disappointing of all, it isn’t crafted with love to the original 1973 classic. When you thought “The Heretic” was the final nail in the coffin regarding disrespect, this one arrives out of nowhere and says: Watch this!
The Year 1973, When Friedkin Shocked the World
It was 1973, almost fifty years ago, when William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty delivered one of the best and most recognizable horror pieces in cinema history with “The Exorcist.” People didn’t expect to be rattled or horrified by what they had concocted. But the opposite happened. Even though it caused many viewers to have nightmares or even be scarred for the rest of their lives (reliving the memory of their experience watching said film), “The Exorcist” became a big sensation. It even got Oscar nominations, a rarity for genre films. Some scares might not look as “great” as they did back in the day, even though one is impressed by the magic of cinematic creations and practical effects. But the most crucial facet of them all, the shimmering heart within the grimm fairytale (where darkness is slowly swallowing everyone whole), is still felt in its fullest effect.
As in custom with successful horror pictures monetary wise, a sequel arrived, “Exorcist II: The Heretic.” And it is one of the worst horror sequels to ever play on the Big Screen. For some, it deserves the top spot. Mark Kermode is one of them, who thinks it is the worst film of all time. It makes total sense. Take everything that made the 1973 classic great and get rid of it. The franchise showed some glimpses of life with the third installment. But even by that point, it was already too late. Why can’t they leave horror films sometimes alone? I know it “sort of” makes sense regarding production and money. Yet, what’s the point if, in most cases, the final product is vacuous and passionless?
David Gordon Green and His Reboot-Sequels
Of course, there are plenty of exceptions. However, the majority holds the ruling. Horror sequels are mostly rendered soulless. The old Hollywood money-making machine still makes the same mistakes. One of those mistakes is giving the once-promising filmmaker David Gordon Green another reboot-sequel run at another horror franchise people hold dear. From 2018 to 2022, he delivered three new “Halloween” films, two of three being pretty solid and quite surprising—although the last installment was critically loathed (and I quite liked it). You could say Gordon Green got lucky that time around. The tricks he used to pull those movies off aren’t going to work once again. There’s more room for playfulness in slasher flicks. He can get away with more creative endeavors within the confines of that horror subgenre’s tropes and conventions. In a way, Gordon Green was a one-trick pony thematically with that trilogy.
It is evident in the first of a (yet another) potential trilogy reviving “The Exorcist” franchise, “The Exorcist: Believer”, as it is an utter catastrophe in all cinematic senses. “The Exorcist: Believer” begins with the usual glimpses of modern big studio horror pictures’ favorite pet topic: trauma and loss. It seems that whenever a studio wants to “resurrect” a genre franchise or pull them from the vaults, the only theme they want to tackle is those aforementioned two. The film begins with a flashback. We see Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) is mourning the loss of his beloved wife via a disastrous earthquake. That happened twelve years before his daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett), was born. Ever since, Victor has taken good care of Angela. It might be to an overprotective degree. But that’s because he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her.
Victor doesn’t want to lose another loved one. You begin to sense that something is off immediately. The lines don’t match with the tone it is presenting, and vice-versa. As this continues, you notice that more and more, to the point where there’s confusion about what you should be experiencing. Nevertheless, Angela, alongside her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum), decides to go on an adventure. When they left school on Friday, they would go to the woods and play with an enchanted trinket. Angela was supposed to arrive at her house by dinner time. But she hasn’t. Something must have happened to her. Katherine’s parents haven’t heard of either of them since dropping them at school in the morning. A search for the two kids begins. There’s no sight of their whereabouts.
Yet Another Lifeless Exorcise in Remake Fever
After three days, a phone call wakes these parents up. Their daughters were found. At least what is left of them. Angela and Katherine don’t remember anything that happened. They state that it has only been a few hours since their disappearance. Apart from a few scars and broken nails, their bodies are intact. But their souls have disappeared from their bodies. They are now vessels for a demonic being slowly eating them inside out. Doctors don’t have medicine to prescribe the younglings that could save them. Time at the mental hospital didn’t help either. What should they do to help their loved ones? Victor and company seek help from the church and the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before, Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), to get rid of the demons using their daughters as succubus.
This is the same old procedure for the trope-riddled possession and exorcism horror film. Narrative-wise, you have seen this before thousands of times. And most, if not all, of them are better than what David Gordon Green has to offer with “The Exorcist: Believer.” Plenty of horror films shouldn’t be meddled with due to their status and the talent of the filmmakers who worked on them in their respective times. Some examples are “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Nightmare on Elm Street,” and, last but not least, “The Exorcist.” Of course, as you all know, they have received poor (and unnecessary) reboots, remakes, or sequels throughout the years. Nobody asked for these projects. But the big studios threw the dice and said this was their next move. Recently we saw sequels/reboots for “Hellraiser,” “Scream,” “Candyman,” and “Pet Sematary.”
While some of them had some interesting elements in their backbone, all of them—which range from mediocre to atrocious—are failures in “bringing life” to something that was already kicking and breathing due to the impact and memorability of the original works. Two main problems arise with making these types of films. The first one is that, just by looking at them and their thematic expression, these directors don’t make these projects with love or passion for the original material. You don’t sense that the director at the helm doesn’t use the originals as inspirations by or admires the picture that came before. There are two sides to this. They eliminate the tendencies that made them great to do a vigor-less project, almost like an empty shell. If they don’t do that, they literally recreate scenes from them, yet with a lifeless mantle.
More Damage Done Than “Exorcist II: The Heretic”
The second problem is that they fail to do anything new with an old concept. The filmmakers attached to these projects don’t necessarily have to follow the original beat for beat. They can go on their path and do something vastly different. I prefer to see something drastically different rather than a straight, clean-cut copy because you cannot capture the original’s magic. David Gordon Green manages to be in the middle of these two situations with “The Exorcist: Believer.” At some points, it is a sequel with only some needle drops, characters, and scenes from the original to tell us it shares a universe with the 1973 picture. He references Friedkin’s work through recognizable elements that, in this case, feel like absentminded copy-and-paste placements. He wants to do his own thing with others, separated from that film.
The main problem is that he doesn’t know whether to do one or the other—distance himself and choose originality or make something he doesn’t have the directorial prowess and verve to copy. Because of his restraint in deciding between identity and “homage,” Gordon Green creates what might be one of the most embarrassing sequels to a horror classic of all time. Through lazy scares, lack of tension, fractured narratives, and no clear sense of a thematic exercise, “The Exorcist: Believer” goes along through its two-hour runtime with a sluggish pace and a baffling screenplay—with lines that tether between overly self-serious and inadvertently comedic (laughable, one might say).
There’s this odd mix in both its tone and messaging. The audience never knows if Gordon Green is mocking the characters, in the vein of “Halloween Kills” with the chant “evil dies tonight” (and it never does), or if he wants us to worry about them. Sure, the latter statement is the most transparent and attachable when you look at it from afar. But there are instances in which you believe he doesn’t care about the characters on screen. If he doesn’t care or find a connection with them, whether through their development or the themes he’s tackling, why should we?
There’s no point in engaging with it since the director isn’t trying to give his project some life or personality. It is hard to express the emotionless vacuum that was watching this film. The room was half-silent and half-baffled at what we had witnessed. “The Exorcist: Believer” is not only a parody-like version of possession and exorcism movies, but also a horror picture that disrespects the original—more so than what Jon Boorman did in 1977 with “The Heretic.” And that is saying a lot.
“The Exorcist: Believer” arrives in theaters worldwide on October 6th, 2023.
