The Exorcist: Believer, 2023.
Directed by David Gordon Green.
Starring Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Nettles, Ann Dowd, Leslie Odom Jr., Olivia O’Neill, Lidya Jewett, Raphael Sbarge, E.J. Bonilla, Antoni Corone, Danny McCarthy, Norah Murphy, Chloe Traicos, Chandu Kanuri, Richard Carr III, and Okwui Okpokwasili.
SYNOPSIS:
When two girls disappear into the woods and return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, the father of one girl seeks out Chris MacNeil, who’s been forever altered by what happened to her daughter fifty years ago.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, The Exorcist: Believer wouldn’t exist.
For a brief moment, I had faith in director David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer. There are the standard Catholic fanatics, but the filmmaker (co-writing alongside Peter Sattler and from his screen story working with longtime collaborator Danny McBride and Scott Teems) expresses an interest in the early going exploring different religions and forms of blessings (inevitably coming around to alternative exorcism methods), a notion that is further intriguing when one considers that most demonic possession movies center on white characters and Catholicism.
Leslie Odom Jr. is Victor Fielding, a Black widowed father in Georgia caring for his teenage daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett.) A prologue in Haiti shows Victor and his pregnant wife enjoying themselves and the landmarks, with the former photographing noteworthy sights while his wife receives a good-luck voodoo blessing for their unborn baby. Moments later, catastrophe and tragedy strike in an earthquake, leaving one to wonder if David Gordon Green secretly wants to make a disaster film. It could also be argued that with The Exorcist: Believer, a film that contains some solid drama and worthwhile themes to dive into before swerving into soulless, pointless, confounding, legacy sequel territory, he has made one.
Understandably, Angela still misses the mother she never got to know, often searching through what memories her father has left of her. Naturally, this sometimes puts Victor on the defensive, insisting to Angela that those are his things and no longer her mother’s. Aside from these minor verbal scuffles, they share a tight bond with him present and there for his daughter. He also decides to cave and let her spend her time after school with her friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill), the daughter of devout Catholics (Jennifer Nettles and Norbert Leo Butz.).
Angela and Katherine are interested in horror and the supernatural, heading into a forest after school, wandering inside an underground area, and attempting to contact the dead mother. Meanwhile, Victor is not a man of faith; he is a photographer, giving reason to assume that he only believes in what he can physically see. Nevertheless, the girls black out and go missing, only to be found three days later, where medical professionals run tests and discover that they haven’t been harmed, even if their behavior is questionable and offbeat.
Victor also becomes a believer pretty damn fast once that strange behavior manifests into something much more physically harmful, such as Angela carving the inscription: save me” into her body (not to mention some bedwetting because these filmmakers are determined to exhaust every ounce of nostalgia possible, without shame.) Endlessly slight variations on callbacks to the original notwithstanding, the portion where the girls are missing does conjure up some urgent, engaging drama.
The same could also be said for Victor’s hastened realization that something has got a hold of his daughter’s mind and body, also finding his way onto the same page as religious zealots he has nothing in common with other than their daughters are clearly possessed. Leslie Odom Jr. shines at portraying Victor’s inner conflict, the mental pain and anguish the eventual exorcism takes on him, and a nonreligious man who has to believe in something if he is going to save his daughter. There aren’t many moments where the film works, but if it is, it’s because of his performance. Every other character is treated as an afterthought, including the girls.
Unfortunately, the filmmakers also feel the need to bring back Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), the mother of Linda Blair’s Regan, who was possessed in the original, a bonafide masterwork from William Friedkin that was both shocking and profane for its time yet also provided unforgettable nightmare fuel. None of those things are present in The Exorcist: Believer. A hospital nurse (Ann Dowd, one of the only other actors here injecting convincing emotion into the proceedings) passes along a book by Chris detailing her experience with Regan’s exorcism and how that initiated her to start studying exorcism practices around the world, suggesting that she might be able to help.
What started as a moderately suspenseful work about lost daughters who turn up and begin acting creepy (it should also be noted that their performances are adequately ominous, at least until everything transitions into endless loud noises that contain no scares) shifts into what feels like another movie entirely, offering exposition on how Chris and Regan are now estranged from one another. There is also an abundance of hokey dialogue and overdramatic acting from Ellen Burstyn rambling about the forces of evil. One would also presume that she might be given something interesting to do here, but what her role is relegated to is baffling, possibly hinting at a beginning for future ideas David Gordon Green plans on deploying in sequels (you know he and Universal are going to milk this for all it is worth.)
Themes of faith and unity are reduced to nothingness and no character depth, all in favor of quite possibly the loudest exorcism put on screen, and not because two young girls are possessed. Perhaps even worse than the lack of scares and chills here is that David Gordon Green and company are content reworking similar set pieces from the original, but with the usual misguided Hollywood sequel logic that they have to be noisier with more effects (even the demonic voices are stripped of any semblance that a human being’s voice is being altered.) Then the ending comes, which is a load of unearned fan-service garbage that left me saying, “fuck this movie” in my mind.
The Exorcist featured a classic, terrifyingly vulgar scene of young Regan penetrating herself with a cross while shouting, “Let Jesus fuck you!”. With The Exorcist: Believer, the only ones getting fucked are audiences by David Gordon Green making a mess over every iconic horror franchise he gets his hands on.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
