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The Exorcist: Believer Review
Image Credit: Universal Studios
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Directed By: David Gordon Green
Written By: Peter Sattler, David Gordon Green, Scott Teems, and Danny McBride; Based on characters created by William Peter Blatty
Runtime: 111 minutes
MPA Rating: Rated R for some violent content, disturbing images, language, and sexual references.
Leslie Odom Jr. – Victor Fielding
Ann Dowd – Paula
Jennifer Nettles – Miranda
Lidya Jewett – Angela Fielding
Olivia O’Neill – Katherine
Norbert Leo Butz – Tony
Ellen Burstyn – Chris MacNeil
Okwui Okpokwasili – Dr. Beehibe
Raphael Sbarge – Pastor Don Revans
Danny McCarthy – Stuart
E.J. Bonilla – Father Maddox
Tracey Graves – Sorenne Fielding
The creative team behind the recent Halloween reboot trilogy now attempts to work its magic on The Exorcist, which has its own fair share of mediocre sequels and spinoffs. Unfortunately, rather than magic, the work done by David Gordon Green to create a direct sequel to the 1973 horror classic is more like an unfortunate curse. In the case of The Exorcist: Believer, it was not an excellent day for an exorcism.
The story shows some initial promise, introducing the married couple Victor Fielding (Odom Jr.) and his beloved pregnant wife Sorenne (Graves). An unfortunate earthquake causes Sorenne to incur serious injuries, and Victor is forced to make an impossible choice between the life of his child and his wife. Thirteen years later, Victor and his daughter Angela (Jewett) are living an ordinary life in suburban Georgia. However, Angela longs for a connection to the mother she never knew. After school, Angela and her classmate Katherine (O’Neill) sneak off into the woods to perform a type of spiritual ritual, so Angela can speak to her mother. The girls go missing for three days, leaving their parents worried and terrified. Several days later, the girls return unharmed, but it appears something awful happened to them while they were gone.
Despite Victor’s strong aversion to religion, he begrudgingly accepts that the girls are beginning to show signs of demonic possession. With advice from their next-door neighbor and nurse, Ann (Dowd), Victor researches the book A Mother’s Explanation, by Chris MacNeil (Burstyn), who once experienced a similar type of possession with her daughter Regan 50 years earlier. Victor’s daughter and her friend are possessed by a malignant force of pure evil, and there may be no coming back from this type of terror.
Believer shows some promise in its first act as with the slow burn to the demonic possession. The actors are all decently believable, especially the girls. However, except for Victor, most of the supporting characters are woefully underdeveloped. Victor drives most of the action, and while multiple figures take part in the exorcism portion of the narrative, they fail to leave a meaningful impression or make a significant impact.
Rather than serving as the saving grace, Ellen Burstyn’s role fails to elevate the story. The notion of an Exorcist legacy sequel that brings back Chris MacNeill makes little sense considering that Chris did not take part in her daughter’s exorcism. She never witnessed what happened or how her daughter was saved by Father Karras. The film attempts to justify Chris’ appearance in the film by introducing her as an “exorcist expert, not an exorcist.” The novelty and intrigue of Burstyn’s return to her iconic role quickly turns into a train wreck. What happens to Chris in Believer is ridiculous and downright mean-spirited. There is no organic reason for Chris MacNeill to be a part of Believer‘s story other than that she was a character from the original. What happens to Chris MacNeil is disrespectful to Ellen Burstyn’s original performance and the 1973 horror classic.
While filmmaker Gordon Green puts together a somewhat promising opening act, the film soon devolves into cheap jump-scare tactics. There is no foreboding, suspenseful sense of dread or terror in Believer. Cheap jump scares and gore can be okay in moderation, but Believer has little to offer in the way of true scariness.
The film is packed with supporting characters, none of whom leave a significant impression. Victor’s friend and spiritual neighbor, Stuart, assists with the exorcism, but he brings little to the table other than playing a goofy comic relief character in a story where he doesn’t belong. The religious priests in the film are essentially background characters and have nothing to do. Even Dr. Beehibe (Okpokwasili), representing holistic and ritualistic medicine, has only a threadbare characterization.
The movie presents a quasi-message of community and finding strength in communal bonds and friendship, but it’s executed in such a clumsy, half-hearted way that it doesn’t work. Thematically, Believer relies on half-hearted, ham-fisted platitudes that never land. The movie ends on a groan-inducing note.
Believer was created on the premise that it will become a new cinematic Exorcist trilogy. The original film receiving unnecessary spinoffs and sequels is where the problems begin in the first place. There is little rhyme or reason for Believer to exist as a legacy sequel to the original. It is an absolute mystery how Believer is supposed to become a trilogy because the movie doesn’t offer three films worth of plot. The flavor of Believer‘s split pea soup is worse than its odor, and the flavor tastes like wretched bile.
