The Exorcist Believer: Hell Hath No Fury Like an Exorcist Scorned

By Thom Ernst

Rating: C

After seeing David Gordon Green’s Halloween reboot, I couldn’t wait for his Exorcist reboot.

In my opinion, Halloween stood as an almost art house–worthy philosophical treatise of trauma expertly executed within the context of real characters, notably a kindly sacrificial guard and a loving father and son at odds with each other’s expectations.

But after seeing Green’s Halloween reboot follow-up, Halloween Kills — a crushing experience for nearly everyone involved, but mainly for the audience — I was still on the hook for Halloween Ends. Sadly, my enthusiasm and hope for a fitting finale to the Michael Myers legacy is dashed with The Exorcist: Believer, whereby hope is hammered like it were the final nail in a cross.

Still, I counted down the days to The Exorcist: Believer like I was checking off an Advent Calendar without the chocolate. As a full-grown adult of 65 who clings to the possibility of regaining the magic of Christmas, The Exorcist: Believer arrives and disappoints as should not be expected.

It’s a film so past its prime that it warrants a best-before date stamped on the poster. Green and his frequent writing partner — a curiously unfunny Danny McBride — aren’t just attempting to reboot a classic bit of cinema and one of the few horror films to earn critical legitimacy and even an Oscar nomination. They’re aiming for a reboot of an entire faith-based community.

Yes, The Exorcist (the original) is a very religious film. Still, it came out in the 70s when society was, perhaps, more prone to accept horrific battles between good and evil as a battle between God and demons. But it also portrayed the fallibility of the Catholic church, the all too human failings of a priest, set in the non-secular environment of a Hollywood actress.

It was the perfect storm of Christian ideology clashing with cultural anxiety. Its central character, Regan (played by the young Linda Blair), had a mouth on her that would make Aleister Crowley head to confession. In his version, Green gives us two young girls possessed, and together, their taunting obscenities rank well below an average episode of Rick and Morty. The girls in Booksmart were more devilish.

There are many reasons why The Exorcist worked and still does, and why The Exorcist: Believer doesn’t and never will. But to explore the difference between the films too profoundly would be to legitimize Green’s film as a worthy successor to William Friedkin’s masterpiece. It isn’t. There are references to the original, most notably the reappearance of Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), Regan’s mother. Burstyn does her best to connect the dots between the films, which stand 50 years apart.

The story is of a young girl, Angela (Lidya Jewett), who wishes to connect with her deceased mother. Her father Tanner (Leslie Odom Jr.) loves Angela but falls short of giving her access to her mother’s memory. And so, Angela enlists the help of Katherine (Olivia O’Neill), a classmate from a devout Christian family. The girls go missing, and when they return, they have changed in ways unimaginable.

For the first 40 minutes, Green had me. The flickering lights, the inexplicable shadowy figures, the blood-filled bathtubs, and the girl’s bizarre behaviour set up the film’s tension and sense of dread. It can be equally comedic, too, in the way that genuinely freaky things can evoke nervous laughter. And there are some excellent set pieces, including very bad and inappropriate (I mean, very bad and very inappropriate) behaviour during a church service.

A few moments push very near to terrifying, including one scene of unimaginable cruelty that haunted me the entire ride home and haunted me again while writing this review.

But then the philosophical Green comes and ruins the whole thing. Philosophizing is what Green does; he weaves into the horror themes of social significance, elevating the story from the trappings of the genre. The trouble is, Green has done this in at least four of his films and only succeeded once.

But the failure in The Exorcist: Believer is so blatantly out of tune with the rest of the film; beyond preachy, beyond sermonizing, dousing whatever flames he manages to light with sanctimonious moralizing.

But here’s the thing: Should Green have a follow-up film — for now, let’s call it The Exorcist: I Believe Too — I will see the movie. I might hope for something as commanding and thrilling as Green’s first Halloween reboot. But I fear by this point, I’ve pretty much lost all faith.

The Exorcist: Believer. Directed by David Gordon Green. Starring Lidya Jewett, Leslie Odom Jr., Olivia O’Neill, and Ellen Burstyn. In theatres October 6.