Be Gone!
Grab the crucifix and pass the pea soup. ‘The Exorcist’ gets its Tru-Quel and makes you rethink ‘The Heretic’.
The Exorcist: Believer
Director: David Gordon Green • Writers: Peter Sattler, David Gordon Green
Starring: Leslie Odom Jr, Lidya Jewett, Olivia O’Neill, Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Ellen Burstyn
USA • 1hr 51mins
Opens Hong Kong October 12 • IIB
Grade: C
David Gordon Green returns to the second phase of his career (he broke out with stoner comedies and schmaltzy dramas) as Legacy Horror Auteur, and he’s following the pattern he did for the reboot-slash-“true” sequel of Halloween and its new trilogy (Halloween, 2018, Halloween Kills, 2021, Hallloween Ends, 2022). After splashing out US$400 million for the rights (though they had to be badgered into diverting 0.2% of their annual profits to cover WGA demands), the skint Universal and Paramount were planning another trilogy like that one (new Halloweens racked up a combined US$500 million in two ’rona years, or 10 times its budgets). Emphasis on “were planning,” because as of opening day, the entirely unnecessary The Exorcist: Believer will get a sequel, The Exorcist: Deceiver, we’re not sure about a third, and we’re not sure if Green is coming back. Huh?
Still, it’s made its budget back, and there’s something to be said for brand loyalty. William Friedkin’s 1973 The Exorcist is a classic for good reason, a scary, gross groundbreaker that wrestled with the eternal friction between science and faith in a Watergate and second wave feminism-era America, as movie star Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn, Requiem for a Dream, Interstellar) dealt with what turned out to be her daughter Regan’s possession by the demon Pazuzu. The first sequel to The Exorcist – still the GOAT possession movie – The Heretic deserves some sympathy in light of Green and Peter Sattler’s overblown yet still undercooked entry. At least The Heretic had a clear vision, messy as it may have been. This is just kind of there.
Enjoy her 15 minutes
Green lines up all sorts of dominoes and lays the groundwork for a bunch of interesting, current dynamics and never fulfils any of the promise. Two girls, BFFs Angela and Katherine (Lidya Jewett and Olivia O’Neill) are growling and levitating this time. One is Black, one is white. One comes from an atheistical household, one from a devoutly Christian home. One comes from a single parent home, the other from a Jesus-approved heteronormative one. The solutions of patriarchal Catholicism butt up against more matriarchal pagan ones. None of these dichotomies is ever really considered, making The Exorcist: Believer an even more obvious cash-grab than it already is. As a moderately gory (IIB levels or gore, mind) Halloween diversion it’s fine, but this doesn’t come close to Friedkin’s level – and yes, 30-year-plus later sequels can match/better their inspiration: Blade Runner 2049, The Color of Money, Top Gun Maverick, Mad Max: Fury Road. Shush.
Photographer Victor Fielding (Aaron Burr, Sir, Leslie Odom Jr, Glass Onion) has given up his arty ways to live in small town Georgia with his daughter Angela in the years following his wife’s death in a Haitian earthquake. When Angela and Katherine go missing for three days, their subsequent behaviour is attributed to an unspoken trauma, some of which is visible (silly, that’s demon eyes!). Katherine’s parents Miranda and Tony (country singer Jennifer Nettles and WTF? and Norbert Leo Butz) turn to God and Victor turns to the psych ward, until his nosy neighbour (one of many) and nurse Ann (Ann Dowd, The Handmaid’s Tale) turns him on to MacNeil’s memoir, who swoops in to offer help and advice, as a mother and a witness to the same ordeal. Ultimately the Catholic Church sends them packing, forcing everyone into a DIY demon justice league.
Whenever The Exorcist: Believer leans into its gory horror pedigree it’s at its strongest. DOP Michael Simmonds clearly understands devil lighting, and quite effortlessly ratchets up the sinister mood little by little. By the time “Tubular Bells” makes a remixed appearance (you know it had to be here) Angela and Katherine are in full cracked lip glory. On the downside the film relies on CGI instead of pea soup and mechanical shenanigans, the kind that gave ’73’s co-star Linda Blair PTSD (fair) but there’s no denying the practical effects were more, well, effective. Spielberg got the balance right, surely Green could have too (did I just compare Green to Steven Spielberg?). And, and this is a big and, Green has a stellar cast that helps makes this tosh a little more palatable. Odom is never less than compelling (curiously, the poster art centres the white girl and not the ostensible Black main characters, just sayin’), it would seem Nettles does terrific Jesus freak mom, and Jewett and O’Neill, while no Blair, are committed to their cursing and bile oozing. The ace in the hole is Burstyn, of course, the Jamie Lee Curtis of this franchise, who is so criminally underused you may want to get on the horn to Russell Crowe’s Father Gabriele Amorth and exorcise Green for his sin. — DEK
*The Exorcist: Believer was reviewed during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labour of the actors it wouldn't exist.