David Gordon Green spearheading a sequel trilogy to 1973’s The Exorcist has drawn all kinds of reactions. Although his direct sequel to John Carpenter’s seminal Halloween – confusingly also titled Halloween (2018) – earned critical and box office success, Halloween Kills confounded audiences and Halloween Ends might be one of the most fiercely debated franchise movies of modern horror (for the record, I love it). Take the first horror movie ever to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and hand it to a filmmaker who has made it known that he wants to do something a bit different than what fans would expect, and you’re bound to spark controversy. The first film in Blumhouse’s new trilogy, The Exorcist: Believer, passes the test in a deeply unsettling, artful meditation on faith and the insidious power of evil.
The Exorcist: Believer hardly starts on a high note, though. A prologue introduces us to photographer Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) and his pregnant wife Sorenne (Tracey Graves) on assignment in Haiti. When an earthquake hits, Sorenne doesn’t survive, only Victor and the newborn child. 13 years later, Victor has become an overprotective father to his daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett), who is growing up too fast in his eyes. Despite the best efforts of Odom Jr. and Jewett, much of the opening twenty or so minutes feels empty. Be it a lack of score or truncated editing that reduces the Haiti prologue to an ineffective obligation and further development between Angela and Victor to a series of awkward glances, there’s something amiss.
Once Angela and her friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) go missing, the film picks up in a big way. A great strength in William Friedkin‘s The Exorcist, based on the novel by William Peter Blatty, is how easy it is to put oneself in the shoes of the characters on screen. When Victor is forced to pair up with Katherine’s parents Miranda (Jennifer Nettles) and Tony (Norbert Leo Burtz) to help find their missing daughters, the raw human drama sets in. Dirty looks are exchanged, insults are hurled, all suppressing a deep hurt. Shot in a docu-style by cinematographer Michael Simmonds, the palpable, ugly pain of these adults is exposed. If there was an expectation that would subside when the girls return, let go of that notion immediately.
More than the bombastic portrayal of the possessed often seen in the genre, the uncanny is one of fear’s biggest tools. As Angela and Katherine are rescued, they’re in a catatonic, bludgeoned dissociative state. Huge credit goes to Lidya Jewett, who can make the simple act of staring off into space a spine-chilling affair. Opting for the slow burn, writer-director David Gordon Green ever so slowly unspools the degradation of Katherine and Angela, who are at first indistinguishable from victims of trauma before something sinister really starts to take hold.
For all the turning people have done on Green’s Halloween trilogy, one thing he deserves serious praise for is developing characters with a beating heart. In his vision of Haddonfield in those films, the city and the individuals within it are all affected in distinct ways by the trauma of Michael Myers, making for an in-depth character study that puts the victims first. In his take on The Exorcist, Green opts for an examination of its cast ensemble’s relationships to faith. For anyone worried that The Exorcist: Believer would somehow tarnish the original’s reputation, this approach is as close as you can get to Friedkin’s placing the importance of the reaction to evil rather than the theatrics of it.
Peter Sattler and David Gordon Green’s script, based on a story by Green, Danny McBride, and Scott Teems, is aces all the way, brimming with intriguing character after intriguing character. The possession of Angela and Katherine sends the residents of the town into a crisis of faith. Leslie Odom Jr.’s Victor refuses to give credence to what’s actually going on with his daughter due to a deep-seated gnosticism, while Miranda and Tony try their best to hide behind their crumbling facade of catholicism. One of the film’s most interesting players, Nurse Ann (Ann Dowd), reckons with having to use her adept ability at the faith she left behind, while priest Father Maddox (E.J. Bonilla) hides behind bureaucracy to avoid having to put his skills to the test.
Strongly, The Exorcist: Believer doesn’t just pertain to the Catholic faith as in the original, roping in Southern Baptist-style preacher (Raphael Sbarge) and the spiritual Dr. Beehibe (Okwui Okpokwasili), showing that evil doesn’t have a single jurisdiction and a united front of belief of some sort is the only thing that can defeat something that stands in very opposition to the concept. One of the most controversial aspects of this legacy sequel is the bringing back of Ellen Burstyn as Chris McNeil, the mother of the possessed child Regan in 1973’s The Exorcist. Fear not, she’s used very sparingly and the path her relationship with faith has taken her makes way for a satisfying, different answer to how the events of the initial film would impact somebody without turning Chris into some Laurie Strode-esque action hero.
Of course, the main draw for The Exorcist: Believer is going to be the third act exorcism. Taking its sweet time getting there, the exorcism explodes in operatic glory. With modern technology at his disposal, Green positions the two girls as twin demons, voices warping in beyond disconcerting ways, make-up effects top-notch, taking the environment and the sanity of those around them as show-stopping lighting and visual effects invoke a sort of portal to hell. Jason Blum has claimed that this is the most expensive Blumhouse production to date, and it looks like it. However, this scale is really sold by the screenplay’s positioning of the characters, the performances, and allowing composers David Wingo and Aman Abbasi the opportunity to finally go full throttle. Never did I think I would hear Mike Oldfield’s iconic “Tubular Bells” theme used to such great effect.
Mainly, the final exorcism is the ultimate crucible; a test of faith for all involved. Instead of taking the easy route out, the movie makes a decision bound to be polarizing. This creative choice leaves The Exorcist: Believer on a grim note, one that feels in step with Friedkin’s original film without compromising Green’s artistic integrity. Most specifically in the first act, there are clear areas where Green was forced to dial back his vision, or certain plotlines were trimmed down, but if it was in service of retaining what they managed to do with this film’s ending, I’m okay with making that sacrifice. Moreover, The Exorcist: Believer mostly manages to do away without a cloying amount of fan service, which immediately gives it an edge
The Exorcist: Believer is a fascinating first chapter to this purported new trilogy that stands on its own. It almost certainly will not be for everyone, and that’s absolutely okay. In an age where legacy sequels are pumped out like clockwork, having one come out with a personality of any kind is a miracle. That miracle is twofold, as The Exorcist: Believer represents another inspired franchise revival for David Gordon Green.
