Very rarely do iconic horror movies escape the remake treatment at some point in their franchise legacy. Such classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween and The Omen have all been treated (or fallen victim to, depending on your opinion) to a remake, but there are some that simply seem to be untouchable. The Exorcist, directed by the late great William Friedkin 50 years ago, is one such sacred text.
However, just because everyone respects it, doesn’t mean you can’t franchise it, with The Exorcist inspiring a number of sequels, prequels and TV shows, stopping short of going for a full-blown remake. But now, the IP has been resurrected once more as a legacy sequel, as is the fashion. To marshal this new take – one which directly follows Friedkin’s original – David Gordon Green has reteamed with his Blumhouse producers and writing team fresh off their Halloween trilogy, one which similarly exhumed a dormant genre title for modern audiences.
Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy was met with a somewhat mixed reception, what with it often taking unexpected directions that split the fanbase right down the middle in a fashion matching Michael Myer’s own penchant for smashing skulls. But Halloween and The Exorcist are not interchangeable titles, they’re very different beasts that provide different flavours of horror. So, what is the take that made David Gordon Green the man to call? ON evidence of Believer, I’m not quite sure.
From the first act, Gordon Green and his writers manage to strike a tone that is respectful of Friedkin’s original without feeling the need to constantly call back to it. We witness the desperation and panic that sets in as two girls – Angela (Lidya Jewett) and Katherine (Olivia Marcum) go missing in the woods near their home. We then bathe in the growing dread that accompanies the fleeting relief once they’re found, seemingly unharmed but undoubtedly – and distrubingly – changed.
Leslie Odom Jr, leading the cast as Angela’s widowed father Victor, is excellent as the parent keen to protect and heal, even if he may not necessarily believe in the dark truth of what has taken possession of his daughter even as dawns that something unholy is occurring with Angela and Kathrine (Jewett and Marcum commit fully). There’s some tension as well to be mined from the relationships on display: Victor seems over-protective to a fault, something we come to discover is rooted in guilt over the death of his wife, while Katherine has had a religious upbringing from her devout Christian parents (Jennifer Nettles and Norbert Leo Butz). The table is set to examine the multitudes of forms faith can take, be they comforting, or restrictive and destructive. But sadly the potential on display quickly dissipates as Gordon Green takes the more trodden path and soon you find there’s little here to get your teeth into.
All the potential in its setup falls precisely at the point the film decides to revert to a game of legacy sequel box-ticking, signalled namely by the return of Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) from the original movie. Despite Burstyn’s best efforts, the writing that folds Chris into proceedings is unconvincing, never giving much of an organic reason for the character to return in a part which goes on to be pretty limited anyway.
From this point on, the film ends up becoming a bland, by-the-numbers exorcism movie that shies away from getting into something thematically complex. Sure, comparing it to Friedkin’s original is not entirely fair to any movie, but there’s the sense that Beiiever is far too intimidated to even try and dive into some thornier territory. The actual exorcism itself does offer some intrigue by having a few different interpretations of the act on display, but ultimately it all ends up playing the same songbook. Flashing images, croaky voices and twisting heads are all present but the thrills lack a visceral punch. They are all beats you’ve seen before in numerous knock-off Exorcist movies but delivering with less guts and bile. By the end, it’s hard to land on what this is truly bringing to the table for this franchise beyond the logline: ‘This time, there’s two!’
It may be that Gordon Green and co are holding back for the already announced follow-up (Deceiver is slated for 2025), but that’s not an excuse for pulling your punches when trying to land a new audience. Despite that promising first act, this ends up going down a frustratingly safe route, failing to ever find a convincing hook as to why we would want to get possessed by this franchise again.
The Exorcist: Believer is released in cinemas on 6th October.
The Exorcist: Believer
Summary
Despite a promising first act, this ends up going down a frustratingly safe route, failing to ever find a convincing hook as to why we would want to get possessed by this franchise again.
