‘The Exorcist: Believer’ Gets Possessed With Nothing but Easy Scares

Alci Rengifo

Two movies are battling each other in “The Exorcist: Believer.” One is a schlocky legacy sequel to the late William Friedkin’s classic, “The Exorcist.” The other is a schlocky boo fest that would have been just basic if it wasn’t trying to be a follow up to one of the greatest horror films of all time. Once again director David Gordon Green is tasked with reviving a familiar title. Previously, Green directed a sequel trilogy to John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” where only the first entry was worth the effort. Because Green has always been a talented director, bits and pieces of “Believer” work effectively before the movie decides serious issues of belief, evil and the widening social divide in America must take a back seat to a screeching sound mix. Even the much-advertised return of Ellen Burstyn can’t take away the feeling we’re watching something disconnected from the spirit of the first movie.

The Friedkin original opened in Iraq, this one begins in Haiti, where photographer Victor (Leslie Odom Jr.) is vacationing with his pregnant wife. Tragedy strikes in the form of an earthquake and Victor is left as a widowed, single father. Thirteen years later, he’s living in Atlanta, Georgia with a now 13-year-old Angela (Lidya Jewett). Victor is a bit overprotective and eager to be Angela’s buddy, but she’s entering her teen rebellion stage. She plans an after school study session with best friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill). After Victor consents, the two girls actually end up in an abandoned shaft in the woods, trying to communicate with some invisible entity. A frantic search begins when the girls fail to return home. Victor meets Katherine’s parents, two devout Protestants (Danny McCarthy and Jennifer Nettles). When Angela and Katherine are finally found alive, they begin to show unnerving signs of being possessed by dark forces that must be cast out. 

Studios have chased after a good “Exorcist” sequel ever since the original adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel became a global phenomenon in 1973. It was the first horror film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and Blatty won for his screenplay. What director William Friedkin did was a unique combination of horror and the kind of metaphysical musings more common to filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman. It was then followed by John Boorman’s “Exorcist II: The Heretic,” which was laughed off by audiences at the time but has gained a cult status with its hallucinatory visuals and apocalyptic tone. In 1990, Blatty himself directed “The Exorcist III,” also a cult favorite with some impressive writing and acting despite being infamously chopped up by its studio. It got stranger in 2004 when two versions of the same concept were made, “Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist” by Paul Schrader and “Exorcist: The Beginning,” by Renny Harlin. How that happened is a bizarre tale of industry politics and commerce worth more expansive reading for film buffs.

Now here comes David Gordon Green with what claims to be the first “direct sequel” to the ‘73 film. All along he’s attempting to tailor the concept to today’s horror habits. He starts off well with a first act that is more about setting up an atmosphere of dread. The first shot is of two dogs fighting on a Haitian beach as a shadow of a similar moment in Iraq serving a representation of good and evil during the first moments of “The Exorcist.” Green, like Jeff Nichols, is also a great director of suburbia and small towns. Similar to his “Halloween” movies, Green and regular cinematographer Michael Simmonds emphasize the colors of fall chilled environments. This is good for how early scares are about what cannot be seen. Once the girls start getting disturbed and demonic, Green plays around with jump scares and threats that hide in closets and corners, or bathtubs with overflowing mud water. Unnerving sequences work outside of the franchise’s expectations, such as Katherine flipping out during Sunday service at church.

When it’s time for the exorcism, Green turns up the volume and the movie goes heavy metal into strobe lighting, screaming and lots of cackling. It is fun to have Ellen Burstyn back as Chris MacNeil, the distraught actor who seeks the help of the Catholic Church to help her possessed daughter, Regan (Linda Blair), in the original. We learn that she went on to write a book about the experience and though not an exorcist, she’s an “exorcism expert,” meaning she of course arrives in Atlanta to help. Yet, she’s reduced to pure camp in “Believer,” with a bloody climax to her character that is almost comic. When the Friedkin film premiered, the legendary critic Pauline Kael famously hated it (Pauline always did go against the grain), and accused it of, “crushing blunt-wittedness.” Ironically, that’s exactly where this movie goes. Mystery and subtlety is traded over for a kind of religious version of “The Avengers.” When the girls turn into snarling, oozing monsters, the parents seek out spiritual help the way action heroes assemble arsenals. 

There are worthy themes buried in the screenplay by Green and Peter Sattler about generational trauma and loss of faith, but they only flash briefly before being overtaken by the jump scares. Green’s “Exorcist” is also a cultural update. The original movies belonged to decades when quite a chunk of Americans still went to church and other religious beliefs barely made it onto the screen. While the dialogue has many references to hell and Jesus, Green wants to wage an inclusive holy war where the local pastor teams up with a Catholic priest, Father Maddox (E.J. Bonilla), an aspiring nun-turned-nurse named Paula (Ann Dowd) and a Haitian practitioner of natural and spiritual cures (Okwui Okpokwasili). Together, they combine elements from their systems of belief (though how is a bit hazy) to fight off whatever it is that’s possessing the girls. “Exorcist” lore would suggest it’s the demon Pazuzu from all the other movies, but it remains unclear. The climactic exorcism belongs to more sensationalist horror films where walls shake, CGI vapors shoot out of someone’s mouth and demonic voices clearly not belonging to the actors growl. Green really flirts with camp when winking at famous moments from the original, like the classic head-spinning scene, here used for wildly different purposes. When the exorcism ritual gets tough, Father Maddox hides in his car, needing Victor to tap on the window and say, “the fight’s in there.”

What made Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” so special was that it was a horror film that also formed part of the 1970s renaissance in American cinema. Aside from the influential special effects and unforgettable makeup, it was at heart a drama about people losing faith in a darkening world, and what happens when we are confronted with beliefs we thought were abandoned, no matter your background. Jason Miller as the sad-eyed priest Damien Karras was an allegory for losing what we thought was certain as life becomes ever so cruel. The clergy in “Believer” all look like cartoons compared to Max von Sydow’s Father Merrin, a man haunted by having seen evil up close. In this movie, everyone is a stereotype and cutout making way for what are indeed impressive makeup effects and efficient sound design. The music by Amman Abbasi and David Wingo remixes the famous “Tubular Bells” theme with little purpose other than nostalgia for its own sake. But what’s most fatal is that while its predecessor grips with the sensation of believing in something, “The Exorcist: Believer” doesn’t feel like it believes in anything other than making a dollar. 

“The Exorcist: Believer” releases Oct. 6 in theaters nationwide.