Horror franchises are typically outlined by their immutability. Make successful within the style, and also you’re all however assured a slew of sequels that comply with a decent system: slasher movies the place a monstrous power stalks the youth, ghost tales set in creepy homes. However The Exorcist has all the time been totally different. The lately departed William Friedkin’s 1973 movie was a box-office sensation—adjusted for inflation, it’s nonetheless one of many 10 largest motion pictures ever made. But each try to sequelize it has been a baffling, weird narrative swerve that takes the theme of demonic possession and locations it in a wildly totally different context.
That’s, till David Gordon Inexperienced’s new movie, The Exorcist: Believer, which follows the blandest of blueprints: Take the primary movie’s plot, repeat it within the current day with a couple of tweaks, usher in well-known actors from the previous to lend on the spot credibility, and bam, you might have your self a “legacy sequel.” Inexperienced did the identical factor together with his 2018 movie, Halloween, which paid direct homage to the unique and relied on star Jamie Lee Curtis; that spawned two sequels, and now Inexperienced is making an attempt the identical method right here. He’s tagged in Exorcist star Ellen Burstyn (now 90 years previous) to seek the advice of on a case of demonic possession for not one however—gasp!—two teenage women.
The outcomes are as predictable as you may count on. Exterior of the truth that it has two possessed topics, Believer is a simple exorcism film, largely following the plot of the 1973 basic. Stricken mother and father (performed by Leslie Odom Jr., Jennifer Nettles, and Norbert Leo Butz) watch as their younger daughters undergo from inexplicable medical signs and behavioral adjustments which can be finally deemed to be demonic, necessitating an exorcism. Fifty years in the past, Friedkin’s movie depicted the ritual by displaying the sufferer writhing violently, cursing in a guttural voice, and emitting vile substances. These tropes have been copied ever since, principally by pale imitators resembling The Satan Inside, Ship Us From Evil, The Final Exorcism, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
Apparently, The Exorcist sequels have largely averted that acquainted path. After the primary movie’s colossal, Oscar-winning success, Exorcist II: The Heretic was launched in 1977, helmed by one other esteemed director (John Boorman). But it surely was critically derided on the time partly due to how a lot it deviated from expectations. That movie is about African environmental politics and machines that hyperlink folks’s mind waves, and includes a psychic battle with the satan within the type of a locust swarm. Although generally baffling, it’s an admirably uncommon work that defies simple stereotyping and is now beloved by some (Martin Scorsese has mentioned that he prefers it to the unique).
The 1990 movie The Exorcist III tried to hew nearer to the unique by bringing in William Peter Blatty as author and director. Blatty had written the unique Exorcist novel and the screenplay for the movie adaptation, and for this sequel, he tailored a unique e-book of his, the serial-killer drama Legion. The Exorcist III features as a hard-boiled cop drama with supernatural overtones, a hunt for a Zodiac-esque serial killer the place the satan himself may be concerned. Then, in 2004, Paul Schrader was employed to direct a prequel to the primary film, however the studio was unhappy together with his ruminative work and shot a brand new model directed by Renny Harlin, referred to as Exorcist: The Starting. That movie features principally as a non secular motion film, with the priest Lankester Merrin (performed by Stellan Skarsgård) doing battle with the satan in Forties Cairo. It was so poorly acquired that the studio finally relented and put out Schrader’s accomplished model, titled Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist—a much more fascinating (although slower-paced) tackle the identical character and setting.
There’s a great motive every sequel didn’t attempt to replicate the drama of The Exorcist, which regardless of many makes an attempt stays inimitable. It’s largely a testomony to an almost-50-year-old film that The Exorcist: Believer delivers so few correct scares, even with an in depth modern-CGI funds and the enthusiastic help of its studio, Common, which spent $400 million on the rights and was planning a movie trilogy. There’s not one of the shock of the unique, as a result of the 2 possessed women are given make-up jobs much like that of Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) within the first film. After so many copycats and parodies, seeing them grunt profanities and hover within the air now not feels transgressive.
It’d assist if the story had a compelling emotional basis, however the backstory for stricken dad Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) and his daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett), is the paint-by-numbers tragedy of Angela shedding her mom at delivery. The inclusion of Burstyn’s character Chris MacNeil, Regan’s mom, feels meaningless, a tether to the unique Exorcist that exists largely to verify that, sure, Angela and her good friend Katherine are possessed and, no, trendy drugs received’t save them. The Exorcist: Believer brushes up towards an fascinating notion—this time, the Catholic Church refuses to approve an official exorcism, citing considerations over the security of the process. However the finish consequence just isn’t a lot totally different; it’s nonetheless a bunch of adults standing in a room yelling prayers and exhortations at possessed women.
If two sequels are really deliberate to comply with The Exorcist: Believer, Inexperienced and his producing companions (together with the horror mega-mogul Jason Blum) can be smart to return to the earlier method to Exorcist sequels. Taking the notion of demonic possession and dropping it into different genres or narrative varieties might have extra daring outcomes. One other back-to-basics film like this one would inevitably really feel painfully by-product, as if cowering within the enormous shadow nonetheless forged by Friedkin’s masterwork.
