The Exorcist: Believer (2023) spoiler free review
The body and the blood. The Exorcist: Believer is a 2023 American supernatural horror film directed by David Gordon Green, produced by Blumhouse Productions, and co-written by Peter Sattler, Scott Teems, Danny McBride, and Green. The film is the sixth installment in The Exorcist franchise, serving as a direct sequel to The Exorcist (1973). It was released in the United States on October 6, 2023 and a sequel, entitled The Exorcist: Deceiver, is scheduled to be released on April 18, 2025.
When his daughter, Angela, and her friend Katherine, show signs of demonic possession, it unleashes a chain of events that forces single father Victor Fielding to confront the nadir of evil. Terrified and desperate, he seeks out Chris MacNeil, the only person alive who’s witnessed anything like it before.
Film synopsis
The cast includes Leslie Odom Jr. as Victor Fielding, Lidya Jewett as Angela Fielding, Olivia O’Neill as Katherine, Jennifer Nettles as Miranda, Norbert Leo Butz as Tony, Ann Dowd as Ann, Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil, Okwui Okpokwasili as Dr. Beehib, Raphael Sbarge as Don Revans, Danny McCarthy as Stuart, E. J. Bonilla as Father Maddox, Tracey Graves as Sorenne Fielding, Lize Johnston as Lamashtu, and Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil.
My opinion
While they are on their honeymoon in Haiti Victor Fielding and his pregnant wife Sorenne an earthquake occurs. As a result Sorenne is gravely injured, leaving Victor widowed with they daughter Angela. Thirteen years later, one day after school, Angela ventures into the woods with her best friend Katherine to perform a séance in an attempt to contact Angela’s mother. But after being lost in the woods for three days, the girls accidentally opened the door to evil and have returned without their souls. Now it’s up to her parents and Chris MacNeil to save their daughters from a cruel fate.
Following the same formula as the films of this subgenre, The Exorcist: Believer doesn’t bring anything new or innovative to the horror genre. The biggest damage this movie receives is being tied to what is considered the best horror movie in history, The Exorcist (1973). As a sequel, it does not find the balance between making connections with the past and bringing original material. Instead, it stays in the middle, never defining what it wants to be: the beginning of a trilogy or a legacy sequel?. The narrative never finds its pace, starting too slow and then speeding up ending abruptly, leaving more questions than answers.
Ellen Burstyn’s return was received with a lot of excitement from fans, but once the film was released, opinions changed slightly. In the same way as what happened with Sally Hardesty in Netflix’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), Burstyn’s character and her legacy are missed, feeling more like a cameo than the shocking return that should have been. The rest of the cast does not stand out enough, only Lidya Jewett as Angela and Olivia O’Neill as Katherine achieve their goal of being girls who are victims of a demon that consumes them from the inside. Even though the transition is not gradual and feels rushed, they’re the most outstanding element of the film supported by the sfx makeup work.
The Exorcist: Believer is at the end a disappointing sequel that should have been released on streaming services as originally intended. With a sequel in the works the only thing that remains is the hope that the errors will be corrected and that will be able to enjoy a good modern supernatural horror movie in the near future.
[ Editor’s note: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.]