The Exorcist: Believer

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

This article may reveal major plot points, especially considering the episode, season, or series has either been released recently or not in specific countries yet. Suppose you do not wish to know vital information on media elements in a story. In that case, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue.
That's all.‎

Warning! Mature Content!

This following work contains material and themes that may include coarse language (albeit censored due to New Qualitipedia rules), sexual references, and/or graphic violent images that may be disturbing to some viewers.
Mature articles are recommended for those who are 18 years of age or above.
If you are 18 years old or above, or are comfortable with mature content, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another one. Reader discretion is advised.

The Exorcist: Believer

The priests should perform an exorcism on this disappointing start at an attempted Exorcist sequel trilogy.

Genre:	Horror
Directed By:	David Gordon Green
Produced By:	Jason Blum David C. Robinson James G. Robinson
Starring:	Leslie Odom Jr. Lidya Jewett Olivia O’Neill Jennifer Nettles Norbert Leo Butz Ann Dowd Ellen Burstyn
Cinematography:	Michael Simmonds
Editing:	Tim Alverson
Music By:	David Wingo Amman Abbasi
Production Company:	Blumhouse Productions Morgan Creek Entertainment Rough House Pictures
Distributed By:	Universal Pictures
Release Date:	October 6, 2023
Runtime:	111 minutes
Country:	United States
Language:	English
Budget:	$30 million
Box Office:	$137 million
Franchise:	The Exorcist
Prequel:	The Exorcist (1973)
Sequel:	The Exorcist: Deceiver

The Exorcist: Believer is a 2023 American supernatural horror film directed by David Gordon Green, who co-wrote the screenplay with Peter Sattler from a story by Scott Teems, Danny McBride, and Green. It's the sixth installment in The Exorcist franchise, and serves as a direct sequel to The Exorcist (1973). The film stars Leslie Odom Jr., Lidya Jewett, Olivia O‘Neill in her film debut, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, and Ann Dowd. Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair reprise their roles from the original film. Its plot follows a photographer who must confront the nadir of evil when his daughter and her best friend are possessed.

Plot

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.

Why It Should Be Exorcised and Is NOT a Believer

Much like Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Beginning, and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, The main problem of the movie is that it doesn't stay true to the 1971 novel, the first and even the third film, and it feels rushed, redundant, and unnecessary.
Despite this being an Exorcist movie, this movie looks and feels more like an imitator of the legion of Exorcist imitators than a true sequel that was supposed to represent a logical continuation of the first Exorcist film.
The story is abysmal and also pulls in elements from The Exorcist knockoffs, which is extremely lazy. It also heavily lacks the surprises and unexpected moments that would have made this movie a lot more engaging, and this would dive even deeper into the next reason.
- Even the plot of this movie is shoddily presented to the point of giving viewers a sense of drudgery.
Despite the scariness of the original, this film somehow plays it way too safe, resulting in the lack of the scares that made the original so good. There was a reason why the original was stomach-churning, one of them being how gradually Regan's physical and psychological condition deteriorated, and some of the things that she did while this happened. But here, Believer doesn't want to go the extra mile when it comes to the latter and regarding the former, the deterioration of the two girls' conditions feels rushed and choppily put together, like the film wants to race ahead to an inevitable exorcism scene.
The writing is much more worse than the last two Exorcist movies.
For some reason, there is a reference to patriarchy, which feels out of place for an Exorcist movie.
Abysmal directing from David Gordon Green, who also directed the Halloween sequel trilogy, which despite the first movie in the sequel trilogy being good, it's still a red flag considering that not only did the sequel trilogy go downhill after Halloween Kills, but Halloween and The Exorcist isn't both the same thing.
Sloppy dynamics that feel like they're just lazily recycled from prior Exorcist movies or built out of horror tropes that many are sick of by now.
Ellen Burstyn's cameo in this movie is completely wasted, as she appears for only one scene in the film, and never really appears again. And it wouldn't have been THIS much of a problem had the film done something with her cameo. But no, this film does absolutely nothing with her cameo. You could remove the scene altogether and nothing about this movie would change.
- In fact, the only reason why she's here is because Ellen was offered a huge sum of money to fund a scholarship for a University.
There is blatant product placement in the form of YouTube, which was owned by Google.
Abysmal ending: This not only undermines this movie's overall message but also sloppily reveals the twist at the last minute, where Lamashtu decides that his work is done once he tricks the parents into choosing a child sacrifice. The person who says the name will be one chosen to die rather than live. And because we don't know much about Katherine, it's no surprise that she's the one who dies and Angela is the one who lives.
Much like Surf's Up 2: WaveMania of the Surf's Up series, and Space Jam: A New Legacy of the Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies franchise, it was too late to make another Exorcist movie, as the previous film came out over 18 years ago, and it was because of this reason that people stopped waiting for a sequel, so this sequel should have been released sooner!
- However, unlike Top Gun: Maverick, Bad Boys for Life, Bill & Ted Face The Music, Toy Story 3 (alongside the fourth and the upcoming fifth movie), Candyman (2021), Finding Dory, The Godfather Part III (especially it's recut film The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone) Rocky Balboa (and the Creed films), The Color of Money, Incredibles 2, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Rescuers Down Under, Blade Runner 2049, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (alongside Jumanji: The Next Level), Scream (2022) (alongside the sixth movie), Evil Dead Rise, Saw X, Ghostbusters: Afterlife (alongside Frozen Empire), and Avatar: The Way of Water (all of which are far better movies), it doesn't even follow any of the techniques that made it a worthy decades-late sequel in the first place, and only exists to nostalgia-bait fans of the original Exorcist movie.
Due to all of these problems listed here, this movie is not only a poor way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Exorcist, but also started the sequel trilogy on a very sour note.

Redeeming Qualities

While unnecessary, it's nice to see The Exorcist back on the big screen after 18 years, although that won't make up the film's flaws.
Despite playing it safe, there are still some scares here and there.

Reception

The Exorcist: Believer received largely negative reviews from critics and audiences. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 22% of 249 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "The Exorcist: Believer earns points for trying to take the franchise back to its terrifying roots, but a lack of new ideas – and scares – make this an inauspicious start to a planned new trilogy." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 39 out of 100, based on 54 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale, the same as The Exorcist III and Exorcist: The Beginning, while those polled by PostTrak gave it a 61% positive score.

Owen Gleiberman, writing for Variety, said in his review: "The Exorcist: Believer, in its superficially competent and poshly mounted way, feels about as dangerous as a crucifix dipped in a bottle of designer water". David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter said: "Unlike Green's Halloween trilogy, which served up diminishing returns with each new installment, Believer condenses that downward trajectory into the first chapter" and called the film "hella disappointing". In Plugged In, Paul Asay praised the film for its theme of emphasizing the importance of faith and community in rescuing the oppressed. John Mulderig in the Catholic Review noted: "William Friedkin's Watergate-era picture ... was a fairly straightforward confrontation between Regan's tormentor and two Catholic priests. Driving away of the devil here, by contrast, takes on the qualities of a circus, thus promoting a syncretistic, humanistic and even vaguely anti-Catholic outlook that could be spiritually dangerous for anyone inclined to take it seriously. On the whole, however, this half-a-century-later follow-up is best dismissed as... chaotic schlock."

USA Today's Brian Truitt gave the film a score of three out of four. He noted Burstyn's limited screen time, writing: "Odom gets a meatier character arc than Burstyn did back in the day, and while her return isn't as integral to the story as Jamie Lee Curtis' was to the rebooted Halloween, Chris' appearance adds needed weight to the Believer narrative. With a formidable Believer and two more Exorcist movies in the pipeline, though, at least this franchise still has a prayer". Olly Richards of Empire felt differently about Burstyn's role: "The role feels gimmicky rather than essential and sets the film on a cheesier path of call-backs, winks, and attempts to one-up the original. It becomes a tribute act, its own personality shrinking in the shadow of a classic".

Stephanie Zacharek, in Time, notes, "As for Green's Exorcist: Believer, which starts out strong—evoking all the reasons demons in search of a body to possess can’t resist the hormonal lightning rod of adolescent girls—and ends in a dumb jumble of generic-looking zombie-girl Blumhouse special effects: I’ve already forgotten it. Odom is a terrific actor. But poor Ellen Burstyn. Long after refusing to appear in Exorcist II, she agrees to show up in this thing—as the older version of Chris, now the ultimate coastal grandma, dressed in floaty, flattering white scarves and ropes of crystal beads—only to get about 10 minutes of screen time, during which her character suffers a needless and stupid indignity. Though it’s not something she could have known some 47 years ago, Burstyn said yes to the wrong Exorcist sequel. If only she’d chosen the one with poetry in its soul.