Title – The Exorcist: Believer (2023)

Director – David Gordon Green (Stronger) 

Cast – Leslie Odom Jr., Norbert Leo Butz, Ann Dowd, Lidya Jewett, Ellen Burstyn

Plot – After two young girls go missing and return days later not quite themselves, two families discover they are dealing with a power beyond our world and must figure out a way to save their children from a darkness that is not to be meddled with. 

“Open your eyes” 

Review by Eddie on 20/11/2023

Whoever you are and wherever you are, if you hold the rights to any known horror properties you must, for the sake of all humankind, lock away the keys and under no circumstances give them to David Gordon Green. 

Having unleashed a hellish parade of dwindling Halloween features that culminated in the disastrously bad 2022 effort Halloween Ends, Green has somehow managed to find himself leading another new entry into an iconic horror franchise with the Blumhouse backed The Exorcist: Believer, the first new instalment of Universal Pictures newly acquired Exorcist property that reportedly cost the company $400 million to secure. 

Making his three modern day Halloween films appear to be genre masterpieces, nothing could prepare one for just how terrible and irredeemably bad Believer is, a film that will turn even the most faith filled of horror/film fans into naysayers and make one wonder how on earth the man responsible for indie darlings such as Joe or Prince Avalanche as well as cult TV shows such as Righteous Gemstones, Vice Principals or Eastbound and Down could be capable of delivering such a frighteningly poor feature such as this. 

Easily one of the least scary or unnerving so called “horrors” you’re ever likely to come across, Believer is a sad and sorry name-bearer of author William Peter Blatty’s original source material and William Friedkin’s 1973 classic film with audiences most likely to be left wondering if they are even watching the right film for the opening 30 – 40 minutes as Leslie Odom Jr’s Victor Fielding’s young daughter Angela and her friend Angela go missing, becoming the least of Victor’s worries when the children return far unlike they were previously. 

Making little if any sense, failing to justify its logic in a narrative scope, unable to produce a single likeable or interesting character and genuinely finding itself incapable of gifting us anything in the way of suspense, thrills or chills, Believer is one of those truly rare products that fails to fire on every front, making it a film that is bereft of any redeemable qualities to suggest anyone should submit themselves to such a tortuous viewing experience. 

No one is shying away from the fact that in reality we’ve only ever had one unquestionably good Exorcist branded film, but Believer makes the likes of the oft-mocked and derided Exorcist: The Beginning from 2004 or 1977’s Exorcist II: The Heretic seem like The Godfather’s of the series with there not any so bad their good moments popping up in a tale that acts as one of the most glaringly obvious wastes of talent, time and money witnessed in some time. 

If there was one singular, horrifyingly shocking element to come from Believer making its way into the world its in the fact that this $30 million dollar budgeted film managed to scrape out over $100 million dollars of hard earned money from viewers worldwide, ensuring that Green has been signed to do it all again with the proposed 2025 The Exorcist: Deceiver, a prospect that will make one wish for the same unfortunate outcome and criminal use of screen legend Ellen Burstyn return here as the returning Chris MacNeil. 

Final Say – 

The Exorcist: Believer really is one of the worst feature films I’ve seen in the modern era. A terribly misguided and lifeless experience from a director who has previously shown so much more energy and creativity, this crime against cinema should be committed to the fiery pits of movie purgatory never to see the light of day again. 

0 sore necks out of 5