The Exorcist: Believer (2023) Review

If you cast Tony Award winner Leslie Odom, Jr. (Hamilton), two-time Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz (Dan in Real Life), and Country Music Award Winner Jennifer Nettles (The Righteous Gemstones) – with her group Sugarland – in a movie, you would probably think they were making a musical.  However, you would be wrong…dead wrong (see what I did there?).  They are, in fact, all cast as the parents of two tween girls in the latest installment in The Exorcist Franchise, The Exorcist: Believer.  This latest installment comes fifty years after the original film and is the sixth film in the series overall.  It will debut in theaters this Friday, October 6, 2023.

Victor (Odom, Jr.) is a single father raising his daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett; Hidden Figures).  When Angela and her friend, Katherine (newcomer Olivia O’Neill), decide, instead of going home, to head into the woods after school and try to connect with Angela’s deceased mother. Three days later the girls are found in a barn 30 miles from school with no recollection of how they got there.  Initially relieved, Victor and Katherine’s parents, Miranda (Nettles) and Tony (Butz) soon discover the girls have drastically changed and, after some soul searching, seek out help using unorthodox measures.

The cast is one of only a few things that makes the film watchable.  Odom, Jr., Nettles, and Butz are all very good individuals but as a team, they seem to be one cohesive unit.  Victor’s neighbor, Ann (Ann Dowd; Hereditary) adds an element of realism to a supernatural story that convinces Victor that demonic possession is a possibility.  Of course, none of the other actors would particularly matter if the girls weren’t any good.  Luckily Jewett and O’Neill take on the challenging role of possession well, making a decent representation out of what could easily have become a mockery (pea soup, anyone?).

The script written by Peter Sattler (Broken Diamonds), David Gordon Green (Halloween Ends), and Scott Teems (Insidious: The Red Door) offers the typical, supernatural fare in terms of dialogue.  I don’t think anyone expected the crew to reinvent the wheel with this film so the fact that they didn’t isn’t too surprising.  What is interesting is that they incorporate different religions and beliefs to combat the demons.  While in some cases more is better, in this case, it isn’t. The variety isn’t bad, it just isn’t especially good either.  The feel-good, kumbaya, let’s all come together as one vibe leaves quite a bit to be desired, and as the saying goes…”too many cooks in the kitchen…”

Green, who also directs the movie, is not earning himself a great reputation in the horror film genre.  Unimaginative, generic, and boring are some of the adjectives that could easily describe The Exorcist: Believer.  It is also too long.  Slogging through the first two acts to get to the meat of the film in the last thirty minutes is torturous and, quite frankly, somewhat a waste of time.  The backstory of what the demons want and where the girls were for three days isn’t ever addressed, but should have been as it probably would have made the beginning of the movie more interesting.

While the film pays homage to the original and there are a few Easter eggs thrown in, The Exorcist: Believer doesn’t have much to offer and even less if you have never seen the first one from 1973.  Bringing Ellen Burstyn (Requiem For A Dream) back and incorporating Regan’s possession story is great but one can only rely so much on nostalgia, decent special effects, and a good cast to make it a box office draw.  

I don’t believe The Exorcist: Believer is going to make a huge splash at the box office.

Grade: D+