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Film Review: The Exorcist: Believer

Welcome back to the blog readers. I recently saw the newest installment in the Exorcist film series, and I wanted to share my thoughts. While I have not seen the original Exorcist film, I am aware that it is regarded as one of the greatest (and scariest) horror films of all time. I have wrestled with the decision to watch it, but the crap we have gotten in horror recently has really turned me off, although some of the films (Smile (2022) and Evil Dead Rise (2023)) give me hope. With that being said, I was getting more excited to see this film because the trailers made this film look like it would be the next great horror film. Would it actually be that by the time the credits rolled? Stick around and find out.


The Exorcist: Believer was directed by David Gordon Green from a screenplay by him and Peter Saffler, and a story by him, Danny McBride, and Scott Teems, based on characters by William Peter Blatty. The film stars Leslie Odom Jr., Lidya Jewett, Olivia O'Neill, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Ann Dowd, and Ellyn Burstyn. In the film, a photographer with a haunted past faces off against evil when his daughter and her best friend are possessed.


As I said at the top of this post, the original film from 1973 is regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all time. So this film has some major shoes to fill. They had the director (although we have spoken about his last film here) and they had the cast. Unfortunately, they did not have the scares. Or the heart. Or the pacing. And that really sucks, because I had very high personal expectations. Sadly, this is more Pope's Exorcist (2023) than Smile. This is the second worst film of the year that involves an exorcist. However, there were a few redeeming qualities that I want to share with you all.


The first redeeming quality is the performance of Leslie Odom Jr.. If you know me at all, you know that I am becoming a major fan of this guy as an actor. From my initial exposure to him with Murder on the orient Express (2017) to Hamilton (2020), all the way to his best performance in One Night in Miami... (2021), Odom has proven himself to be one of the best in the game right now. That absolutely does not change here in this film. In fact, he is the best part about this film. In a world where everything feels so animated, Odom's character Victor Fielding is the only person who actually feels grounded. This combined with his natural charisma create for one of the best performances in a horror film this year for me. That is not a lie, folks. I truly believe that.


While not on the same level as Odom's performance, I found myself very surprised at the performance of country singer Jennifer Nettles. While writing this post, I discovered she has been in a few projects before, notably Harriet (2019), which also starred Leslie Odom Jr. (By the way, I have not seen the film). The fact that I know her as a singer kind of distracted me from the fact that she was in this role, but I was able to shift my focus to the actual performance...which was actually good. Like with Odom, there was a level of realism to her role. I really found myself believing her in the role by the end. I would hope that she takes up more acting roles in the future, because there may be something there.


Unfortunately, that is where the positives I saw in the film end. The first major issue I had with the film is that it was marketed as a horror film, and there were really no scares. Some of the stuff is creepy, but not Hereditary (2018)-level creepiness. And there was really only one jump scare that got me. When I was talking about a comedy that came out earlier this year, I was talking about the cardinal rule of it: be funny. The same cardinal rule can apply for a horror film: be scary or creepy. As I said at the top, the original film is regarded as one of the scariest films of all time. This felt like a lion cub compared to its parents. Basically, it was tame. That is the last thing anybody wants to hear when they are looking at a horror film.


The next issue I really had with the film has to do with the heart of it, or the lack of it thereof. The only heart I felt in the film was from the aforementioned performances of Leslie Odom Jr. and Jennifer Nettles. And for this review, I will be tying heart to the message of the film, because I really am getting mixed signals about the message here. The film is half religious allegory, and half drama about guilt and regret. As a raging atheist, I absolutely loathe the religious aspects of this film. And as a drama fan, there really was no message about that. It is almost like the producers decided to turn this film into a religious allegory to piss on the real horror fans and pander to the Prey for the Devil (2022) stans.


My final major issue with the film lies with the pacing/writing of the film. While some of the dialog is kind of okay, the rest of it is cringy as hell. Please do not get me wrong, but nothing will ever be as bad as Meg 2: The Trench's dialog. This was better, but not by much. The pacing is where I have the real issue. First off, we do not even get the girls going missing until about 20 minutes into the film, they are found between 15-20 minutes later, and the demonic possession begins at about the 50-55-minute mark. In a film that is only an hour and 51 minutes, this is a gross misuse of time.


In conclusion, The Exorcist: Believer is an uneasy horror film (in the wrong way) with some good leading performances that ultimately does not know what it wants to be. Thank you all for reading this post and I will see you guys soon with another.

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