THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER Reviews of the poorly received cynical cash grab

The Exorcist: Believer is a 2023 American horror film and given it’s part of a major horror release we’d normally bestow a vast multitude of review quotes/links  (as we did for Saw X and the last Texas Chainsaw). However, this belatedly blatant cash grab by Universal (who apparently – and unbelievably – paid $300 million for the rights to three pointless sequels!), Jason Blum and David Gordon Green (the pair who should have learnt some humility from wringing more money out of Halloween fans) is garnering little interest from our site visitors so we’ll leave it at just a few token written reviews and a slew of YouTube links.

Meanwhile, at the time of writing, the movie has a score of just 22% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 105 critic’s reviews.

Official blurb:
“Exactly fifty years ago this fall, the most terrifying horror film in history landed on screens, shocking audiences around the world. Now, on Friday, October 6, a new chapter begins. From Blumhouse and director David Gordon Green, who shattered the status quo with their resurrection of the Halloween franchise, comes The Exorcist: Believer.

Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake twelve years ago, Victor Fielding (Tony winner and Oscar nominee Leslie Odom, Jr.; One Night in Miami, Hamilton) has raised their daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett, Good Girls) on his own.

But when Angela and her friend Katherine (newcomer Olivia Marcum), disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil.

For the first time since the 1973 film, Oscar® winner Ellen Burstyn reprises her iconic role as Chris MacNeil, an actress who has been forever altered by what happened to her daughter Regan five decades before.

The film also stars Emmy winner Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale, Hereditary) as Victor and Angela’s neighbour, and Grammy winner Jennifer Nettles (Harriet, The Righteous Gemstones) and two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz (Fosse/Verdon, Bloodline) as the parents of Katherine, Angela’s friend.

When The Exorcist, based on the best-selling book by William Peter Blatty, was released, it changed the culture forever, obliterating box office records and earning ten Academy Award® nominations, becoming the first horror film ever nominated for Best Picture.

The Exorcist: Believer is directed by David Gordon Green from a screenplay by Peter Sattler (Camp X-Ray) and David Gordon Green, from a story by Scott Teems (Halloween Kills), Danny McBride (Halloween trilogy) and David Gordon Green, based on characters created by William Peter Blatty.

Produced by Jason Blum for Blumhouse and by David Robinson and James G. Robinson for Morgan Creek Entertainment. Executive produced by Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, Stephanie Allain, Ryan Turek and Atilla Yücer. Universal Pictures presents a Blumhouse/Morgan Creek Entertainment production in association with Rough House Pictures.

Reviews:
“The Exorcist: Believer is a film buckling under the weight of a franchise attachment it didn’t need and built on a foundation of “almost.” It’s almost scary. It’s almost mean. It’s almost multicultural. It’s almost a story of connection. Almost, almost, almost.” 5 out of 10, But Why Tho?

“Even with a talented cast and a potential story that could stand on its own if made the focus, The Exorcist: Believer never has the confidence to let its strongest aspects take center stage. The fact that it tries to walk back the more grim realities in its ending so that it can be cloyingly uplifting is a misunderstanding of the impact that the original left. It instead prioritizes setting up what could be another future sequel to the detriment of the film being watched in the present.” C- Collider

” …even worse than the lack of scares and chills here is that David Gordon Green and company are content reworking similar set pieces from the original, but with the usual misguided Hollywood sequel logic that they have to be noisier with more effects (even the demonic voices are stripped of any semblance that a human being’s voice is being altered.) Then the ending comes, which is a load of unearned fan-service garbage that left me saying, “f*ck this movie” in my mind.” ★★ Flickering Myth

“Like with his Halloween reinvention, the film is trapped between the serious and the silly, a thinly etched tale of a father dealing with grief and faith jarring next to scenes of a demonic child screaming the C-word while spitting slime. It’s better when it leans into the latter, a schlocky night out at the movies made with more competence than most recent horrors but one that is unlikely to make a believer out of diehard fans.” ★★★ The Guardian

“Burstyn herself does a great job in the best way she can given the material, but it’s downright laughable and an offense to the character she played. It is such a travesty to see what unfolded on screen here, where again, it looks like the director hates horror and his audience. This is a prime example of bad filmmaking and that would tarnish the good name of the original Exorcist if this new film wasn’t so completely and immediately forgettable.” 0 out of 5, High-Def Digest 

“Every new freakout moment gradually just starts to feel like more for the sake of more, rather than showing us imaginative new ideas. The gruesome makeup and effects work is impressive enough, but it all feels a bit too routine to be genuinely distressing, and even at their worst, the Satanic Angela and Katherine are just not all that frightening, largely because we’ve seen countless versions of them in more inventive narratives before.” The Hollywood Reporter

” …a toned-down, more limply palatable iteration of Friedkin’s work: the projectile pea soup is gone, the verbal abuse has been whittled down to a single “c***ing”, and any and all acts committed with crucifixes barely register a shock. Instead, Green and Peter Sattler’s script offers a strained focus on the collective power of organised religion…” ★★ Independent

“Measured against the often mediocre standards of today’s glut of reboots and reimaginings, Believer is slickly professional, its young performers more than up to the task. It’s also disappointingly, if unsurprisingly, cautious, gesturing only wanly toward the original’s potent weave of puberty, religion and corporeal abuse […] Instead, Green contents himself with inconsequential tinkering…” The New York Times

“Hollywood greed combines with outlandish stupidity here to create an Exorcist sequel that swaps primal scares for a more inclusive, less offensive version of demonic possession.” ★ The Times (London)

For YouTube reviews, trailers, featurette and more movie info please visit page 2

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