The Body and the Blood

The Exorcist: Believer fails once again to live up to the standards set by the original. It was only a matter of time before someone tried to reboot The Exorcist. Aside from a short-lived Fox TV series in 2016, a movie hadn’t been released since 2005. Though Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist is just a reworked version of Exorcist: The Beginning. It sounded like a remake, but Blumhouse is only interested in making legacy sequels. After the 2018 Halloween trilogy fumbled, director David Gordon Green and writer Danny McBride decided to make another unnecessary horror trilogy. At least Believer was a failure from the start and hopefully Deceiver never gets made. Believer begins a similar way with a slow burn in a foreign country before transitioning to a residential home. Leslie Odom Jr. plays Victor Fielding who loses his pregnant wife in Haiti.

She gives birth to their daughter Angela played by newcomer Lidya Jewett. Although a black actress is given a lot more attention, they still include a girl who looks a little like Regan. Fellow newcomer Olivia O’Neill plays Angela’s best friend Katherine West who we barely get to know. Both girls stupidly start a séance in the woods and end up lost for 3 days. It’s hard enough following one possessed girl, but neither leaves an impact when both are possessed. There’s hardly any profanity or shocking moments that leave an impression. Jennifer Nettles and Norbert Leo Butz play Katherine’s concerned Baptist parents. Victor is a nonbeliever, but he’s convinced to seek answers from neighbor Ann played by Ann Dowd. She’s a Catholic who gives him a book about exorcism written by Chris MacNeil herself. Ellen Burstyn made the right decision to turn down Exorcist II: The Heretic, but she should’ve done the same with Believer.

Especially when Chris blames not witnessing her daughter’s exorcism on “the patriarchy.” Of course Chris is estranged from her daughter Regan. She tries to cast the demons out herself, but she ends up blind for the rest of the film. The biggest mistake of the reboot is mixing up ideologies by recruiting a team of exorcists who are Catholic, Baptist, Pentecostal, and a spiritual healer. As a Christian, I found it more uncomfortable than the exorcism itself. Everyone including the parents try to exorcise the demons at the same time. It’s either too chaotic or too casual when nothing is given any weight. SPOILER ALERT! The end result is a downer, but Linda Blair does make a surprise cameo as Regan to greet her mother for the first time in years. She was also an advisor on set, but movies about possessions are nowhere near as fresh as they once were. The Pope’s Exorcist was literally released 6 months earlier. The Exorcist: Believer should’ve never seen the light of day.

Possessed Angela and Katherine

Preceded by: The Exorcist