Directed By David Gordon Green

Starring – Ellen Burstyn, Leslie Odom Jr, Ann Dowd

The Plot – When Victor’s daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett), and her friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill), show signs of demonic possession, it unleashes a chain of events that forces single father Victor Fielding (Odom Jr) to confront the nadir of evil. Terrified and desperate, he seeks out Chris MacNeil (Burstyn), the only person alive who’s witnessed anything like it before.

Rated R for some violent content, disturbing imagery, adult language and sexual references

The Exorcist: Believer | Official Trailer – YouTube

POSITIVES

Despite many questionable decisions in both its filmmaking and storytelling aspects, the first act of the movie is easily the highlight of the film for me, at a point when this doesn’t even feel like an Exorcist movie at all. Part of this reasoning is certainly in the disappearance of the best friends, which on its own could easily conjure an impactful mystery to a completely different movie, but a lot more intrigue pays itself to the depth established to the backstories of the characters, which help to shape their conflict in ways that feel all the more monumental because of the time we’ve spent with them. In doing such, the film takes its time not only in fleshing out the world-building of the father and daughter dynamic at the forefront of our plot, with a tortured secret in the past that bonds them so closely, but also feels like the only moments of the script where the film takes its time in prolonging the dramatic emphasis of the mystery before us, where these parents literally see their worlds turned upside down by the fear of the unknown that has taken the most important people to each of them. If a film used this as its starting point, and didn’t feature a possession plot, I feel like it would’ve had a better chance at succeeding, but that isn’t the movie that we ultimately end up with. In that evolution during the film’s second half, we’re blessed with the only original element of the script, in which two girls are possessed this time around, amplifying the stakes and circumstances even further, which climax with the trailer’s advertising of only one of them walking away alive from this predicament. On top of this, the performances around the table are mostly up to par, despite the lack of material giving them enough emotional opportunities to flex their gravitas to their respective roles. Leslie Odom Jr flourishes as this helpless father doing things on his own, but primarily in the grasp of past decisions and ensuing consequences that have defined his current day predicament. He’s matched by 16-year-old Lidya Jewett, whose captivating presence under the command of this demon doesn’t feel silly or exaggerated, instead churning out some unsettling interactions between her and Odom at a time when so little is known about what she is truly suffering from.

NEGATIVES

In a franchise full of disappointing sequels, “Believer” is one more to add to the fire, establishing itself as a legacy installment that can’t inscribe a sense of purpose or belonging to the legacy character that it casts at the head of this ensemble. Even after seeing this film, I can’t hide the laughter of Burstyn’s name on top billing, especially since she not only present for about ten total minutes of screen time throughout the engagement, but her character is also given literally nothing to do creatively, so she just kind of appears whenever the film wants to remind you that it has ties to the extent of its fifty year franchise. It’s so insignificant that you could literally remove it completely from the film, and it would lose nothing because of it, which speaks volumes about its usage as manipulation to the audience. Beyond this, the script mirrors Burstyn’s treatment with an uninspired exploration that sacrifices many unique arcs in the depths of a timining imbalance. Sometimes this leads to scenes feeling prolonged to the point where I audibly stated “Get on with it already”, and other times this leads to important arcs of exposition being abruptly short changed, like Victor’s reveal as an atheist, or the depiction of the bond between best friends, which could’ve helped produced a palpable tension or instilled meaningful merit to the stakes that are held overhead, but instead are explored with the kind of tragic restrain that never allows it a uniqueness of its own. That stamping is present everywhere else with the material, as so much here feels like a greatest hits collection of familiar instances from other possession films, and that familiarity drains the film of any excitement or originality from Green’s lackadasical direction. Not even the technical merits can save him, as the cinematography feels forcefully manufactured, the sound deposits of exercised vocal deposits feel downright silly, and the editing is so jarring and disjointed at times that it feels like a couple of takes pasted together to make one cohesive sequence. This of course costs the frights of the movie dearly, especially since Green can’t build any longterm suspense, or exude any memorable pay-offs to an audience who grow tireless quickly. Even if this film had an abundance of cheaply timed jump scares, I could commend it for some kind of manufactured effort, but it’s almost like the screenwriter forgot to write them in, instead resting heavily on the smothering of special effects, which obscure clarity in depiction, as well as deduce these possessed girls to demonic designs plagued by unintentional hilarity, which overlook the importance of evidence of the girl from within who still fights on. Finally, the ending is the biggest exclamation point to disappointment, as the plot device of only one of these girls surviving clearly presented one of two possible outcomes, and the one chosen feels like the safest way to echo the spineless effort exuded to this finished product. It’s made even worse by a last second cameo that is every bit predictable as it is unnecessary, which only further grants us insight into the movie we could’ve had, instead of ultimately what we received. It isn’t necessarily cleanly convenient, as the casualties and long-standing impacts are clearly conveyed, just with a degree of obviousness that exemplified the virtual checklist that this film was consistently checking off.

OVERALL
“The Exorcist: Believer” is a conveyor belt of a soulless sequel with no shred of originality or even accidental excitement to add to its franchise legacy. With familiarity in everything from the forfeited frights to the structure of the screenplay, as well as the tragic misuse of Burstyn in the starring role, the film is possessed by a means to frequently compel its audience to the exits, proving that seeing definitely isn’t believing.

My Grade: 4/10 or D-