McDaniel
The writers of the latest “Exorcist” release need to learn from the Disney classic “Frozen” – and let it go.
The original 1973 “The Exorcist” remains atop many all-time scariest movie lists, so to build on that lore 50 years later, you best bring it. And this new installment “The Exorcist: Believer” has potential — it’s actually put together well and Leslie Odom Jr. is fantastic as the worried father. And offering two possessed girls this time, it should offer twice the scares, right?
Not if they’re strapped down the whole time.
Let ‘em go. There is a brief moment for each girl when they’re newly possessed and back home roaming free, and it’s terribly unnerving to recognize the evil lurking within when nobody else seems to. For me, these were the scariest moments of the movie — not knowing what these monsters were going to do with their freedom. The problem is the moments passed in seconds, and the demon, well, wasn’t that bad.
The story builds slowly, but effectively. Two friends go missing in the woods for three days, and when they come out, they’re possessed. Honestly, as a parent, I found the dread of the first half more palpable than the rest of the movie.
And that’s saying something, because of all the types of horror, possessions scare me the most. There were moments when I was creeped out and uncomfortable, but I kept waiting for it to bring something fresh to the franchise – and it didn’t.
The opportunities are there; take the church scene from the previews, where one possessed girl disappears during a sermon, then slowly creeps down the aisle repeating the priest’s words of “the body and the blood” over and over in that deranged voice. Dear Lord, what was she going to do next!? She doesn’t do anything next, and that’s the problem. She acts like an annoying parrot, then it cuts away. Is that all you got, Satan?
The script doesn’t concern itself with explaining why the possessions are happening to these two girls. It’s more concerned with showing their scary faces (and they are terrifying to look at) than justifying the story at hand. But after an eternity in Hell, it’d seem like the demon would have come up with new tricks. Instead, the girls show their evil by telling the secrets of the people in the room and occasionally throwing up. So, they’re basically drunk sorority girls.
They writhe around, strapped to a gurney or tied to chairs, while painfully one-note side characters try to perform an exorcism: the theatrical priest, the stereotypical ultra religious southern family, and the suddenly devout neighbor lady. Odom Jr. (yes, Aaron Burr from “Hamilton”), as the father of one of the girls, is the only character who feels real enough to care about and get behind.
The exorcism plays out like that of countless other films. There’s nothing you haven’t seen before. And that goes for the rest of the movie, too, because it’s one of those where the preview shows all the scariest parts.
Like its little demon girls, “The Exorcist: Believer” is too restricted to really go anywhere.
3/5 Spinning Heads
Scott McDaniel is an assistant professor of journalism at Franklin College. He lives in Bargersville with his wife and three kids.
