Notable Cast: Leslie Odom Jr, Lidya Jewett, Olivia
Marcum, Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Okwui Okpokwasili,
Raphael Sbarge, EJ Bonilla, Ellen Burstyn
Although David Gordon Green's Halloween trilogy
certainly had its issues, those films were at least interesting to some degree.
Big swings were being taken by the end, and whether you liked it or not, it
deserves some respect. To that degree, while I didn't love the latter two
entries, those films are worthy of the occasional rewatch, if only for
those swings and choices being made.
Which is why, to some degree, The Exorcist: Believer
is such a wild misfire on so many levels. At its core, it deals with some
interesting ideas about world religious practices, the pairing of girls who
become possessed, and two families from different backgrounds forced to come
together to face a mutual evil.
Yet, no matter what, The Exorcist: Believer never
capitalizes on any of it. Instead of dwelling on those topics, the film is far
more concerned with playing things safe within the world of The Exorcist.
The callbacks to the original feel trite, the scares are mundane in a world of
more interesting Exorcist knockoffs, and the overall narrative feels bland.
Compared to some of the other Exorcist films, particularly the wild
swings of The Heretic and Exorcist III, Believer feels
more like a drab love letter to the series rather than a new and exciting
continuation. It's baffling.