Inside the mind of Blumhouse Productions, the producers of 'The Purge' and 'Insidious' comes another thrilling installment of one of horror's all-time favorite franchises with The Exorcist: Believer, directed by David Gordon Green, director of Pineapple Express (2008).
Over a half-century ago, the late and great William Friedkin rocked the world with his original installment of The Exorcist (1973), truly bringing forth the big question of religion and faith. Combined with Green and his recent work with the recent Halloween trilogy, The Exorcist: Believer hits both hard and home for fans of horror and The Exorcist alike.
The film opens in Haiti, where we follow Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr), whose wife is pregnant. After an earthquake hits Haiti (again), tearing their village apart, Victor's wife unfortunately loses her life. Fast forward thirteen years later in Georgia, we see Victor and his daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett) happily living in suburbia. Aside from a pesky neighbor complaining about trash cans on curbs (Ann Dowd) life is great. Until one day Angela and her friend (Olivia O'Neal) take a trip into the woods for some dancin' with the devil and return three days later with no memories...and something more sinister.
Despite the actors being children, they undoubtedly served their roles wonderfully. O'Neil with the spot-on homage to Regan Macniel, the original possessed girl from 1973 (Linda Blair) was amazing to see. Accompanied by Jewett's performance, I am more than looking forward to seeing these two in Universal's Halloween Horror Nights. The classic cinematic zooms paired with the iconic music made the movie even more immersive, which is something Blumhouse never fails to deliver.
With that, my one personal gripe may have to be the runtime, as I wish it were a bit longer. With two antagonists this time instead of one, I feel the scare factor would have benefited from more solo screentime of what the girls themselves are going through (literal Hell) as opposed to reading books and driving around. Nonetheless, the lack of character depth does get made up for with plot twists. The theater was blown away at almost every turn.
