The Exorcist
Since the death of his wife 12 years ago, Victor Fielding has raised their daughter, Angela on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil.
- Released: 2023-10-11
- Runtime: 120 minutes
- Genre: Horror, Thrillers
- Stars: Leslie Odom Jr., Ellen Burstyn, Ann Dowd, Lidya Jewett, Raphael Sbarge, Jennifer Nettles, Okwui Okpokwasili, Linda Boston, E.J. Bonilla, Linda Blair, Norah Murphy
- Director: David Gordon Green
Comments
- dougnewberry - 21 June 2024
INSULT TO THE EXORCIST !!!
Only the the second review I've ever done, but had to do this as a warning to anyone who enjoyed THE EXORCIST. Do not, I repeat DO NOT get suckered into giving this steaming pile of dung a second of your time. This is an insult of the highest order to the masterpiece that was finely crafted in the seventies. If the makers want to make a really bad possession film then crack on, but leave the EXORCIST name out of it. Please do not be fooled by this turgid mess that clings on to The great THE EXORCIST'S coat tails like an unwanted bad smell. This was one film that actually made me angry. AVOID!!! - bevanaaron - 2 June 2024
Insulting to connect to the original
Victor and his daughter Angela live together after Angela's mother died in what seems to be the Haiti earthquake. Angela tries to reconnect with her mother with her friend and like with most exorcist films, hell opens up. Sadly the film doesn't really get lift off at any point, I would argue that the most suspenseful and interesting part of the movie was when the girls were missing. Upon discovery that the girls had been possessed, Victor recruits the help of Regans mother, Regan being the possessed girl from the original Exorcist. Now, this sequel had a tough act to follow however I found there were a lot of slow and unnecessary moments in the movie, the demon wasn't anywhere near as terrifying or disgusting and the final 30 minutes was quite underwhelming offering nothing new and cementing the film into the similar column of a lot of recent exorcism films. I wouldn't be able to watch this again, which is a shame as I was hoping for it to be more similar to the original movie. - jerrywright15 - 7 May 2024
2 Half-Hearted Possessions
The biggest fault of this film is that it starts off so engaging. It delivered an interesting setting, humanized characters, authentic relationships and a slow-build of well-crafted story that was compelling. For 30 - 40 minutes you are enjoying the pace, tone, and story that is being shown. Once the girls become possessed, the Director forces you to expend every ounce of trust you instilled in his vision, to make it to the end.
Legacy characters are once again merely terrible fan service. No purpose other than shock and awe. And the shock here is just, pointless.
The well established grounding of characters and their reactions disappear as people become reactionary robots to the tongue-wagging possessed girls. The actors do their best, but the script becomes nonsensical in direction, leading to moments like Legacy character Chris MacNeil, not an exorcist, going to confront one of the demon girls alone, only to face an eye-popping punishment.
Good story-telling turns to few jump scares and eventually a disengaging mess of too serious monologues, and an uneventful exorcism. Stakes dissipate. Horror evaporates. How did the possessed teens become background characters to their own haunting? One moment their semi-fine, the next their full on possessed, with little to show for it besides flicking light switches on and off, and yelling at preachers, and then their getting exorcised. Kinda.
The climax would have been a fun idea had it been earned. Assemble a diverse team of multi-religious fighters to save the children, except not really, everyone's some form of Western Judeo-Christian religion, except for a Haitian healer. Watch them all stand around confused for 15 minutes. The Haitian healer gets 1-minute to kind of win, and then she...loses interest in the exorcism? The demon's don't even attack them, or show any form of demonic power, they just say words and the priests break down. "Oh God, not mean words. I can't do this." Don't worry though, Captain Christianity will save everything...oh wait, no, he's dead now (funniest part of the movie). If you're going to have the Christian priest be the powerful exorcist everyone was waiting on, give him some gravitas, show him committing heroic feats, battling demons and winning, or give him a back story of strength. Don't give me wavering young priest walks in and everyone's heart melts. (I like to imagine this was an intentional commentary but who knows)
The idea behind having two possessed girls seems like a good one and you see the potential that is double the suspense, emotion, and terror but the ideas implementation flounders and becomes mute. The two girls do little in supporting/enhancing the other. The friendship feels nonexistent, a fact that Katherine's mother reinforces by saying, "I did not even know our daughters were friends." It feels like a mandatory jog to check in on both girls and the minor odd behavior they're displaying. The film plays like two stories that were forced together and the audience is left with not enough time with either character. Why didn't we just focus on Victor and Angela, the characters we had built a relationship with from the beginning, what was the point of Katherine and her family? Someone, director or producer, should have made a commitment, either it's a story about one possession or a story about two. Instead we get a story about, mostly, one possession with a few generic scenes about another possession, that ultimately culminates in an unsatisfying double exorcism. Again, kinda. Is it an exorcism if the demon just says, "eh, ya'll can have this one."
Leslie Odom Jr does a solid job as a worrying father who's lost his faith, but he's given little in the last half of the film to elevate his character as the lead. He becomes a walking simulator with little impact on the finale. He has the ability to carry this film, but they shortchanged him in the character arc.
Overall, it's the 3rd act that kills any enjoyability of this film for me.
