Image courtesy of IMDb
Hello, everyone.
It’s that time of year again. I not only cover a newer release (and a legacy sequel at that) again, but we also go to the latest attempt (attempt being the key word this time) at following up a classic 70s horror film, again brought to us by David Gordon Green.
Now, before I begin, I’ll provide a little backstory on my history covering his horror movies (and the classics they’re connected to) thus far.
Back in 2018, courtesy of Flashback Cinema*, I was able to see the original 1978 classic, Halloween. I knew I needed to at least see that before the 2018 film. I completely understood the impact it had on horror and its legacy.
Not long after, the 2018 film came out. It was brought to us by David Gordon Green, of all people, who was previously known for mostly comedy, but had done some drama as well. He also brought Danny McBride, a frequent collaborator, on board to executive produce and cowrite. They were both huge fans of the 70s classic, and put forth a lot of effort into getting it right, and in the movie, it not only showed, it paid off. They treated it with the utmost respect and brought something new to the table.
I was genuinely impressed, and was eager to see where they’d take the story next.
Both sequels were each delayed by a year when COVID hit, so flash forward to 2021, when Halloween Kills comes out. While it did prove to be divisive, I personally liked it. It was flawed, sure, but I found more that I liked than I didn’t.
Then the following year, Halloween Ends comes out. The divisiveness was worse. Even I knew I had to be very careful in giving my thoughts on it to the point where for some, spoilers were the least of anyone’s problems. It’s been a year, and I’m still surprised I managed to figure out a way around that.
Ironically, I ended up being mixed on it anyway.
Now we come to this year, and David Gordon Green has started a new trilogy, this time following up on The Exorcist, but thankfully, with a subtitle.
I now present my review of The Exorcist: Believer, but what you should believe is that I have quite a bit to say, and I thought Halloween Ends was difficult to maneuver around spoilers for.
The story follows Victor Fielding, a photographer and single Dad who’s lost his faith in God since his wife died on their honeymoon 13 years prior. Though he’s been doing all he can to look after his daughter Angela, she and her best friend Katherine go into the woods one day after school to conduct a ritual in the hopes of contacting Angela’s Mom.
Upon realizing both girls have gone missing, Victor gets Katherine’s parents to help him find them. After three days, the girls are found, seemingly normal and unable to recall what had happened.
However, it isn’t long before they begin showing signs of demonic possession, but Victor finds out about someone who had this sort of experience before: Chris MacNeil, who 50 years earlier had this happen to her daughter Regan.
Folks… even though there are at least two things I would want to go into on this one, I’m going to do my best to work around spoiling them, both for review purposes and to keep to my own rules.
What Worked: The cast does fine with what they’re given, especially in the first half. Although I did like the performances from the two girls (played respectively by Lidya Jewett and Olivia O’Neill in her debut performance**), Leslie Odom Jr. and Ann Dowd were the highlights for me.
Ellen Burstyn was good for the time she was in it (more on that later).
For the first half of the movie, David Gordon Green’s direction I thought was okay, as there were some shots and scenes there that worked for me.
There was at least one good scare in this movie, and it is during the search for the girls.
I can also give them credit for doing something different with the demon at the center of the story this time. Pazuzu was the center of the story in the first one. This time, it’s Lamashtu, his rival, and she’s actually known for more heinous acts than him.
The biggest thing I can give them credit for is this: While I obviously won’t spoil it, there’s a twist in the third act that I thought was very creative.
What Didn’t Work: The cast members I didn’t mention were pretty unmemorable. Therefore, that balance in the first one, where everyone felt on equal footing, was practically absent here.
With Ellen Burstyn, the cardinal sin (no pun intended) is that how they use her, especially compared to how Jamie Lee Curtis was used in the 2018 Halloween film (and the sequels to an extent), is insulting.
I’m not joking when I say this. If you’ve seen the marketing, almost all her scenes are in there. The ones that aren’t mostly involve a huge spoiler that I had to refrain from including here.
The other big thing that I had to refrain from outright spoiling is a result of that. They reference one particular aspect of the first movie, and while it does have a payoff, it doesn’t feel earned. It feels more forced than anything else.
It not only happens at the very end of the movie, it is the very end of the movie. It could’ve been a post-credits scene, and it would’ve made no difference. I’ll leave it at that.
I did say that David Gordon Green’s direction was okay in the first half. That was because it felt like it was doing something different, so it was starting off fine.
I mean no disrespect to Ellen Burstyn nor her character with what I’m about to say, I’m merely trying to make a point and nothing more. The moment we meet back up with Chris, it feels like he rushed the rest of the movie and tried to recapture that goodwill that his first Halloween film received, but didn’t even come close.
Other than that one scare I liked, every other scare was the cheap jump scare that people hate.
The score is forgettable, other than the main theme. The new rendition of the main theme was solid.
The last issue I have is with the twist. While I did think it was creative, they didn’t do enough with it to make it stand out as the best part of the movie.
There is one more thing I need to warn you about. In the second half, they do have a flashing light effect here and there (although it’s not like strobe lights), so make sure to look away if you’re very sensitive to that***.
Overall: I didn’t outright despise The Exorcist: Believer as a whole like a lot of people have. It has a sizable amount of issues, but I can’t quite call it the worst film of the year, either (it’s very rare for a movie to have that distinction for me). Yes, those couple things I barely avoided spoiling were infuriating in how they were done, but there are a few things I did like that prevented the rest of the movie from being the same way for me.
Leslie Odom Jr. and Ann Dowd give the best performances in the movie. It has some okay direction at first, as well as some good ideas, and a pretty solid rendition of the main theme.
While Ellen Burstyn is good in it, unfortunately, she’s barely in it, and the problems only get worse from there.
It mostly feels like the same creative team that are coming off of one trilogy are trying to replicate that promising start they had last time. If they had nailed it all three times, and both critics and fans loved all three movies, there would’ve been practically no problem at all with having them do this. As it is, it really shows when after this movie’s reception blew up in their face, people were already reporting that some degree of creative evaluation can potentially happen for the sequels.
Not only that, the studio paid 400 million for the rights to the franchise itself, so basically, the next two movies have to be made, whether the same team is involved or not. It’s probably for the best that they get someone else to take over, rather than have the same team risk the same results for a fourth and fifth time (I’m not counting their first Halloween, because that one was great).
As for David Gordon Green himself, he and Danny McBride should step away from horror and go back to comedy and other genres, like drama or in his case animation (Danny’s done several projects there that I like).
I admire that they wanted to branch out into horror, but it’s really only worked once, and it’s better to go back to what they’re best known for.
All I can say for now, though, is that in order to keep this franchise going properly, they need to take their time to evaluate what made the first one work, so they can exorcise the demons of the past.
However, the studio is overconfident, so there’s every reason for us to worry about where they go from here****.
Again, though I didn’t completely hate it, I can’t really recommend it, because you’ll just be mad by the end of it, especially if you love the first one. My closing advice would be to stick with the first one, although I hear the third one is actually not bad, and the TV series I’ve heard is pretty good, too. Leave the two sequels to this (the first of which, Deceiver, is set to be released in 2025) to me.
Rather than give you a hint at what my next review will be this time, I’ll say that it’ll more than likely be a treat in one form or another.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
*An event at two of the three theaters in my area where they show older movies a couple times a week; I’ve been to quite a few since (the other one has Fathom Events for that, and I’ve been to a few of those as well, the most recent of which was the first Exorcist, and I went to that to get ready for this)
**I’ve seen better and worse acting debuts. She’s in the middle, leaning towards the better half, but almost reaching it.
***As if the marketing didn’t do that enough (including the main poster, which I had no choice but to use for this review), they do it in the movie. Therefore, I have to also warn you that for those reading this, especially on your computer (since your phones may do it for you), you might want to adjust the brightness.
****I felt like I had to work that in there somewhere while obviously paraphrasing. It was either that or an Imagine Dragons reference, which would’ve been too easy. That, and I knew it was better to leave Smash Mouth out of this.