WARNING!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!
The "Power of Christ compels you" - an iconic line from the Classic 1973 Film, "The Exorcist" can be heard ringing in the ears of many movie-goers this Spooky Season during the release and playing of the new Blumhouse Film, "The Exorcist: Believer". Fans of the classic film from 1973 naturally had very high hopes when it came to the new installment in "Exorcist" franchise after what has been a season of downers where Horror movie reboots have been concerned.
In the past several years, fans have seen continuations of the classic franchise "Scream", the reboots of "Candyman" and even the slasher classic, "Halloween" which eliminated the subsequent sequels and created and attempted to create a fresh and new story in the lore of Haddonfield, Illinois....
Many fans were left feeling unimpressed, disappointed, and with no hope for the future of Horror Reboots.
Coincidentally, the same man who essentially crushed the hopes of "Halloween" fans everywhere, may have just crushed the hopes of "Exorcist" fans as well.
Yes, that's right, David Gordon Green has returned to Direct what is being called a "Direct Sequel" to the original "Exorcist" a full 50 years later. But did he capture the gut-wrenching horror of the original? Did he instill the fear of the evil demons in the hearts and minds of the modern horror audience? Did he live up to his predecessor, William Friedkin, who directed the original horror film, and who also sadly passed away earlier this year?
Some would argue that "Yes, he did indeed make a masterpiece", but a majority of the reviews are in and they are all but positive.
"David Gordon Green and Co continue to bog down beloved horror franchises with poor story-telling and bloated casts of characters that only further water down the underwhelming arcs of Green’s main characters," writes a member of The Horror Movie Club Podcast.
Many fans, we included, entered this film expecting a remarkable addition and homage to the original film, but were left feeling cheated and many with unanswered questions.
The film starts off with what appears to be a similar layout to the original film:
Characters in a foreign place with what could potentially be the epicenter for the Demon that we will soon encounter...... wrong.
While the opening of the film does land our characters in a foreign place, similar to that of the original film, it quickly deviates by setting up a heart-wrenching backstory for one of our soon-to-be-exorcised parents, where he is faced with a heart-wrenching choice: Save my wife or my daughter?
Obviously, going into the film we know that he had to choose to save his daughter, as she is one of the victims of the demon throughout the course of the film, so not really any added suspense there unless you just don't know how to use your BLATANTLY OBVIOUS context clues.
From this point forward, buckle up for what seems like the slowest buildup of an exorcism film EVER MADE - it may as well had just been a found footage "Paranormal Activity" film by this point because the "good stuff" doesn't even get going until the midpoint of the movie.
The original film was very quick to deliver the horror within the first 10-15 minutes of the film with Regan literally peeing in the middle of a room and delivering the chilling "You're gonna die up there" and then moments later the bed levitating off the floor. Then a mere few minutes later, Regan is full blown possessed.
This sequel takes A LOT more time to get to any possession related stuff and focuses more on building the suspense and building characters, which isn't always a bad thing, but isn't always necessary for a horror movie.
For much of the 1st Act, we witness the parents of these children arguing amongst themselves about "how this all happened" and pointing fingers at one another until the children finally appear, and when they do finally return after "just a few hours", which is really "three days", get ready for "Grey's Anatomy" the movie because we literally spend more time focused on the children being examined in a hospital room more than anything else. You honestly will think you've switched movies and are on the set of "CSI" or "Criminal Minds" - while this attention to detail and realism is, as it seems, very realistic and true to form of a Missing Person's case, it was not necessarily details that needed to be focused on as heavily as they were.
After much slow build-up, we finally get to what everybody came to see....
Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil.... WHAT!?!?
That's right folks!! Chris MacNeil is back in true modern Horror Movie Reboot fashion to deliver the fan service we all were hoping for!! She's back and is going to battle this demon in the most intense battle ever witnessed on a movie screen.... except for the fact that she's never actually witnessed an exorcism, performed an exorcism, and she only has about 10 minutes of screen time where she can see what's going on because within 2 or those minutes, the Demon possessed Katherine stabs poor Chris's eyes out with a crucifix, rendering her useless for the duration of the film.... so much for fan-service.
After that, it really is time for a battle for the two girls' lives as the parents, and various religious leaders' band together to defeat the demons within these two girls because the only way you can truly beat an otherworldly demon from Hell is through the power of friendship, right?
In all seriousness, it is quite interesting to watch the various peoples of various faith backgrounds use their own personal faiths to defeat the demons residing within the two girls and come together in a way that has not really been seen before on the big screen. In a way, there is a deeper message of how there are many different belief systems in the world, but at the end of the day they all have the same common goal in mind - a message that seems to be at the heart of this film as it is said earlier on by the officer to the sets of parents, that "we all have a common goal" and that message continues throughout.
In the end, that common goal is hardly met as one of the more "close-minded parents" falls for the Demons deceitfulness when prompted to "choose a girl" where one lives and one dies. While everyone in the group has essentially banded together in agreement that they will not choose one girls life over another, the father of Katherine grows weak and selfish in his beliefs and chooses Katherine rather than stick with everyone else. This ultimately leads to what appears to be Angela's death and Katherine's survival, but both die for a moment, and then the tables are flipped when Angela regains her heartbeat, and Katherine is dragged down to what appears to be Hell.
Finally, in what would appear to be the epilogue of the film, we hear one of the characters talking about everything that has happened and even talks about beliefs and reveals a rather poignant message within the film of simply "opening our eyes and believing" as that is a personal battle that Angela's father has throughout the course of the film. Then, to be hit this nail on the head, the film delivers one final piece of fan-service by having Regan return for about 30 seconds of on-screen time to see her mother in the hospital, who had not known about her daughter's whereabouts for years, and had been told by the demon that her daughter was dead, but she continued to "Believe" her daughter was still out there.
While this film may not be the cinematic masterpiece that many had hoped it would be, it did deliver on a few moments of Fan-Service by returning the original characters, albeit for a very brief time, having a few callbacks to the original movie with the clever question asked by the demon "Does the power of Christ compel you?" and even the daughter wetting the bed, and the twisting of the priests head 180 degrees, similar to Regan's head spinning 360 degrees in the original.
The film definitely has its moments of sheer boredom, but it also has moments of intense horror as well and does at least attempt to make up for its lack of interesting moments by throwing in several jump scares throughout the film, many of which are not actually scary, but rather every day occurrences aided by the volume switch being turned up.
Unfortunately, it does not look like there is any end in sight with the reboots of the classic horror movies, and it may be a long time before they are saved from the hands of new directors like David Gordon Green, but at least we as the viewers can hope and dream that they'll make a halfway decent horror movie reboot one day, but will they every truly make us "Believers" of the Horror Movie Reboots?
