‘The Exorcist: Believer’ – Review
The scary season has arrived, and with Halloween fast approaching, there’s no better time to sink your teeth into the horror genre, because things get freaky with The Exorcist: Believer.
When his daughter, Angela, and her friend Katherine, show signs of demonic possession, it unleashes a chain of events that forces single father Victor Fielding to confront the nadir of evil. Terrified and desperate, he seeks out Chris MacNeil, the only person alive who’s witnessed anything like it before.
Often regarded as the greatest horror film ever made, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist was a seminal work in the horror genre, and the presence of Regan McNeil and her unholy possession has freaked out audiences ever since the film’s first appearance in 1973. Filmgoers were scarred out of their minds, with many having to be removed from cinemas, along with one of the film’s minor stars later being arrested for murder, and the supposed presence of a curse upon the film, The Exorcist has held its own seminal place in horror film history. Now, fifty years later, filmmaker David Gordon Green, who successfully re-invented the Halloween franchise, brings his own spin to this horror classic…and there are plenty of freaky moments.
Where the original 1973 film focused on the possession of Regan McNeil, this time around, it’s a dual possession of teenage girls Angela (Lidya Jewett) and Katherine (Olivia O’Neill), who, after experimenting in an attempt to reach Angela’s long-dead mother, are instead possessed by a hellish presence. Gordon Green takes his time with the narrative, and the result is a film that plays out in a progressive state of horror as Angela and Katherine steadily fall further and further into the depths of Hell, and their parents do everything they can to try and save them. There’s plenty of scary camera work and grizzly gore moments present in the picture, not to mention some hellish jump scares, and The Exorcist: Believer will make you shiver if you’ve got an aversion to horror films.
Of particular importance to the presence of the story is noted actress Ellen Burstyn who reprises her role as Chris MacNeil and who is pulled back into the horrors of the past that she had thought long forgotten. Burstyn’s presence as MacNeil is almost sage-like, and her role is to act as a guide for the film’s protagonist Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) as he comes to terms with the horrors that come into his home. Burstyn’s presence in the film comes with some notable twists, and things take a dramatic turn that will make audiences jump.
If you want to start things off scary this Halloween season, then head along to The Exorcist: Believer, and experience the fright for yourself.
Image: Universal Pictures
