It’s been 50 years since The Exorcist terrified audiences and created dozens of copycat films. David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer attempts to terrify a new generation by revisiting one of the greatest horror movies of all time.  

Believer follows Victor (Leslie Odom Jr.) a widower raising his 13-year old daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett). When Victor allows Angela to hang out with her friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill), the two girls head out into the woods. The girls attempt to contact the spirit world in hopes of connecting to Angela’s mother. The two girls disappear for a few days with no knowledge for how long they’ve been gone.  This leads to questions of where they were for two days and what they were doing in the woods.

Once the two girls return home, both families realize something is wrong and they may have brought something back with them from the woods.  

The brilliance of director David Gordon Green is his ability to build a presence in the film through sound design, body horror, and some excellent cinematography. Green is fantastic at capturing some of the body horror and the emotions on the character’s faces – especially Leslie Odom Jr. The performances from the two young actresses helps elevate the early possession scenes that set the tone for what kind of film this is.  A lot of what they do is subtle and very effective.

Where the film is stumbles is its connection to William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. The inclusion of familiar characters isn’t bad but feels more unnecessary more than interesting or essential to the plot. Green’s 2018 Halloween did a much better job connecting the past and present films while allowing the new film to stand alone.  

Most of Believer isn’t about the possessed girls or battling demonic spirits. It’s about Victor and his journey to save and protect his daughter. The true conflict is the one Victor is having within and not with the spirit that possesses his daughter. Odom is fantastic as a father trying to focus to save his daughter and using his strengths to build a community to save both girls. It’s an interesting perspective that will have audiences emotionally invested but doesn’t deliver the scares and horrors that made the original a classic.  

The most interesting part of the film isn’t the horror or possession scenes, it’s the film/’ discourse around faith. The community that comes together to save these girls includes an atheist and other people from different religious backgrounds. It’s not what people expect from a film connected to The Exorcist. This film may not deliver on what horror fans are looking for but it succeeds at being an interesting horror film that explores bigger ideas about the human experience.

Grade: B-