Get Possessed By First Trailer For The Exorcist TV Series
The power of Geena Davis compels you.
Remakes are a tricky thing. If it stays too close to the source material, it may not find a personality of its own; but if it strays too far, it may leave the audience wondering why they even used the same title.
On the evidence of the trailer below, Fox's new TV take on The Exorcist may belong in the latter category. Take a look for yourself.
Dunno about you, but I find myself thinking they probably should have just called it American Horror Story: Possession...
The show has a significant weapon in its arsenal in Geena Davis, the illustrious actress taking the key role of the mother who turns to the church for help when she comes to believe her daughter is possessed.
But on this evidence, that's where any link to The Exorcist ends. Where Ellen Burstyn's mother was an actress and not a religious woman, Davis would appear to be devout to the point of obsession; where Linda Blair's possessed girl was pre-pubescent, Brianne Howey is college-age; and furthermore, the trailer implies the series may question whether or not it's all in her mother's head, which certainly wasn't the case in the 1974 original.
Still, the pilot episode does have a strong director in Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), and Alfonso Herrera (who's playing the priest) has proven his mettle on Netflix series Sense8. I'm not sure Ben Daniels has quite the same gravitas as Max Von Sydow in the title role, though...
Look out for The Exorcist on TV this autumn.