10 Worst Horror Movies Of 2023

Expectations weren't exactly high for David Gordon Green's Exorcist sequel after the hatchet job he performed on the Halloween franchise with Halloween Ends last year, but it's possible with The Exorcist: Believer he made something even worse.

"Soulless" is very much the word for this by-the-numbers supernatural horror flick that feels like somebody took an original spec horror movie script and rewrote it into an Exorcist film.

First and foremost, this is a boring follow-up to William Friedkin's masterful original with no fresh ideas of its own - or not any good ones, at least.

Its musings on faith and religion feel scattered and pandering, leading up to a howlingly silly and eventually heinously cruel third act that all feels tonally out of step. But Believer's gravest sin lies in how it engages with The Exorcist as an "IP" - bringing Ellen Burstyn back for a thankless cameo which, by her own admission, she only agreed to in order to fund a scholarship program for acting students.

Without entirely spoiling how the film treats Burstyn's character Chris MacNeil, it ain't good at all. Yet given that Believer turned a solid profit at the box office, Universal will doubtless be moving forward with their two planned sequels. Yikes.