Why The Exorcist: Believer Failed

The Exorcist: Believer Misses The Point Entirely

The Exorcist Believer
Universal

This poor franchise history does not excuse The Exorcist: Believer's failings, however. Directed by Green, who co-developed the story alongside Halloween scribes Danny McBride and Scott Teems, alongside new collaborator Peter Sattler, Believer is, by all accounts, a typification of every boring conversation that has ever been had about The Exorcist. Said conversations have historically tended to relitigate whether Friedkin's film is worthy of its "scariest movie of all time" tagline. The Exorcist is scary, of course, but the issue is that the mythology that has been built around the film is largely focused on that scare and shock element, and that seems to be where Believer has sourced its entire understanding of Blatty's story from.

This failure to grasp the soul of the text is exacerbated by Believer's mostly reiterative approach. It lifts the same structure from Friedkin's film, concluding with a grand exorcism sequence but without any of the heart that was there in its progenitor. Equally as bad is how Green fumbles at the "requel" tropes he established with 2018's Halloween, pointlessly bringing back Burstyn's Chris like she's a Laurie Strode figure before removing her from the film unceremoniously towards the end. Such a move may have played better five years ago, but since Halloween, we've had Scream (2022), Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Candyman (2021), all of which brought back characters or cast members from previous installments to maintain franchise legacies. With Believer, this approach now feels more formulaic than ever - right on down to Green and Co. planning a trilogy the same way they did with Halloween.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.