Why The Exorcist: Believer Failed

by Ewan Paterson

William Peter Blatty Was Right About The Exorcist's Title

The Gemini Killer Exorcist 3
Morgan Creek Entertainment

The other issue here, though, is that while The Exorcist maintains a legacy as being the greatest horror movie of all time, both the series and the exorcism genre as a whole have seen diminishing returns in the 50 years since the first film's release. Of the now six installments in The Exorcist franchise, only two are legitimately great, and one of those two - the Blatty-directed Exorcist III - was initially met with a tepid response from audiences and critics.

At the time, Blatty lobbied hard for the film not to carry the Exorcist title and to instead use the name Legion like his novel, mainly due to the fact there wasn't to be an exorcism in the film, but also because of concerns over Exorcist II going down as one of the worst films ever made and thus toxifying "The Exorcist" as a title. Blatty was conscious of this in 1990 - 33 years ago - and claimed that studio executives admitted to him after The Exorcist III's release that "The Exorcist" titling was having a negative effect on its audience lure.

Not that it mattered though, as the same mistake was repeated twice again in the 2000s and now once more with The Exorcist: Believer. While there have been successful possession and Exorcist-style films since Friedkin's original, they have proven few and far between. The Exorcist has a legendary reputation, but it seemingly hasn't been enough to overcome the glut of bad genre entries and for a sequel to thusly cash in that credit.

But all of this comes back to the biggest issue with The Exorcist: Believer - it should never have been made. It may have been the scares that made The Exorcist a phenomenon, but it has endured because of the theology that was inexorably tied to Blatty's own relationship with his faith. This is something that fails to register with Believer on the most profound level, ensuring its status as another insipid example of the requel era, as well as one that, quite simply, never stood a chance in the first place.

Advertisement

Watch Next


20 Best Movies Of 2026 (So Far)

Horror

20 Horror Movies You Should Watch Totally BLIND

20 Movie Roles That Were Insanely Miscast

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.