The Exorcist from 1973 is one of the scariest movies ever made, blending some of the greatest horror practical effects and religious mysticism that delivers in every way scaring the bejesus out of people! Without a doubt, it’s one of my favorite horror films.  But it’s much more than a horror film because there’s a lot of great emotional connection between the characters. It puts at the forefront characters who question their belief system, especially the priest who must perform the exorcism. It’s hard to top that kind of film. Some of the sequels have come close, but I will admit that none have come as close as the 2023 sequel, The Exorcist: Believer. Now let’s go ahead and dispense with the myth that it’s just as good as the original, absolutely not, but is it a movie worth seeing? Yes! Afterall, this film serves as a direct sequel to the events that happened 50 years ago and there’s an immediate connection to the original film because you have Ellen Burstyn reprising her role as Chris McNeil from the original film. While she is not an exorcist herself, she dedicated her life to helping people with what she had to go through with her own daughter. She has become an expert in the subject matter so it’s important to have somebody like her challenge the parents who may or may not be believers. This particular story is about two girls who go missing and essentially are possessed by the same familiar demons that we saw in the original film. Of course, it’s emotional and becomes a proper sequel, but it is also a mixed bag, missing some of the important emotional connections that the original film had.

I like the film, but I love the original more. One of the things that drew me to the original was that even the priest who’s performing The Exorcist questions his belief system, his faith is tested whereas you expect a priest to be all-knowing and be able to have the full power of Christ behind them to expel a demon. Without spoiling the movie, that priest essentially has to take the evil upon himself and destroy it to save the daughter. What the sequel does is let you know who the demon really is and this time is more powerful while using every trick in the devil’s book to prey upon the secrets, lies, and insecurities of the characters. But emotional connections with all of the characters and they do add a great twist with two girls being possessed and for some parents to make a choice on who to save as if you can’t save them both. I like the idea of the story and the best part of the story is that it takes different kinds of faiths working together to expel evil and therefore also making the atheist father a believer in order to save his daughter. It also answers the question that perhaps demons are never truly dead, all you can do is rid them from this plane of existence. The characters are good and can help make this movie better than it is. The special effects are scary enough, but I don’t know if they really add to the same intensity as the original film. But to have the connection of the original characters facing off against the demon is what really rounds out the story. And the ending is almost perfect with one of the greatest cameos you can ever have in a film. Don’t worry, I’m not spoiling that for you!

For me, I’m torn on whether to say this is really a good movie. The second and third act of the movie is what really makes it worth watching, but the first act is all over the place and slow that you almost want to give up on the film before you get to anything good. We always talk about how editing can affect whether a movie is good or bad. I would say that the biggest flaw of this film is editing. You could have taken 15 minutes out of the first act to help make this movie better and give it the right pacing. That would have also helped keep the audience interested in the film. And one of my biggest complaints is that the possession seems to happen too quickly. One of the great things I love about the original is the demon slowly creeps into the daughter and the film also gives little bits of how the demon was able to possess the girl through the simple use of a child’s board game like a Ouija board. The original film slowly draws You into the possession, especially the director’s cut. The pacing is almost perfect, especially when you’re dealing with all the emotional connections. Things in this film seem to happen too quickly so it doesn’t draw you in as much. I’m not criticizing Danny McBride and David Gordon Green for the writing or the directing, really it comes down to the proper editing and maybe a director’s cut can fix that. I feel like there are a lot of scenes that were left out explaining how the demons were slowly able to get a hold of the girls. If you know anything about religion it’s always the slow temptation that lets evil in. While the idea of how they’re letting evil in is great with one of the daughters trying to reconnect with their dead mother, you don’t really get the emotional connection because it happened so quickly. Everything else is okay in this film, but some proper film editing would polish this film and make it better.

Overall, I liked it and it serves as a compatible sequel to the original film but not as good. The cast is great, and the remix of the original music certainly adds intensity. Having one of the original characters back to serve as a guide also makes it work. But the best part of this film is the exorcism itself, the blending of many faiths to expel the evil while I know some Catholics are not going to like the idea of throwing a little voodoo mysticism to fight evil, just remember it’s a fictional movie and it certainly works the same way things like that worked in Keanu Reeves’ Constantine movie. The film is certainly worth watching, but I hope there’s a director’s cut one day that fixes some of the pacing issues and slowly draws you into what really happens. Maybe you could add some deleted scenes or if you want to just focus on the best parts of the film cut out 15 minutes in the beginning. I’m of the opinion because I love the director’s cut of the original film so much that adding an extra 10 to 15 minutes of what leads to the girls inviting evil into their lives would make the film better. But sometimes we don’t get the best version of films in a theatrical cut. Overall, the film is adequate enough and serves as an OK sequel to the original, but doesn’t match the whore, the intensity, and the emotional connection of the original film even with one awesome cameo at the very end…. nope, still not spoiling that for you…. you will just have to go see the film.