Film Review: The new Exorcist is one for the true Believer

"...it wouldn’t be much of an ‘Exorcist’ movie if it didn’t involve some variation on ‘the Roman rite’, the more lurid elements of which are delivered in a final act that cuts loose from cogent arguments about psychological trauma and ‘negative energy’..."

Olivia O'Neill and Lidya Jewett in The Exorcist: Believer.

• The Exorcist: Believer
• ★★★☆☆
• Cinema release

‘What do you think evil is?’ asks Ann (Ann Dowd) during The Exorcist: Believer (16s), and — as the title suggests — the answer very much depends on your belief system. 

David Gordon Green’s sequel to The Exorcist opens with an earthquake in Haiti, during which Victor (Leslie Odom Jr) has to make the agonising decision of whether to save the life of his pregnant wife or their unborn daughter.

Thirteen years later, back home in the US, Victor’s teenage daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) and her friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) go missing in the woods, only to return three days later with no idea of where they’ve been, or how long they’ve been away.

As the girls start to exhibit increasingly bizarre behaviour, Katherine’s parents come to believe that the girls are experiencing a demonic possession, while Victor, a sceptic in all things faith-based, seeks desperately for a rational explanation. 

Indeed, it’s Victor’s refusal to accept the supernatural thesis that makes The Exorcist: Believer an enjoyable horror: Leslie Odom Jr’s low-key performance roots the movie in a recognisable normality, allowing the more outré aspects of the story to spin chaotically around his quiet centre.

Lidya Jewett also puts in a strong turn as the young Angela gradually loses control of herself and her soul, and there’s a nice touch, casting-wise when the despairing parents finally call upon Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), the mother of the possessed Regan in the original The Exorcist, who is happy to help but insists that she is most definitely not an exorcist.

Of course, it wouldn’t be much of an ‘Exorcist’ movie if it didn’t involve some variation on ‘the Roman rite’, the more lurid elements of which are delivered in a final act that cuts loose from all the cogent arguments about psychological trauma and ‘negative energy’ to deliver a head-spinning, projectile-vomiting conclusion.