REVIEW: Poor narrative breaks ‘Exorcist: Believer’

Keep those tubular bells ringin’, “The Exorcist” series is back. However, unfortunately, the quality of the original film is not.

In this entry to the franchise, Leslie Odom Jr. plays Victor, a single father whose wife died during child birth due to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. In the ensuing years, Victor loses his faith, but appears to be doing alright as a dad to his daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett).

His world gets turned upside down, though, when Angela and her friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) go missing. They’re eventually found, much to their parents’ relief. As time goes on though, it appears something sinister has latched on to the two girls.

These legacy sequels that follow-up with a classic franchise after a long hiatus can often be hit or miss, so going in it was easy to be skeptical with “Believer.” But for the first section of the movie, things went pretty well.

The opening act has a great deal of suspense. It begins with the search for the missing girls getting underway and continues after they’re found, where their parents are left without answers as the daughters begin showing odd behavior despite being medically cleared. It’s a solid way to introduce the characters, build up the feeling of unease and prepare for what’s to come.

In terms of tension, it’s somewhat reminiscent of the 2013 film “Prisoners,” another picture dealing with abduction. Plus, it has that aspect of a parent exploring all options to help their child without much success leading to more stress and fear, similar to the first film.

Then the rest of the film happens, and it’s quite a mess. Director David Gordon Green uses most of the second act as a vehicle to dump a bunch of exposition and to connect this film to the original by bringing in Ellen Burstyn’s character from the 1973 classic.

It’s a rather cheap attempt, as Burstyn isn’t given all that much to do and she doesn’t add much to the 2023 film. Her addition is fine, though, when compared to the clunky third act.

The final third of the movie is dedicated to the exorcism, which isn’t a surprise given the name. But it just ends up being a clunky cluster of genre tropes shoved together. The fact is, since “The Exorcist” came out, the horror genre has had a plethora of films centered on possessions and hauntings.

It’s a sub-category of horror that has evolved, and if nothing new is added, it can feel played out. That’s the case with “Believer.” There’s nothing really fresh or creative, and it comes nowhere close to pushing the boundaries like the first film did.

The only thing different being brought to the table was the number of individuals involved in the exorcism. The original film had one possessed girl and two religious figures. To up the ante, the creative team behind “Believer” apparently felt adding more people will do the trick.

The result is not only two possessed girls, but five religious figures involved in the exorcism. Rather than making the spiritual battle more intense and layered with various characters, though, it instead makes the process absurd and it gets close to being in self-parody territory.

With all that said, this isn’t even a terrible horror film, it just doesn’t particularly do anything stellar as either a sequel or just simply a horror outing. It has a strong start and a good lead performance from Leslie Odom Jr., but several of the narrative choices and lack of creative vision causes “Believer to be a forgettable entry for the genre. 2 out of 5.