'The Exorcist: Believer' review: Sequel is plenty demonic but lacks horror classic's soul

The devil’s been plenty busy onscreen in the past 50 years. Think of all the possession films that “The Exorcist” spawned – some good, many bad, and arguably none quite as unsettling as the original 1973 horror classic.

So it’s fairly ambitious to craft a new direct sequel and renounce all other “Exorcist” episodes here in 2023. Following David Gordon Green's resurrection of another iconic franchise with 2018’s outstanding “Halloween,” the writer/director's “Exorcist: Believer” (★★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) does a decent job living up to a legendary predecessor. Original star Ellen Burstyn returns in the latest film, which also goes all in exploring every parent’s deepest fears, but while it tries admirably, “Believer” is nowhere near as profoundly scary as William Friedkin’s genre-defining chiller.

Thirteen years after his wife died in a Haitian earthquake, Victor (Leslie Odom Jr.) is a photographer and single dad raising teen daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) on his own in the Georgia suburbs. Their relatively peaceful life is upturned when Angela and her best friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) take a detour home from school through a nearby forest and go missing for three days, worrying everyone in town.

The girls are found 30 miles away in a barn, treated at the hospital and sent home. Soon after, they begin showing signs that something is seriously not right. Angela attacks her dad in their home. Katherine, in church with her devout parents Miranda (Jennifer Nettles) and Tony (Norbert Leo Butz), drenches herself in communion wine and frightens the congregation by chanting “Body and the blood!” in a most unholy scene.

Miranda turns to her religious beliefs and is the first to raise the possibility it might be demon-related instead of a medical or mental health issue, and while skeptical, Victor desperately wants to figure out what’s wrong. With the help of kindly nurse Ann (Ann Dowd), the concerned dad reaches out to an infamously embattled mom: Former movie star Chris MacNeil (Burstyn) wrote a book about the possession of her daughter Regan (played in the first film by Linda Blair) and has spent the last five decades coming to grips with what happened.

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Chris sees for herself how bad the situation really is with the girls, and leaders from across the religious spectrum – including a rebellious priest (E.J. Bonilla), a Baptist pastor (Raphael Sbarge), a Pentecostal preacher (Danny McCarthy) and a root doctor (Okwui Okpokwasili) – gather for an all-out, last-ditch exorcism that tests everyone in attendance.

While high up in the fright-fest annals, the original “Exorcist” leans more thoughtful and theological overall, making the demonic incidents much more unsettling. “Believer” is a more conventional horror tale, with constant dread and eerie thrills: It's definitely haunting but lacks the first movie’s soulfulness. 

Still, Green’s new outing definitely succeeds in paying homage and borrowing from the best. There are Easter eggs and throwbacks galore, plus a nifty retooling of “Tubular Bells,” and of course nothing good happens when a crucifix comes into the picture. Odom gets a meatier character arc than Burstyn did back in the day, and while her return isn’t as integral to the story as Jamie Lee Curtis’ was to the rebooted “Halloween,” Chris’ appearance adds needed weight to the “Believer” narrative.

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Just like with Blair in the OG “Exorcist,” a lot of the sequel depends on its young stars and they’ve done their possessed-kid homework. Bedecked with top-notch physical effects, Jewett and O’Neill are more and more unhinged as their characters become increasingly demonic and yet at key points, the real girls rise through their bedeviled surface. (O’Neill’s gut-wrenching delivery of “I don’t want to go to hell” cuts right to the bone.)

Sure, we didn’t need another “Exorcist.” And Green’s recent “Halloween” trilogy ended up fumbling a good start. With a formidable “Believer” and two more “Exorcist” movies in the pipeline, though, at least this franchise still has a prayer.