Skip to main content

The Devil is in the Pigtails


Whatever your opinion of David Gordon Green's Halloween trilogy its hard to deny he took a big swing at it and The Exorcist: Believer has a lot in common with the director's 2018 revitalisation of that franchise. Like Halloween 2018 this film ignores every previous sequel and is a direct follow up to the original Exorcist. Like Halloween 2018 this film sticks pretty closely to beats of the original but with heightened stakes (more kills for Halloween, twice the number of possessed kids here). Unlike Halloween 2018 this film isn't a complete success.

Not that The Exorcist: Believer is a write off by any means. Having two friends be possessed is a nice way of distinguishing proceedings from the sea of other possession films we have seen over the last few years and adds an extra layer to dealing with the situation, not only does the worried father need to deal with what is happening to his daughter but also with another family and their beliefs on what should be done. The possessed kids are suitably creepy and the film has an interesting take on the notion of an exorcism and faith. Rather than the strictly Christian depiction of the 70's original, Believer references the fact that some sort of demonic possession is present in many belief systems and the faith required to battle such things isn't tied to any particular religion, hinting at interesting directions the series could take going forward. The film's biggest selling point is an outstanding performance from Leslie Odom Jr. as single father Victor. His emotion and believability really sell proceedings and leave the viewer hoping things work out for him and his daughter.

Unfortunately, Believer drops the ball in two crucial areas. Firstly, the pacing of the movie leading up to the exorcism is too slow. There is a section where the two girls are missing that is dragged out to the point it feels the film is going to be a missing person drama. This falls flat as there are zero stakes, we know the girls are going to turn up. Later in the film a legacy character turns up what could have been a cool cameo but ends up turning the film into a sideshow. The other problem it has is in portraying the events of the Exorcism itself. Things are tense but it's unclear the procedure is actually progressing. Are all the things they are trying failing or are the setbacks just part of every exorcism? Is this a particularly hard to expel demon or is everything going as planned?  It's harder to buy into the drama without having any idea how close success or failure is.

So what the film does well is mostly undermined, leaving it with only its famous name to really distinguish it from all the other possession flicks out there. Still, if you're a fan of the genre you'll probably find yourself entertained.

6 people saved from 10 "you can save your daughter or your wife" situations. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Toxic Shock

  The Toxic Avenger ambles his way into theatres some two years after the film was first shown at festivals.  Strange that the movie had so much trouble finding a distributor given the presence of major names, relatively mainstream sensibilities (compared to the 80s original anyway) and the fact it's actually quite a bit of fun. Events take place in a fictional city inside a cartoonish, ultra-capitalist, crime-ridden caricature of 80s America, with locations called things like "Depressing Outskirts" and "Ye Olde Shithead District". Peter Dinklage is down on his luck janitor Winston Gooze, a widower with a step son who attempts to break into the headquarters of the mega-pharmaceutical company he works for when he discovers his gold level insurance doesn't cover treatment for his brain condition. Things go south and he is transformed into The Toxic Avenger, a mutated super human who sets about righting some wrongs in his crime ridden city. The film attempts t...

Love is a Battlefield

  The Roses is technically a remake of 1989 black comedy, "The War of the Roses", but sticks far less closely to the source novel than its predecessor, with director Jay Roach and writer Tony McNamara bringing a drier, more understated tone to the humour. Add in pitch-perfect performances from Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman in the central roles and you have a fantastically fun hundred-odd minutes. After briefly seeing disillusioned architect Theo (Cumberbatch) and ambitious chef Ivy (Colman) first meet, the film skips us forward a decade to the now-married pair having abandoned their native UK to live their dream life in America. Theo is on the verge of revealing his architectural masterpiece while Ivy is cooking outrageously elaborate cakes in her role as stay-at-home mum to their two children. A freak storm ends up flipping their lives around and Ivy's chef career hits the big time while Theo holds down the fort at home and resentments slowly accumulate over th...

Weightwatchers Extreme

The Cut is a boxing movie with (apart from a brief opening sequence) no boxing in it. Instead it focuses  on the equally brutal, but less visibly part of the sport, weight loss, as a former contender spirals into madness while trying to shed an insane amount of heft in order to secure a last minute return to the big time. Orlando Bloom is a boxer (he is never named during the film) who lost his one title shot and now runs a gym with his partner and trainer Caitlin (Catriona Balfe). He retains a reputation for being an exciting knockout specialist so when a title contender dies weeks before an upcoming Las Vegas showdown, scary promoter Donny (Gary Beadle) offers him the chance of a glamorous comeback. The catch? He needs to shed thirty two pounds (over two stone or fourteen kilos) in a week. Caitlin agrees to him giving it a go provided they do things by the book, but when traditional methods fail, John Turturro's Boz enters the equation and pushes Bloom way beyond the bounds of w...

Honey Doesn't

Honey Don't is the second film from the director/writer team-up of Ethan (one half of the brothers) Coen and his wife Tricia Cook. Like their previous effort, "Drive Away Dolls", it is wonderfully queer but lacks any of the sharpness and precise pacing that typifies a classic Coen brothers movie. Margaret Qualley is Honey O'Donahue (a name you will hear spoken a LOT over the course of the film), a private investigator in Bakersfield. She is essentially a classic noir gumshoe detective transported to sun-bleached, modern-day California. After a would-be-client dies, Honey begins an investigation that has her cross paths with Chris Evans's skeezy preacher and the mysterious French woman who represents his business partners. She is also attempting to provide support to her sister, who has a small army of children, including an eldest daughter who she is constantly at loggerheads with. All while working her way through the lesbian population of town, including embarki...

Man About Town

Caught Stealing is not your typical Darren Aronofsky film. More playful and less mired misery, it feels like the director having a stab at a Guy Ritchie-esque caper around late 90's Manhattan. For the most part, it works. Austin Butler is Henry "Hank" Thompson, a New York bartender and former baseball prodigy. When he and girlfriend Yvonne (Zoe Kravitz) are asked to keep an eye on Hank's neighbours cat, they end up in the crosshairs of Russian gangsters, Yiddish hitmen and "concerned" cops.  This may be more playful in tone than his usual fare, but this is still an Aronofsky film, so Hank is a man with an obsession, in this case baseball. His devotion to his beloved San Francisco Giants dictates his mood and is the foundation of his relationship with his equally obsessed mother, whom he calls every day to discuss their prospects with. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm is intrinsically linked to his own cut-short ball career and the ghost of what could have been...

We are Living in a Material World

 Materialists is, on the surface, a romantic drama-comedy about a New York matchmaker who faces a choice in her own love life. It has something more on its mind though, presenting a forensic examination of modern adult relationships and the incompatibility of expectation and genuine feeling.  Dakota Johnson is Lucy, a specialist in matching together "elite" couples. For elite, read some of the worst people on Earth. Men who demand their partners have knockout bodies, adhere to strict weight limits and the younger the better. Women who will only consider the tall, rich and in one case, white. In Lucy's world marriage is a business deal and the ultimate match is the one who checks the most boxes. As a "voluntary celibate", she carries this philosophy into here every day life and has no interest in dating until she can find the rich man who will make husband material. The love cynic is a classic trope for the lead in a movie with this set up but there is much more...

Money and Masks

The challenge for Dumb Money is how to make a story about stocks interesting, especially when anyone interested either already knows what happened or can easily look up the events. The answer given here is to focus on some great characters played by grade A actors.  The story is a simple one, albeit one seasoned with odd bit of financial jargon. Way back in pandemic times (2021) a low rung financial investor called Keith Gill led a Reddit driven movement to buy up stock in video game retail chain Gamestop, massively driving up its share price and giving investors a huge return. This sparks a backlash from the big finance institutions betting on the companies demise. Paul Dano plays Gill with Seth Rogan, Vincent D'Onofrio and Nick Offerman appearing as real life Wall Street investors alongside some made up "average Joe" characters portrayed by America Ferrera, Anthony Ramos and others. When every character is introduced we see their net worth, from the multiple billions ...

Won't Somebody Think of the Children

  Weapons is the sophomore effort from writer/director Zach Craggier and while his first film, "Barbarian", was well received, this feels like a clear step up. The film's fantastically eerie marketing campaign revolved around the movies central mystery, at 2.17 AM an entire classrooms worth of sixth graders get up out of bed and disappear into the night. It's a great hook but the story proper actually picks up a couple of months after the event and unfolds over a couple of days as the townspeople continue to deal with the fallout. The point of view shifts between a bunch of characters and time and space is given to fleshing out the small town details. This approach, combined with the sombre and eventually horrific goings on, gives the story a very Stephen King feel. It also works as a tension release, wiping the slate somewhat clean every time we switch perspective. The slight downside to the condensed mini series approach is that it lengthens the film with some segm...

2023 at the Cinema

  Its the start of a new year which means it's time to put some movies in their place. This is not a definitive list of the best films of 2023, only things I saw in the cinema are eligible (sorry Killers of the Flower Moon) so if you're wondering why your favourite/most hated flick isn't on here it's because I didn't see it on the big screen. Also, I reserve the right to have a completely different opinion about any and all of the entries in a weeks time. 50. The Enforcer Tedious, no action "thriller" about a criminal debt collector and his trainee street tough. Not sure if this snoozefest began with aspirations of being a no nonsense Taken clone or a serious redemption story but a plot driven by coincidence, awful dialogue and a 99 cents aesthetic make it feel like something from the depths of Amazon Prime rather than a cinema release. No idea how they wrangled Antonio Banderas into appearing in such a damp squib. 49. Saw X  After attempting a detective m...

I Got Bombs But I'm Not a Bomber

 Oppenheimer posed a tricky question for perennial hit maker Christopher Nolan. How do you make a three hour biopic of a scientist compelling enough to bring in big money? Turns out the answer is to not make a biopic at all. While J. Robert Oppenheimer is indeed the focus of the film it eschews any traditional biopic format, instead serving up what is essentially a heist or even sports movie wrapped up in a courtroom drama. This allows the director to indulge his favourite hobby of playing with time, as the story jumps between two different panel hearings  while also covering Oppenheimer's early career and of course the work of the Manhattan Project. This approach works incredibly well with the three hour runtime flying by. In fact, if you go to see this in the cinema you might want to skip the large cola as there really isn't any time when little enough is happening to sneak in a toilet brake.  Technically the film is outstanding. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, follo...