As unoriginal and by the book as they get. The possession/exorcism genre is one of my least favorite, they get very predictable and repetitive. ***Believer*** is no exception, it brings nothing new to the exorcism genre or to the franchise, except there's two people possessed this time. Otherwise, it's *The Exorcist* all over again but with everything toned down.

If there's one thing I believe in it's Ann Dowd, and she delivered like she always does. Can't say I liked the dialogue she was given though and too much melodrama from everyone. The child actors were great, they really sold it. I liked the father daughter dynamics. Chris (Ellen Burstyn) was completely useless, she brings nothing to the story. She was put there just to attract fans. Too many unnecessary characters added every ten minutes.

It almost got scary a few times but it always falls into silly territory for me. Lots of loud noise jumpscares and a few gross scenes but they play it pretty safe. The story and character buildup was more enjoyable than what followed in the second half for me. Third act was on the verge of being good a few times but again, too silly and rushed at times. Why was there so many characters in one room, it's ridiculous.

I don't see why or how we're getting two sequels out of this.

While I think this is a relatively successful 2020s horror movie, I kind of fail to see it as comparable to or part of The Exorcist story. It has some fun horror moments, but what it lacks is the stillness that the original had. 50 years ago, we had a movie that focused on less than 5 characters and gave both them and the plot room to breathe as events evolved at a logical pace, which makes the ending exorcism extremely tense. In “Believer”, there are far too many characters and the plot rapidly accelerates as all of their threads vie for attention. The end result is an exorcism (of course) that feels abrupt and sort of low-stakes.

I like the philosophical questions asked here regarding all types of faith and how they approach possession and exorcism, giving us an interfaith effort to save the girls. However, I think the writing could have gone way deeper on this. Perhaps the next two movies in this trilogy will do so.

Two notes:

1. Why bring Chris MacNeil back, just to sideline her after 10 minutes of screen time?

2. I think using the actual, real-world Haitian earthquake as a jumping off point for the movie is in a bit of poor taste.

As someone who thoroughly enjoyed David Gordon Green's first "Halloween" film but disliked "Halloween Kills" and downright hated "Halloween Ends," I approached the director's new "The Exorcist" film with mixed expectations. And somehow it ended up being a movie experience that kind of fast-forwarded my feelings about the "Halloween" trilogy. Thus, I really liked the entire beginning of "The Exorcist: Believer". The atmosphere is solidly built up, I like Leslie Odom Jr. as the main character, and the film is also competently shot.

However, it quickly becomes clear in the middle section that Green has no new ideas other than "more." This time it's not one possessed girl, but—wait for it—TWO! Otherwise, much of the original "The Exorcist" is warmed up, but the temperature does not rise above lukewarm. Ellen Burstyn, who reprises her role from the 1973 film, could also have been omitted. Her contribution to "Believer" is not significant at all.

Terrible is the finale, which bored me to death. The whole exorcism part should be the highlight of this kind of movie. Here, however, it is overloaded, poorly directed, and, on top of that, for the most part, badly acted. Most of the characters either didn't interest me or irritated me. The film's conclusion only pleased me in the sense that it was finally over.

All in all, it was clear beforehand that "Believer" would not come close to the original. But I didn't go to the movies with that expectation. But at least it could have been a solid exorcism movie, but here far too much potential was wasted. I definitely don't have a good feeling about the planned sequels.

Well, they made The Exorcist woke... and oddly Anti-Catholic... and it flopped.

Seriously, The Pope's Exorcist was better and EVERYONE knew that was going to flop. I'm going to tell you right now that you should go back and watch the prequel movies because they were better... BOTH of them.

You have two little girls, a strong anti-Catholic message, a strong anti-patriarchy message, you know... the usual Hollywood meh messaging (except the Anti-Catholic part, that is a dead horse that hasn't been beaten nearly as much) and, most importantly, the same sequel/reboot/franchise killer that seems to go out of it's way to insult all the fans of the original film...

... and everyone that helped make it. Which, honestly, is also a dead horse that's been beaten too much these days. In fact, insulting the original is sort of a trope these days.

People that actually like Terminator: Dark Fate are going to rave about this one... but everyone else is going to roll their eyes because at the end of the day, it has the exact same boring message as everything else.

And like everything else with that message, everything else from bookend to bookend takes a backseat to it. Bad dialogue peppered with political lectures. Bad acting (but let's be honest, they had nothing to work with) and in the end even the demon lacked the sardonic and vulgar wit of the first one.

But, hey, if you liked Dark Fate and thought The Rise of Skywalker was better than Empire, this movie is for you.

But everyone else has seen it before and is tired of it.

"Angela" (Lidya Jewett) and her school mate "Katherine" (Olivia O'Neill) go for a walk in the woods one day. They don't come home - and panic amongst the parents ensues. Luckily, the girls turn up in a cow-barn a few miles away but have no recollection of just what they had been doing for the three days they had been missing. Anyway, dad "Victor" (Leslie Odom Jr.) soon starts to notice some odd behaviour from his previously reasonable daughter and before we know it, she - and her friend - are showing worrying signs of a possession that resonates all too readily with events some fifty years earlier and that finds him seeking the help of "Chris MacNeil" (Ellen Burstyn) before the girls are Satanic toast. It's ten minutes shy of two hours long this, and that's about ninety minutes too long. The vast majority of this film is taken up by pointless preamble, family establishment scenarios and unfortunately the acting and writing are really lacklustre too. Burstyn only makes sparing appearances and Odom Jr. ought to just stick to singing. The last ten minutes is slightly better than standard Blumhouse fayre that concludes this completely unnecessary sequel with, admittedly, a couple of not so predicable twists, but still - with very little to make the preceding drudge worth watching. This is a poor relation to the original and should have gone straight to a streamer.