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.