October 8, 2023
After his wife Sorenne (Tracey Graves) died during a violent earthquake in Haiti, photographer Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) raised their daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) on his own. One day, Angela and her best friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum) failed to go home from school, only to reappear three days later. Soon after being medically cleared by the doctors, the two girls began to exhibit extremely bizarre behavioral changes.
From there begins the harrowing nightmare which will keep Victor, as well as Katherine's parents, Tony and Miranda West (Norbert Leo Butz and Jennifer Nettles), on edge for the next days. Their "symptoms" become worse and worse with time, like Angela's violent episode with her mother's scarf and Katherine's shocking outburst during a church service. Victor had lost faith in religion since his wife's death, while the Wests were staunch Christians.
The main conceit of this new film (first of a planned trilogy) was that it bore the title of the most revered classic film about demonic possession -- "The Exorcist" (William Friedkin, 1973), based on the popular 1971 novel by William Peter Blatty. This groundbreaking film has since spawned two sequels (1977 and 1990) and two prequels (2004 and 2005). none of which could match the iconic stature and 10 Academy Award nominations of the original.
This reboot innovates from the original story by having two girls simultaneously possessed by the demon instead of just one. During the climactic exorcism rite, director-co-writer David Gordon Green went all-inclusive, with nurse and ex-nun Ann (Ann Dowd), a traditional voodoo healer (Okwui Okpokwasili), two Protestant pastors (Raphael Sbarge, Danny McCarthy) and a Catholic priest Maddox (EJ Bonilla) all having their turn to pray over the girls.
This film had its own moment of nostalgia by casting Ms. Ellen Burstyn, who reprised her Oscar-nominated role of Chris MacNeill, the mother of demonically-possessed girl Regan (Linda Blair) in the first movie. Chris then wrote a best-selling book about her harrowing experiences that Victor would come across. Still with an imposing screen presence, Burstyn's first scenes were very strong. It was just too bad that Chris was not made to contribute more significantly to the plot. 5/10.
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