On 05.10.23 I wrote about the catastrophic test screenings for “The Exorcist: Believer” in New York.
Sometimes a test-screening just turns out to be a major disaster. It happens. You will always have an audience that’s pumped to be there and willing to bypass some flaws just out of the sheer rush and excitement of being the first ones to catch a film. Others times …The reactions I’ve heard for David Gordon Green’s “Exorcist: Believer” are NOT GOOD. It screened last night in NYC and I can’t find a single positive reaction.
Last week, I attended a distributor screening for “The Exorcist: Believer” and this movie just falls FLAT. Absolutely nothing works. It’s all just recycled ideas. You’d expect filmmaker David Gordon to bring something new, but this is quite literally the same blueprint as the 1973 original, only doubled down.
It also suffers from something that seems to have seeped into a lot of today’s IP franchises: nostalgia. Green has turned into a total hack, he’s become a cash cow for horror franchise reboots. To make matters worse, ‘Believer’ is the first of a planned trilogy. Good luck.
No surprise then that the reviews are terrible. A 24% on Rotten Tomatoes is no laughing matter for a franchise hoping to bank on decent reviews in relation to profitable box-office results.
The real shame, to my eyes, at least, is that Green was, at some point in time, a filmmaker I respected, but he’s now gone so far off the deep end in Hollywood claptrap that, I’m not afraid to say it, he’s sold out.
Once upon a time, the 47-year-old filmmaker was heralded as the heir to Terrence Malick with his first four films, “George Washington,” “All the Real Girls,” “Undertow” and “Snow Angels.” Then the business changed, there were less opportunities for independent visions to thrive and Green went the mainstream route, albeit, at first, successfully with “Pineapple Express,” and the underrated comedy “The Sitter.”
Green has since dabbled here and there with more-than-decent indies (“Joe,” “Stronger,” “Prince Avalanche”), but now he’s become a full-on whore for Blumhouse. His last one, trilogy capper “Halloween Ends” was cheap and exploitative.
Is “The Exorcist” truly the greatest horror film ever made, or has time crowned a new champion of fear? Maybe it’s “The Shining,” ‘Texas Chainsaw,’ “Psycho,” or something entirely unexpected that still keeps you up at night.