If you’re debating on seeing the new movie, The Exorcist: Believer, I am here to tell you to think about it. Unlike usual horror movies, this movie doesn’t constantly throw jump scares or random gore in your face to scare you, but it does focus on developing the story – however, that story isn’t really scary.
This new movie has an entirely different story than others throughout the franchise, the main connection to the other movies being the spirit. The movie centers around a single father with his daughter. The mother died during an earthquake in Haiti, leaving the daughter, Angela, curious and wishing to seek answers about her mother. So, she did. Angela ran to the woods with her friend Catherine to attempt to communicate with her deceased mother. However, the spirit they communicated with was definitely not Angela’s mother.
The girls end up disappearing for three days, and the spirit that they spoke to haunts the two girls and ends up possessing them for the rest of the movie. Even though this happens rather quickly, the movie does not get boring.
However, as I stated before, there isn’t a good balance between scary and storytelling. I felt the movie paid much closer attention to the quality of the story, and it delivers. There were a few major plot twists, and good representation of Haitian culture, but it had a very unsatisfying ending. There were details in the story which you never got to figure out, and you were left wondering.
So, if you’re wanting to see this movie for sheer scare factor, pick a different movie. It just really lacked jump scares and good pacing of the spirit’s development, so I couldn’t really pinpoint a climax.
Overall, the movie was okay. It serves its role in The Exorcist franchise and makes room for the next movie The Exorcist: Deceiver which is scheduled to be released in April of 2025. But if you’re planning on watching the movie just to get scared, I’d pick a different movie.
