The Exorcism (2024) Review

Horror Film Reviews Possession
Michael J. McMorrow
June 21, 2024
0
3200
6 minutes read

Making a film that trades on the mysterious production problems with the original The Exorcist seems like a good idea. But how to go about such a meta task?

Within the film-within-a-film genre, there’s a sub-genre: think Willem Dafoe as a vampire/actor in Shadow of the Vampire or Nicole Kidman as a witch/actor in the disastrous comedy flop Bewitched.

Obviously, remaking The Exorcist would be a daunting project. But The Exorcism is a film about that daunting project. And the lead character is possessed.

If you were expecting Regan, the girl, to be possessed, I can’t blame you. But no, this time, it’s the priest who is possessed.

The Exorcism has nothing in common with last year’s The Pope’s Exorcist except that RussellCrowe stars in both. It’s also not related to the recent Exorcist: Believer. But since they’re both Exorcist-inspired films with wide release, it’s worth a quick comp.

Believer was a hot mess, but it did move the exorcism idea out of the Catholic context and into a multicultural space. The Exorcism is, not surprisingly, about a Catholic priest. Both films feature a pair of teen girls, one black and one white.

Crowe plays Anthony Miller, a famous actor now also known for alcoholism and abandoning his sick wife and daughter. The Exorcist remake is his comeback gig. The director, played with fervor by Adam Goldberg, wants him as much for his troubled past as his acting chops. He figures this broken man is ideal to play a priest wrestling with his faith.

The daughter, Lee, played by Ryan Simpkins (Fear Street series), has been kicked out of her private Catholic high school. While the father-daughter relationship is strained, Miller is helping his aspiring writer nepo-baby her way into the film biz.

Musician/actor and Instagram sexpot Chloe Bailey plays Regan and is paired with Simpkins. But she’s barely in the movie. The Exorcism is more about the father/daughter dynamic.

Rounding out the small cast are David Hyde-White as the on-set priest advisor and Sam Worthington as the younger priest. Adrian Pasdar (Near Dark, Carlito’s Way) makes a cameo as the tragic first pick for Crowe’s role.

The cast is better than the material, but more is needed to save it. The film would have benefitted from digging into the history of the original movie and fewer shallow references to Anthony Miller’s personal struggles. It leaves the Exorcist mystique untapped.

While the Devil and God’s proxy struggle, Psychological Drama and Horror are also locked in a battle for supremacy. Ultimately, neither side wins. It’s a talky horror movie interspersed with cliche-ridden possession scenes, and its drama doesn’t feel organic.

The film is very stagey, with most of the action taking place on film sets. While much exposition occurs in Miller’s apartment, that space looks more like a set than an actual location. It would have been great to have a scene on the spooky steep outdoor steps from the original, a site that’s become an actual Washington D.C. landmark.

The Exorcism tries hard to build drama around Miller’s parental failures and his abuse at the hands of priests as an altar boy. The antagonistic director needles him about these, trying to get a better performance out of him. But the film never really connects its disparate strands of backstory. It just lurches into the possessed Miller doing terrifying supernatural things on set and at home.

Like most contemporary horrors, the door is cracked open for a sequel, maybe carrying the daughter’s story forward. But don’t hold your breath waiting.

Movie Rating: