BELIEVER’ debuts with 28% tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes

The Exorcist: Believer hardly starts on a high note, though. A prologue introduces us to photographer Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) and his pregnant wife Sorenne (Tracey Graves) on assignment in Haiti. When an earthquake hits, Sorenne doesn’t survive, only Victor and the newborn child. 13 years later, Victor has become an overprotective father to his daughter Angela (Lydia Jewett), who is growing up too fast in his eyes. Despite the best efforts of Odom Jr. and Jewett, much of the opening twenty or so minutes feels empty. Be it a lack of score or truncated editing that reduces the Haiti prologue to an ineffective obligation and further development between Angela and Victor to a series of awkward glances, there’s something amiss. 

David Gordon Green spearheading a sequel trilogy to 1973’s The Exorcist has drawn all kinds of reactions. Although his direct sequel to John Carpenter’s seminal Halloween – confusingly also titled Halloween (2018) – earned critical and box office success, Halloween Kills confounded audiences and Halloween Ends might be one of the most fiercely debated franchise movies of modern horror (for the record, I love it). Take the first horror movie ever to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and hand it to a filmmaker who has made it known that he wants to do something a bit different than what fans would expect, and you’re bound to spark controversy. The first film in Blumhouse’s new trilogy, The Exorcist: Believer, passes the test in a deeply unsettling, artful meditation on faith and the insidious power of evil.