When I heard a rumor that they were remaking The Exorcist, I was livid. The Exorcist (1973) directed by William Friedkin based on the book by William Peter Blatty is an Oscar nominated stone cold classic horror movie; and I find it so disrespectful to the genre that they keep remaking films that are classics. It’s not like they’re out there remaking Gone with the Wind or Citizen Kane etc so why are horror classics the only ones that don’t get the same respect? It actually boils my blood.

However, when I found out that it was more closely following the trend of reboots and legacy sequels, I was more open to the idea. While the reboots in my opinion have essentially failed, i.e. Friday the 13th, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre etc The legacy sequels are still open to debate, and I was more receptive to this idea.

I had qualms again when I heard that the writer and director was to be David Gordon Green, the man behind the atrocious-in-every-way Halloween Kills and the only-acceptable-when-compared-to-Halloween-Kills Halloween Ends, his pairing here with Scott Teems (Halloween Ends/Kills and the equally rubbish Firestarter remake…sigh) drops the expectations even lower.

His ‘attempts’ in Kills resulted in arguably the worst film of that year and so it’s fair to have doubts about his abilities when it comes to horror and legacy sequels in particular.

But I took a chance.

This started off strong, set in Haiti during the real-life earthquake (which is something I find somewhat distasteful but will put aside for now), they managed to capture that eerie sense of dread and power that permeated the original movie. There are discordant images and sounds that make you uneasy even if you’re not entirely sure why.

A child, Angela, is born in the tragic circumstances and then we fast forward to where she is a teenager (Lidya Jewett) being raised by her single father Victor, the always welcome Leslie Odom Jr.

She’s best friends with teenage Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) and together they have decided that today is the day to go into the woods and try and commune with the deceased.

Angela has an Ulterior Motive in that she would like to connect with the mother that she never met, the mother who had tragically died all those years ago.

They disappear. When they reappear days later, they have no memory of what happened to them but they are somewhat changed now; and because it’s called The Exorcist, the audience know what is happening but the characters in the film seem to taken an inordinately long time to come to this realisation. This section is rather tedious it has none of the power or surprise of the first film, nothing much happens and then everything happens far too quickly – it lacks the squeeze and tension of the original.  The pacing is all over the place in this movie, and comparing it to the original is the best way to get across where this went so horribly wrong. In the first film there is a slow build of symptoms and signs, subtly creepy things such as Regan urinating on the floor and declaring a terrifying prophecy to one of her mother’s guests at a party, to having seizure like activity that led to a psychiatrist receiving an unfortunate death grip in the nether regions. By the time we had reached the explosive “do you know what she did, your cunting daughter” scene, we were already on edge and our nerves were shredded.

With this one, we go from they have no memory and things are strange to both girls suddenly looking completely different, and in need of at least basic medical care.

The character of Katherine is forgotten for a long period even though she has a scene in a church that is actually quite impactful and needed more exploration of its aftermath. I want to know what her parents were doing at that time, I want to know how a religious family would have dealt with that.

But we are left with the less interesting character of Angela.

By the time they get priests involved and then a holy woman and then a friendly neighbour, kidnap the girls and tie them to chairs ready for the exorcism, I was struggling to hold interest.

The return of Ellen Burstyn now playing in older/wiser Chris is wasted and discarded, the way the filmmakers choose to play out her story will have many Exorcist fans seething with rage.

The character would not behave this way, and did not deserve the things that happen to her in this movie. Who does Geen think he is to take the intellectual property of brilliant filmmakers and writers like Blatty and Friedkin and alter their stories so irrevocably.

The film eventually falls into a jumbled heap where Green battles to include all the aspects that he wanted to and manages to somehow service none of them properly.

I am not a churchgoer by any means but this is a religious story, and including everything under the sun just muddies the waters.

I’m not sure when filmmakers will realise that subtle, especially when it comes to this kind of story, is much more effective then jump scares and screaming and carry on.

The script is woeful, Gordon Green has no idea how people actually speak or connect, how dialogue flows and subjects are reached organically.

There are nonsensical decisions here; and the lack of care when it comes to detail is glaring and feels insulting – one spectacularly embarrassing example of this would be when everyone is mourning the loss of a character and we have an image of the ECG flatlining. It’s all very sad until you see the ECG connectors laying on the floor. No wonder we’re flatlining, the ECG isn’t even attached to the patient!

This is by no means a train wreck, but by the time the ending rolls around and it’s clear that there are sequels intended, you feel like telling the audience to not bother, to just go home and watch the excellent Exorcist TV show that was under-viewed when it was first released years ago. Unfairly cancelled after two seasons it managed to scare, honour, and add to the legacy in ways this film could only dream of.

Watch that instead.

4/10