There's nothing quite like a new Exorcist movie to chill you to the bone. This week's release The Exorcist: Believer continues the legacy of the 1973 horror masterpiece (screening as part of our Horror Season), exploring how Satanic evil is never buried but instead lies dormant.
In the original Exorcist film, directed by the late William Friedkin, mother Chris MacNeil, played by Ellen Burstyn, bore witness to her daughter Regan's horrific possession by evil forces. Fast-forward to the events of The Exorcist: Believer, and Chris must intervene to help save the souls of two possessed young girls.
The new Exorcist spooktacular comes from the Halloween dream team of David Gordon Green and producer Jason Blum. If this is your first experience with the Exorcist saga, let us recap the specifics of Chris MacNeil's journey so far and why she's so integral to ongoing events.
THE EXORCIST (1973)
- Chris is introduced as an actress who is shooting a movie in the Georgetown district of Washington D.C.
- She is renting a house in the area with her 12-year-old daughter Regan (Linda Blair) and her retinue of staff
- The affectionate Regan is caught playing with a ouija board and claims she has an invisible friend named 'Captain Howdy'
- Chris is shooting her movie at Georgetown University under director Burke Dennings (Jack MacGowan) and it's suggested that the two of them are in a relationship
- Coincidentally, Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) also works at the university as a counselor and he plays a significant role in the events to come
- One sequence tracks Chris' departure from the set to the immediately iconic sound of Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells'
- One night, Chris hosts a party that is attended Karras' friend Father Dyer (Father William O'Malley), only for Regan to appear and suddenly urinate on the floor
- Chris puts Regan's behaviour down to early adolescent changes but when Regan's bed starts to shake violently, Chris becomes perturbed
- Other ominous signs include the sound of scratching coming from the attic, which Chris attributes to rats
- When Regan's situation fails to improve she is subjected to controversial medical experiments, but they come back with nothing conclusive
- Regan later physically assaults a psychiatrist and hypnotist sent to examine her
- Regan's behaviour becomes increasingly inhuman, involving her levitating, twisting her head around, speaking in tongues and uttering blasphemies
- A distraught and terrified Chris turns to the Catholic Church for help, enlisting the help of Father Karras
- Karras is haunted by the memory of his late mother, experiencing a crisis of faith for not being with her in her final moments
- Burke Dennings is killed off-screen by the possessed Regan, found at the bottom of the house steps with his neck twisted around
- Karras tussles with the entity that has inhabited Regan's body as it projectile vomits in his face and torments him by taking on the appearance of his mother
- A senior priest, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), is drafted in to assist Karras and he identifies the demon as Pazuzu, evidence of whom he had uncovered during a Middle-Eastern dig
- Although Karras insists to Chris that Regan can be saved, the ailing Father Merrin ultimately dies in an attempt at an exorcism
- In a last-ditch attempt to save the girl, Karras goads Pazuzu into taking over his body, which it does by grabbing his Saint Joseph medallion
- Karras then jumps out of a window to his death, plunging down the same steps where Burke Dennings had been found earlier
- Karras is then administered the last rites by Father Dyer before he dies
- With Regan now saved, she and Chris leave the house and its horrors behind
- Regan finds Karras' Saint Joseph medallion on the floor and takes it with her, also stopping to kiss the deceased priest on the cheek
THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER (2023)
- The latest Exorcist movie introduces us to Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) who has a young daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett)
- One day while at school, Angela and her close friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum) begin acting strangely
- Before long their behaviour turns violent and obscene, prompting Victor to seek intervention from the Church
- However, his greatest assistance comes from the haunted Chris MacNeil who arrives on the scene to offer spiritual advice
- Upon talking to the girls, Chris is horrified at the suggestion that the demon recognises her, suggesting that Pazuzu has returned after nearly 50 years
- Chris must rally around Victor to help save the two young girls just as Regan was saved five decades earlier
Expect a memorably terrifying reunion by experiencing The Exorcist: Believer at Cineworld including premium format screenings. Click the link below to book your tickets.
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