--- title: Review: The Exorcist: Believer description: The greatest, strangest Exorcist film isn't the first or the most recent—it's Exorcist II: The Heretic, generally hailed as a camp classic. canonical: https://time.com/6321075/exorcist-believer-review/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-10-06T16:56:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:52:58.547Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Best 'Exorcist' Is the One Almost Everyone Hates og:description: How anyone can resist the totally out-there vision of James Earl Jones in a locust headdress is beyond me. og:url: https://time.com/6321075/exorcist-believer-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf7b991ce659ea083/698a410d16d88465bec3c4e9/exorcist-movies-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: exorcist-movies-review og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Best 'Exorcist' Is the One Almost Everyone Hates twitter:description: How anyone can resist the totally out-there vision of James Earl Jones in a locust headdress is beyond me. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf7b991ce659ea083/698a410d16d88465bec3c4e9/exorcist-movies-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Best _Exorcist_ Is the One Almost Everyone Hates > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Oct 6, 2023 4:56 PM UTC  Linda Blair in Exorcist II: The Heretic, 1977, and Olivia O'Neill in The Exorcist: Believer, 2023. Linda Blair in Exorcist II: The Heretic, 1977, and Olivia O'Neill in The Exorcist: Believer, 2023.Everett Collection; Courtesy of Universal Pictures  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Oct 6, 2023 4:56 PM UTC When [William Friedkin](https://time.com/4092445/exorcist-not-a-horror-film/) died in August at age 87, the affectionate accolades and tributes started pouring in, as was only right. His career had spanned more than 60 years, but the Friedkin film that lurks in the memory of almost everyone who has seen it is [_The Exorcist_](https://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1676793%5F1676808%5F1677008,00.html)_,_ from 1973, a somber, jaggedly effective work hailed by many as one of the greatest [horror films](https://time.com/6246026/low-budget-horror-movies-skinamarink/) of all time. Friedkin made only one Exorcist film, but in adapting William Peter Blatty’s 1971 best-seller, he’d unwittingly created a renewable resource. _The Exorcist_ has spawned numerous sequels and imitators over the years (one of them, _The Exorcist III: Legion,_ directed by Blatty himself), and it extends its long reach into the present with _The Exorcist: Believer,_ directed by [David Gordon Green](https://time.com/6107021/halloween-kills-review/) and starring [Leslie Odom Jr](https://time.com/4608373/leslie-odom-jr-hamilton-holiday-album/). As a movie subject, [demonic possession](https://time.com/4094223/terrifying-horror-movies-true-stories/) is [evergreen](https://time.com/6311090/the-nun-2-ending-conjuring-universe/). But the greatest, strangest Exorcist film may be neither the first nor the most recent; in fact, it’s the one almost everyone hates, though how anyone can resist the totally out-there vision of James Earl Jones in a locust headdress is beyond me. **Read more:**[_The 14 Most Anticipated Horror Movies of Fall 2023_](https://time.com/6309850/best-horror-movies-fall-2023/) The 1977 _Exorcist II: The Heretic,_ directed by John Boorman—with the input of his frequent collaborator Rospo Pallenberg—is generally hailed as a camp classic, a ludicrous follow-up to a masterpiece made by a genius. The consensus among many serious-minded people is that it’s just bad; they’ll happily quote its howler dialogue, and point to the ostensibly stiff performance of its star, Richard Burton, as evidence. After a screening of the wholly lackluster _Exorcist: Believer,_ I blurted out to a group of my fellow critics that _Exorcist II_ was my favorite Exorcist film. They told me outright I was crazy, that this could not even be possible. But at this point, I’ve watched _Exorcist II_ so many times that its weird excesses, its sometimes cheap-looking and sometimes dazzling effects, seem perfectly normal to me. Unlike Friedkin’s movie, it’s hardly scary at all, which could be yet another reason horror fans dismiss it. But I find Boorman’s spirit of imagination and inventiveness affecting by itself. _Exorcist II_ takes great leaps, some of which don’t work. Yet even its perceived failures force us to ask questions of ourselves: What do we really expect from a sequel? We want more of the same, only different. If we really love a movie, we may subconsciously _want_ its follow-up to fail; that way, we can remain comfortable in our original judgment, instead of being jarred out of it. A sequel that’s a let-down is an opportunity to say those words that put an extra gloss of validity on our own good taste: Nothing can top the original.  James Earl Jones in Exorcist II: The Heretic. Everett Collection There are, of course, sequels that are even greater than their predecessors—I’d submit _The Godfather Part II_ as Exhibit A. But the issue most people seem to have with _Exorcist II_ is that it’s barely a sequel at all, and even though it stars Linda Blair, who played Regan, the bedeviled preadolescent of the first film, they’re essentially right. In _Exorcist II,_ Blair’s Regan is now a teenager living in New York with her caretaker, Sharon (Kitty Winn, also returning from the first film), while her mother, actress Chris MacNeil, is off filming on location. (Ellen Burstyn refused to come aboard _Exorcist II,_ though she does have a pointless role in _The Exorcist: Believer._ More on that later.)  Linda Blair and Richard Burton in Exorcist II: The Heretic. Everett Collection It has been four years since Fathers Merrin and Karras (Max von Sydow and Jason Miller) cast out the surly demon that had taken possession of little Regan’s body, instigating some rather impressive 360-degree head-spinning and much spewing of bilious green goo, though it cost them their lives. (Von Sydow appears in _Exorcist II_ in a few flashback scenes.) Regan remembers nothing of the demon’s destructive residency, but there’s still some danger that she may be harboring damaging suppressed memories. Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher), a psychologist who specializes in high-toned hypnosis techniques, is trying to help her. Enter Burton’s Father Philip Lamont, a friend of the late Father Merrin’s who has recently attempted and failed at an exorcism of his own, resulting in a young woman’s death. To distract him from despair, a big-deal Cardinal—played by the aged Paul Henreid, who, some 35 years earlier, had wooed Bette Davis by lighting two cigarettes at once in the spectacular _Now, Voyager_—has assigned him to investigate the details of Father Merrin’s death. He approaches Dr. Tuskin in the hopes of learning about Regan’s experience, and he and the formerly possessed teen become both mentally and spiritually connected with the help of a humming, flashing-light doohickey called a Synchronizer.  Tracey Graves and Leslie Odom, Jr. in The Exorcist: Believer Courtesy of Universal That’s a lot to take in right there, though we haven’t even addressed major plot points like Father Lamont’s time-travel adventure on the back of a flying locust, the physical embodiment of the powerful demon Puzuzu, or the appearance of Jones in that fetching locust headgear. Why locusts at all, you might ask? Boorman is drawing on their fearsome Biblical connotations, but he’s also interested in ewky closeups showing how the collective beating of the swarm’s wings incite them into a violent frenzy, causing them to cannibalize one another. Good times. **Read more:** [_21 Underrated Horror Movies You Probably Haven't Seen and Can Stream Right Now_](https://time.com/5898733/underrated-horror-movies/) It all sounds so silly. And it _is,_ in a way, but it’s also bracingly unapologetic. The plot of _Exorcist II_ makes almost no sense—but when you’re dealing with spiritual mysteries, does it really pay to get too hung up on logic? _Exorcist II_ is one of those hallucinatory fever-dream pictures that you can’t fully believe you just witnessed. (At least not unless you’ve seen it five or six times, as I have.) Part of the story takes place in an African city, resplendent with a natural stone church. Boorman and his crew created this setting, an Emerald City of hardened mud clay, in Warner Bros.’ Burbank studio—the sun, a hard, red-hot circle, hangs so ominously over this landscape that it feels both real and unreal, the phantasmic illusion of a tormented priest. And Dr. Tuskin’s office is a fantastic assemblage of glass panels that reflect and refract images that may be real, or maybe not. At one point we see the real Regan, under the spell of the Synchronizer, and a ghostly version of her past, demon-possessed self engaged in a literal struggle for Dr. Tuskin’s beating heart. It’s a nutty, virtuosic effect, the kind that only a symphonic director like Boorman—the guy behind the marvelous autobiographical reverie _Hope and Glory,_ as well as the Arthurian wonder _Excalibur,_ and the feat of gorgeous madness that is _Zardoz_—could pull off. And while you wouldn’t call Burton’s performance in _Exorcist II_ one of his best, his eyes alone carry realms of weariness. He’s convincing even when he’s not really trying, maybe _because_ he’s not really trying. Is _Exorcist II_ objectively greater than Friedkin’s film? Objectively, no. But then, there’s no such thing as objectivity when it comes to explaining why certain films beguile us and others merely earn our admiration. I was 12 when _The Exorcist_ came out, a dutiful Catholic schoolgirl, and our teacher, Sister Joseph, forbade us from seeing it. The bishops—or someone—had decreed that even watching _The Exorcist_ could cause us to become possessed. Yipes! Who needed that? Pimples were bad enough.  Olivia O'Neill in The Exorcist: Believer Courtesy of Universal Pictures When I finally did see it, some 20 years later, I understood why it had why it had terrified audiences upon its release, and also why it had been so controversial. (Though in some ways, it’s the best advertisement for the Catholic Church you could possibly make. Hey, their arcane, rarely used ritual actually _worked._) But Friedkin’s skill and elegance notwithstanding, I still love _Exorcist II_ more. As for Green’s _Exorcist: Believer,_ which starts out strong—evoking all the reasons demons in search of a body to possess can’t resist the hormonal lightning rod of adolescent girls—and ends in a dumb jumble of generic-looking zombie-girl Blumhouse special effects: I’ve already forgotten it. Odom is a terrific actor, and he makes a believably distraught dad. But poor Ellen Burstyn. Long after refusing to appear in _Exorcist II,_ she agrees to show up in this thing—as the older version of Chris, now the ultimate coastal grandma, dressed in floaty, flattering white scarves and ropes of crystal beads—only to get about 10 minutes of screen time, during which her character suffers a needless and stupid indignity. Though it’s not something she could have known some 47 years ago, Burstyn said yes to the wrong Exorcist sequel. If only she’d chosen the one with poetry in its soul. 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