THB #410: The Disaster Formerly Known As The Exorcist: Believer

How does it happen?

I mean, really… how the HELL does a movie this lost in its own sauce even get made.

David Gordon Green is a very strong filmmaker. Jason Blum is a very strong producer. The Exorcist is very strong IP.

And this… this… thing… is what they made.

But first, a tribute to the Universal Marketing Department.

not actually michael moses

This is the kind of marketing job that they should be using in marketing classes as an example of the highest level of taking shit and turning it into Shinola. I”m not overstating it. They did what you see from what used to be pay-tv cable stations, creating promotions for a movie after a theatrical release and months to figure out what people really want to see.

Here are both trailers…

The Universal team figured out that the legacy of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist is still very resonant with audiences. They leaned hard into that legacy by emphasizing Ellen Burstyn and her role in the original. They used what seems like every confrontational piece of dialogue coming from the possessed girls in the films. Lots of close-ups of the tools of religion. And those flash frame stills with the bright white blown out light… I think there may be one of those in the actual films. But brilliant creation of a movie experience that does not exist in the film.

Is the movie really that bad?

Worse.