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Critic’s notebook: william friedkin’s towering ‘the exorcist’ redefined horror.

The 1973 blockbuster nominated for 10 Oscars leaves an unparalleled stamp on the genre and in popular culture, sending chills down countless spines to this day.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Is there another modern horror movie as influential and enduringly terrifying as The Exorcist ?

Some might make a case for the atmospheric chill of works that preceded it, like Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby or Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now . Others perhaps will point to subsequent hits — the brutal shocks of John Carpenter’s Halloween , for instance, or the mercilessly ratcheted suspense of Ridley Scott’s Alien .

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Two years earlier, Friedkin, who died Monday at his home in Los Angeles, aged 87, had already reinvented the police procedural with The French Connection , a bristling neo-noir that to this day has few equals in its hurtling car-chase action, its viscerally immersive camerawork, its vérité character portraits and gritty use of New York City locations.

The stamp of that film — which dominated the 1972 Academy Awards, winning five Oscars, including best picture, director and actor for Gene Hackman as hard-boiled narcotics detective “Popeye” Doyle — can be seen on countless crime movies. Filmmakers from Akira Kurosawa to David Fincher to the Safdie Brothers have acknowledged a debt to The French Connection , while TV cop shows such as Hill Street Blues , The Wire and Southland have taken their cue from its unflinching documentary-style street realism.

But ask popular movie fans under a certain age what they know about the cop thriller, and many will respond with a shrug. Ask them about The Exorcist , on the other hand, and unless they’ve been living under a rock their entire lives, they’ll be able to cite a whole series of iconic freakout moments — projectile vomiting, 360-degree head-spinning, levitation, crucifix masturbation.

If they’ve seen the 2000 extended director’s cut with reintegrated scenes, they’ll probably add the reverse spider walk, which is echoed in so much J-horror.

I first caught The Exorcist as a young teenager in Australia a couple years after its initial release, when it hit the drive-in circuit. It was rated R, which meant no one under 18 could be admitted, but I hid under a blanket in the back of a friend’s van and finally got to experience the most frightening two hours of my life up to that point. To a kid with a Catholic upbringing, nothing hits home like religious horror.

My childhood home had a long driveway running alongside a front garden full of tall trees casting spectral shadows. By the time I made it all the way to the back door, my legs had turned to jelly. I still can’t hear those ominously chiming notes of Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” without shooting a nervous glance over my shoulder.

Rewatching the film innumerable times in the decades since, its icy power has never diminished for me, and whenever I see it, the quasi-subliminal image of the demonic face that appears in key moments haunts my sleep. The one time I visited Georgetown in D.C., I made a pilgrimage to the 1895 concrete steps where the intense young priest Father Damien Karras, harrowingly played by Jason Miller, tumbled to his death. Even in broad daylight, I had to get away from there fast.

So much of the horror that achieved mainstream success in the ‘80s and ‘90s was colonized by teens in peril, usually being punished for having sex. What’s great about The Exorcist is that it’s a supernatural movie for grownups, and sure, it’s not alone in that respect, but it did more than arguably any film of its period to lend respectability to the genre, legitimizing B-movies beyond horror in the process.

The mere fact of it being nominated for 10 Oscars, including best picture, was unheard of for a horror movie. That’s attributable not just to its staggering commercial success, with box office lines famously snaking around the block in major cities, but to the insistence of Friedkin and novelist-screenwriter William Peter Blatty on treating the material not as sensationalistic but as a serious drama about ancient evil in the modern world.

That extends also to the casting. In addition to Blair and Miller, Ellen Burstyn as Regan’s distraught screen actress mother Chris MacNeil; Max von Sydow as the senior Church authority on exorcisms, Father Merrin; and Lee J. Cobb as investigating officer Lt. Kinderman ensured that no matter how potentially lurid the scenes in that hellish bedroom became, they never surrendered their dramatic integrity.

Both the direct sequels — 1977’s Exorcist II: The Heretic and 1990’s The Exorcist III — are justly all but forgotten. Paul Schrader’s troubled 2004 prequel, Exorcist: The Beginning , much of which was reshot by Renny Harlin, was a flop. Fox’s TV series, also called The Exorcist , extended the franchise in 2016. But despite airing for two seasons, it now seems scarcely a blip on the horror radar.

That’s not to mention the endless unrelated films that came after, jumping on the religious horror bandwagon — I have a particular soft spot for 1976’s The Omen .

Longtime admirers of Friedkin’s horror classic will likely approach the upcoming reboot — in which director David Gordon Green will attempt to do what he did for the Halloween franchise — with caution. The first part of a planned sequel trilogy, The Exorcist: Believer , is due in October. I’ll see it eagerly and with an open mind, but I feel safe in predicting the power of Christ will compel me right back to revisit the towering original.

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Horror, Hysteria and a Spinning Head

Reconsidering ‘the exorcist’ at 50.

Could a movie about a girl possessed by the devil really have caused audience members to faint and lose their lunch at theaters? The vehement reaction to “The Exorcist” when it premiered in late 1973 helped create a special place for it in pop culture, as evidenced by the media frenzy at the time. We asked three of our critics for new perspectives on the film: what it accomplished then and what it represents to us now.

“I spent an evening in the lobby just to see if people really do come stumbling out in the middle of the picture as reported — they did.”

‘Exorcist’ makes him faint, break 3 ribs “‘I must have fallen onto the edge of an aisle seat. That’s the only logical explanation for what I did to myself,’ said Mark Reuben, 27, of Mill Valley, Calif.”

“Disgusting.”

They Wait Hours — to Be Shocked “Otto Ross, 22, who described himself as ‘a New Jersey tombstone engraver,’ said: ‘I wanted to see how the girl’s face becomes contorted and how she emits a foul odor from her mouth. And I want to see how they show her masturbating with a crucifix. I can’t believe they could really show that.’”

“I must confess that there were times where I had to force myself to look at the screen.”

‘The Exorcist’ is a Clash of Belief Systems

Of all the heads to spin, why this one?

That question was at the core of the dispute between the director William Friedkin and the screenwriter William Peter Blatty during the making of “The Exorcist.” Their artistic argument was not merely about narrative or character, but the fundamental meaning of the movie.

Blatty, a devout Catholic whose screenplay was an adaptation of his best-selling novel, aimed to make a movie about how an evil demon tests the faith of a priest, Father Damien Karras, through taking over the body of an innocent girl. In an interview more than a decade ago at his Maryland home, Blatty told me that he aimed for more than scares. He took exorcism seriously, and perceived a real and urgent threat. “There are demons running all over that campus,” he said about Georgetown University, the school he attended and the setting for the movie.

Friedkin, an agnostic Jew, was less invested in the religious message but was fascinated by Blatty’s story, which follows an increasingly desperate mother as she tries to explain why her daughter is behaving strangely. After exhausting medical options, she contacts Karras, a priest questioning his faith.

To Friedkin, the seeming randomness of this girl was part of what made the movie so frightening. He preferred some ambiguity, so he cut out two scenes: one that spells out how the priest is being targeted, the other a comforting coda where a detective talks to a friend of Karras. These changes rattled Blatty, who thought they snipped the message right out of the movie. Friedkin told him: “I’m not doing a commercial for the Catholic Church.”

Blatty appealed to the studio to restore the changes but got nowhere. By its premiere, he felt his movie had shifted from being about the virtue and triumph of faith into exactly the kind of morally indifferent gross-out he didn’t want to make.

Blatty and Friedkin stopped talking to each other but later reconciled. (Blatty died in 2017, and Friedkin died this past August.) As a “gift,” Friedkin restored the cuts when the movie was rereleased in 2000. But the original, which you can still see streaming on Max, hits harder. Its abrupt ending and refusal to overexplain are strengths. Not knowing why this girl is being tormented is far more horrifying than the narrative satisfaction of pat closure.

The religious conviction of Blatty’s story still comes across, but with more dimension. “The Exorcist” works on multiple fears of the unknown: the confusion of a parent over the changes of a child approaching puberty; the intimidating jargon of doctors. But its most important fear, one achieved through the clash of aesthetics between Blatty and Friedkin, stems from the mysteries of faith. It holds onto the anxiety of inexplicable awe in the face of an overwhelming world, something horror and religion share.

Sometimes the best work comes not from an artist achieving a vision but compromising it.

“It was a traumatic experience.”

‘Exorcist’ Keeps Ambulances Busy “‘We’ve practically got a plumber living here now,’ theater manager Henry Marshall disclosed yesterday. ‘The smell in the bathrooms is awful. People are rushing in and they’re missing the toilet seat by inches.’”

‘Exorcist’ literally makes filmgoers sick — especially the fainthearted “Steven Houghton, a theater employee, said a stockpile of smelling salts was on hand to accommodate the fainters. ‘It’s mostly at night that they faint,’ he said. ‘And it’s mostly guys who faint.’”

Record crowds both fascinated and nauseated “The Roman Catholic clergy is as divided as the critics about the film. Some join psychologists in expressing concern over its effect on younger viewers, others see it as a useful parable.”

“The part where she started spitting out all the green stuff … Ugh.”

Will the Real Devil Speak Up? Yes! “Millions of parents may find it especially chilling that Linda Blair, the horse-loving teeny-bopper who played Regan, actually spoke all of the brutal obscenities and blasphemies heard in the movie.”

It’s essentially a ‘women’s picture’

Filled with exquisite pain and drenched in tears, the classic women’s picture — “Stella Dallas,” “Now, Voyager,” “Imitation of Life” — follows a familiar trajectory. A beautiful woman struggles and endures; experiences romantic troubles and family issues; suffers deeply if magnificently while often sacrificing her happiness and giving her all for a man or maybe a child or both, which is pretty much what happens in that unsung maternal melodrama, “The Exorcist” — except that here the tears come with a generous serving of pea soup.

Of course “The Exorcist” is a horror movie, but, among other things, it’s about fraught female lives and deep emotions, and in rewatching it, I was struck by how much it shares with the women’s movies that I love. At center is Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), a glamorous actress and single mother who’s raising her daughter, Regan (Linda Blair), in a Georgetown townhouse that may have rats in the attic. The novelist William Peter Blatty based the character on his old Georgetown neighbor and fellow paranormal enthusiast, Shirley MacLaine, who starred in a very different mother-daughter weepie, “Terms of Endearment.”

The mother-daughter film that I flashed on while looking at “The Exorcist” again, though, is the original “Mildred Pierce,” the 1945 noir starring Joan Crawford that memorably mixes crime and melodrama. Like Burstyn’s character, Crawford’s Mildred is a hard-working mother devoted to a daughter whose ugliness nearly destroys them both. True, Regan’s problem is that she may be demonically possessed, but Mildred’s daughter Veda (Ann Blyth) is more terrifying because her cruelty toward her mother is so deliberate. It’s the devil that seems to slap Regan; it’s Veda who slaps Mildred so hard her mother falls to the ground.

The focus on Regan’s body in “The Exorcist” similarly ties it to female-driven melodramas in which ostensibly troubled (physically or otherwise) women are diagnosed and cured invariably by a male doctor or lover. Blatty was inspired to write his novel by an exorcism involving a teenage boy. Blatty seems to have changed the child to a girl to put some distance between his novel and the case; by making Regan 12 (she’s 11 in the book), the film further complicates the character. Looking back, I wonder if it was the devil or the vision of an out-of-control child-woman that freaked me out when I fled the theater at age 13.

It’s fitting that the biggest, most contested film to open in 1973 is about a life-or-death struggle over a female body, a fight that was also at the center of the Supreme Court’s biggest, most contested decision that year: Roe v. Wade. After “The Exorcist” hit, Friedkin told Variety that it was a “woman’s picture,” and while he didn’t elaborate on that comment I wonder if the Roe decision was rattling around in his head. True, Regan isn’t pregnant (for that story line, see “Rosemary’s Baby”), but her body is also no longer her own. In the end, medical science proves incapable of helping Regan, so Chris desperately turns to two Catholic priests to free her child body and soul, a turn that only solidifies “The Exorcist” as one great women’s film.

CLERGY SURVEY: ‘Exorcist’ Reaction Eyed “The Devil does exist and can possess a person. This is the belief of a majority of area clergymen surveyed this week.”

“In the name of Jesus Christ, the demon has to come out.”

‘Exorcist’ Faint opened Door to One Couple “‘The Exorcist’ will always hold a special place in the hearts of Larry Watts and Doris Davey. Watts, 41, manager of the State-Lake Theater, and Miss Davey, also 41, met two months ago when she fainted in his arms during the showing of ‘The Exorcist.’ They were married this week.”

Brevardians Horrored, Excited by ‘Exorcist’ “I’m no prude, mind you. I went to see ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and enjoyed it. I recommended it to my best friends. But I wouldn’t and don’t recommend ‘The Exorcist’ to anyone.”

“Oh God, I can’t believe it.”

‘The Exorcist’ Is a Subversively queer movie

In horror movies, otherness is terrifying. Psychopaths, life-suckers, girls with freaky powers: They’re all monsters. That’s been a trope that was applied to gay people even when homosexuality could only be hinted at in cinema’s shadows. When Michael Landon’s character pleads for help in “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” (1957) — “I know what I am!,” he confesses to his doctor — he isn’t just talking about being a dreamboat in a varsity jacket.

I didn’t know any of this in the late 1980s, when I was a teenage closet case and my father took me to see “The Exorcist” at the Aut-O-Rama drive-in theater in North Ridgeville, Ohio, if my memory serves me right. I remembered being grossed out by vomit and shocked by the sexualized blasphemies that came out of little Regan’s pustulous mouth. I liked Father Karras, a handsome nice guy who loved Jesus, like I did. I couldn’t wait to see the movie again.

What I didn’t understand then is that like all horror films, “The Exorcist” is about traumas and how they originate, fester and can be overcome. I also didn’t recognize — and it took leaving Christianity and the closet for this to click — that the film, released four years into a post-Stonewall America, is subversively queer.

There’s gay stuff on the surface. Father Karras and Father Dyer are in a tender bromance. The film is so outrageous, it borders on camp; “Repossessed,” the 1990 “Exorcist” parody, parlayed that sensibility into gay sex gags and a joke-puking Linda Blair.

But the deeper reason “The Exorcist” resonates as queer is because it’s about a child consumed by an entity that the church is called on to excise, a hideous intersection of metaphorical queerness and real trauma that sounds a lot like conversion therapy.

Hear me out. When I was a Bible-believing teenager, I thought God was mad that I liked boys. The only way to treat this abomination, I believed, was to beseech Him to make me go straight. I tried. It failed.

That’s similar to what happens to Regan in “The Exorcist,” only her demon is an allegorical homosexuality. When Fathers Karras and Merrin try to cure Regan with the words “the power of Christ compels you,” they say out loud the quiet part that I whispered to myself. They tried, priests died, and it worked.

Ready for the really queer part? Unlike the first time I saw “The Exorcist,” I now root for the demon. That’s what horror can do: align your sympathies with the monster and against the presumed forces of good, not to learn evil but to understand it.

As I see it, Regan wasn’t an innocent girl overcome by an old demon. She was a young woman with new rage who gave voice to queer people who were tired of being told — by religion, parents, medical professionals — that they were sick and needed to be cured. Her message to the church and her well-meaning mom was a prophetically queer one: Back off. I’ve got power now.

“I passed out in about the first half hour.”

Exorcist Reaction Mostly ‘Hokum’ “‘... about 95 percent of it.’”

“I don’t know … I guess it was a good movie?”

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The Exorcist

When a mysterious entity possesses a young girl, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life. When a mysterious entity possesses a young girl, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life. When a mysterious entity possesses a young girl, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.

• William Friedkin
• William Peter Blatty
• Ellen Burstyn
• Max von Sydow
• Linda Blair
• 1.5K User reviews
• 253 Critic reviews
• 83 Metascore
• 18 wins & 21 nominations total

Top cast 42

• Chris MacNeil

• Father Merrin

• Lt. Kinderman

• Burke Dennings

• Father Karras

• Father Dyer
• (as Reverend William O'Malley S.J.)

• Dr. Barringer - Clinic Director
• (as Pete Masterson)

• Psychiatrist
• Tom - President of University
• (as Reverend Thomas Bermingham S.J.)

• Karras' Mother

• Karras' Uncle

• Language Lab Director
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia In the scene where Regan projectile vomits at Father Karras, the vomit was intended to hit Jason Miller in the chest, but the plastic tubing misfired, hitting him in the face. His reaction of shock and disgust while wiping away the vomit is genuine, and Miller admitted in interviews that he was very angered by this mistake.
• Goofs William Peter Blatty closely modeled the exorcism scene on the actual rite of exorcism in the Church's "Rituale Romanum". Father Merrin can be seen opening a copy of the Rituale in the scene in question. However, the priests depart from the Rituale in two important details. First, there should have been four people (apart from Regan) in the room during the exorcism: the exorcist himself; an assistant priest to take over in case the exorcist died midway through; a member of the victim's family of the same sex as the victim, to help restrain her; and a doctor, to (among other things) administer any medication that was needed. Due to the "2 Priest rule", Fr Merrin should have delayed the second round of the exorcism and phoned the bishop to get a replacement for Fr Karras, instead of trying to tackle it on his own.

Demon : What an excellent day for an exorcism.

Father Karras : You would like that?

Demon : Intensely.

Father Karras : But wouldn't that drive you out of Regan?

Demon : It would bring us together.

Father Karras : You and Regan?

Demon : You and us.

• Crazy credits There are no opening credits after the title. Although it is commonplace now, it was unheard of in 1973.
• Alternate versions The network TV version originally broadcast on CBS in the '80s was edited by William Friedkin , who also shot a replacement insert of the Virgin Mary statue crying blood, replacing the shot of a more obscenely desecrated statue. Friedkin himself spoke the Demon's new, censored lines; he was unwilling to work with Mercedes McCambridge again. The lines "Your mother sucks cocks in hell, Karras" and "Shove it up your ass you faggot" were re-dubbed by Friedkin as "Your mother still rots in hell" and "Shut your face, you faggot." Several of Ellen Burstyn's lines were also re-dubbed by the actress, replacing "Jesus Christ" with "Judas Priest" and omitting the f-word. Most of the profanity spoken by Regan is also cut out, as are the shots of her being abused with a crucifix and forcing Chris' face into her crotch. There is also a slightly alternate shot of Regan's face morphed into the white face of the demon just after Merrin arrives at the MacNeil house (the theatrical versions only show the beginning of the transformation). This network TV version is rarely if ever used for TV and cable showings today.
• Connections Edited into Exorcist II: The Heretic: Alternate Opening (1977)
• Soundtracks Kanon For Orchestra and Tape Written by Krzysztof Penderecki Courtesy of Angel Records

User reviews 1.5K

• gregorycanfield
• Jul 17, 2021
• Why is this movie called "the scariest" or "one of the scariest movies" of all time?
• Who desecrated the statue in the church?
• What year was the film first released for network television and what network premiered the release?
• December 26, 1973 (United States)
• United States
• Warner Brothers
• El exorcista
• Mosul, Iraq
• Warner Bros.
• Hoya Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $11,000,000 (estimated)
• $233,005,644
• Sep 24, 2000
• $430,872,776

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 2 minutes
• Mono (original release)

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The Exorcist Reviews

The macabre, obscene demonstrations of manifest evil still retain their power to startle and nauseate, particularly Linda Blair's "head-turning" antics as the possessed child.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 9, 2024

The mindless and hysterical banality of the evil presented in The Exorcist is the most terrifying thing about the film. The Americans should cer­tainly know more about evil than that; if they pre­tend otherwise, they are lying.

Full Review | May 1, 2024

The Exorcist more conspicuously pushed into the mainstream a hitherto disreputable genre.

Full Review | Jan 2, 2024

Seminal and important for good reasons.

Full Review | Oct 12, 2023

Perhaps the most influential American horror movie ever made, The Exorcist was a Rorschach test when it came out. Fifty years later, it still sticks with us.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

The scariest movie ever made...

Full Review | Sep 30, 2023

This film's ponderings about the nature of good and evil still merit consideration today. It also features some wonderful performances from Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow and, especially, a then pre-adolescent Linda Blair.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 29, 2023

The movie moves at a pace that is unheard of today; a good hour and a quarter pass before the word "exorcism" is even mentioned. Yet it weaves a frightening spell right from the get-go.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 29, 2023

The Exorcist remains an exceptionally well-made, thoughtful film, enacted by a first-rate cast and displaying an almost masterful interplay between the humdrum and the horrific.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 29, 2023

Friedkin performed a similar alchemy to that of Francis Ford Coppola [with The Godfather]: He took a good, pulpy novel and turned it into a great, enduring movie.

Some parts are bound to be greeted by unintentional laughter today, the result of countless parodies over the years. Still, The Exorcist has lost none of its ability to invade your nightmares.

The Exorcist accomplishes what so few horrormeisters save Stephen King have managed: It sets sin and salvation not in the realm of graveyards and goblins, but in day-to-day life.

Full Review | Sep 29, 2023

By the end, after the priests had finished their battle for Regan MacNeil's body and soul, I expected to see my frigid breath hanging in the air.

The Exorcist has dated little, and its essential premise makes it still one of the most modern of horror films. The monster isn't lurking out there. It resides in us, even in the most banal vessel imaginable, a sweet schoolgirl.

The tension is created by brilliant direction, tight editing, hydraulics, Linda Blair's makeup and the voice of the Prince of Darkness that chills the spine and showers the body with goosebumps. The acting in this dark movie is flawless, too.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 29, 2023

It is carefully constructed, filled with nuance, designed to build fear one minute at a time. There can be no escape, no break, just the horror unfolding before your eyes.

A horror film for grown-ups, paced out carefully, graced by much emotional subtlety and a spirit of intelligent questioning that never lets the viewer of any or no religious persuasion slip into complacency.

Spewing from Blair's 12-year-old mouth via McCambridge's distressed larynx, the script's sexual obscenities are shocking enough to accomplish the virtually impossible and restore the potency of the four-letter word.

The Exorcist is a masterful movie three decades later because it was made by filmmakers who had something to say and who knew when to use restraint and when to entertain and when to burrow under your skin.

Where previously it was an appalling subversion of good taste, subtlety, exposure to Ouija boards and the Catholic stigma of divorce, it now seems clumsy and adolescent.

Why The Exorcist Is The Best Horror Movie Of All Time

When The Exorcist was unleashed on audiences in December 26, 1973, it scared the living hell out of people, and for good reason. It didn't just have incredibly shocking scenes that traumatized moviegoers, but it was also a very deep story that confronted people's religious and spiritual beliefs. It didn't just make you scream, but it also made you think.

Based on the best-selling novel by William Peter Blatty, the book was scary enough, but in the hands of William Friedkin, who was hot from the success of The French Connection , Blatty's story was brought to terrifying life on the big screen, and it left a lasting impression that still stands strong today. Seriously, whenever you talk about the all-time horror films, The Exorcist usually comes up first. But why exactly does it stand out among its terrifying peers? Well, from its strong performances to its incredible effects, here's the case for why The Exorcist is the best horror movie of all time.

The Exorcist has great source material

One of the oddest facts about The Exorcist is that novelist William Peter Blatty was primarily a comedy writer, and it was directed by someone who wasn't a fan of horror films. But Blatty was a devout Catholic, and he wrote The Exorcist when he was having what The Guardian categorized as a "crisis of faith" after his mother died. Ultimately, writing The Exorcist brought Blatty back in touch with his faith, but the book wasn't an immediate bestseller.

As recalled in the horror history Reel Terror , it was by chance that there was an opening for Blatty to appear on The Dick Cavett Show . With one of Cavett's guests unable to attend, Blatty was able to talk at length about his novel, and The Exorcist suddenly became a major literary hit. It reportedly sold 13 million copies in the States.

When Warner Brothers secured the film rights, most Hollywood A-list directors turned it down, but William Friedkin (pictured) jumped at it immediately. Where a lot of books are usually adapted into scripts by other writers, Blatty adapted his own work with Friedkin's guidance, insuring a strong transition from the page to the screen.

In so many horror films, the story is often sacrificed for terrifying visuals, but The Exorcist was a great adaptation of Blatty's novel that delivered a strong aesthetic punch, as well. In fact, one of the only Oscars The Exorcist would win would be for Best Adapted Screenplay .

The Exorcist works on a much deeper level than many horror films

Where The Exorcist helped make Blatty's faith stronger, the film made many people question and confront their own religious beliefs. The Exorcist presented evil in a very convincing way that even made non-believers scared. This could be one of the big reasons why the film struck a nerve with audiences like no horror film before ... or arguably since.

As The Atlantic points out, " The Exorcist got audiences thinking about good, evil, and God while they were both entertained and frightened." And as Catholic World Report states, "The audience of [ The Exorcist ] is forced to undergo horror in order to clarify the issue of good and evil ... it asks that we admit, through our fears, that we ourselves could experience evil in a way that would shake our very being."

Whether you believe in God or not, The Exorcist certainly gives you a lot of food for thought, whereas a lot of other horror films, even the best of Alfred Hitchcock , primarily just want to scare you silly.

It doesn't have a typical horror approach

Where the major studios and critics are usually pretty dismissive about horror movies in general, The Exorcist was one of those films that took the genre up a notch from the usual fare.

The fact that neither Blatty or Friedkin had tackled a horror story before gave The Exorcist a fresh approach. A lot of horror film directors get easily caught up in the cliches of the genre. But Friedkin was never a big fan of horror films, and Blatty was eager to have him aboard because Friedkin had previously made documentaries, and he wanted the film to have a realistic approach. (To this day, Friedkin doesn't consider The Exorcist a horror film but a "theological thriller." )

As Blatty recalled in the documentary Fear of God , "This needs an honest director that is agnostic on the subject and can give this incredible story such a sense of documentary reality that it will work." Friedkin added, "It's not a film about Dracula, it's a film about people who live up the street." And as The Exorcist proves, this is one of the keys to crafting a great horror film — putting your story in a convincing environment where people can believe it could actually happen.

It doesn't have movie star baggage

A lot of times when you see a big movie star in a film, you often don't see the character they're playing. Instead, you just see the celebrity on the screen. The Exorcist wisely didn't pick major celebrities to star in the film but good, solid, believable actors that weren't household names.

For example, take the actress who plays Chris MacNeil, the heroic mom. Ellen Burstyn had just broken through for an acclaimed role in The Last Picture Show , but she wasn't as well known as the actresses who were originally considered for the film, namely Shirley MacLaine, Anne Bancroft, and Jane Fonda. (In fact, the character of Chris MacNeil was inspired by MacLaine , who Blatty knew well.)

The roles of the two priests went to Max Von Sydow, largely known for starring in Ingmar Bergman films, and Jason Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright ( That Championship Season ). Plus, there was the discovery of Linda Blair , who played Regan. Again, a largely unknown cast brought more realism to the movie, giving the audience the impression that these seemed like real people going through a harrowing supernatural experience.

The Exorcist had state-of-the-art effects that still hold up

These days, it's almost too easy to create special effects with CGI. But back in the 1970s, you had to get your hands dirty and do it for real, and perhaps no movie did it better than The Exorcist .

The 1973 horror classic broke a lot of ground with special effects, and everything was done live on the set, in camera. As Friedkin recalled in the documentary  Fear of God , he didn't use optical effects in the film because he didn't believe they would look convincing enough. And on his team were Dick Smith, one of the greatest make-up artists in Hollywood, and special effects wizard Marcel Vercoutere. 

To bring Blatty's novel to life, Smith and Vercoutere practically had to reinvent the wheel, and it took a lot of trial and error to figure out how to make it happen. After all, they had to fling people around, make beds rattle, and disguise  a 43-year-old Max von Sydow as an 80-year-old man. Needless to say, their hard work and innovation really paid off.

Special effects technology has come a long way since The Exorcist , but all these decades after it was released, the effects are still very convincing, especially considering the film was done without any rubbery CGI.

It has some of the most horrific and unsettling set pieces ever

Many horror film set pieces can leave indelible impressions on viewers, and even if you've only seen The Exorcist once, you'll always remember such infamous elements as the split pea soup projectile vomit, the horrific crucifix scene, the levitation scene, the shockingly foul language, and the spinning head.

Yet the set pieces in The Exorcist  aren't just shocking for the sake of it. For example, in the case of the crucifix scene, it's necessary to the story because the mother has to be pushed to the limit where she's willing to try an exorcism as a last resort. Sure, it's disturbing, but there's a deeper point to it all. And the pacing of these shocking scenes is absolutely key to The Exorcist 's longevity.

A lot of '70s films move way slower than more recent films, and that can befuddle a lot of modern audiences when something doesn't blow up within the first five minutes. However, the story beats, shock moments, climax, and resolution of The Exorcist are all plotted out well, and the set pieces of the film feel organic in the story, not tacked-on or placed in the movie just for the sake of it.

William Friedkin gave the film unsettling camera tricks and sound effects

A lot of the scariest elements of The Exorcist are brutal and in your face, but there are also good scares you register unconsciously. For example, William Friedkin used split-second flash cuts of demonic faces in the film, as well as a lot of faintly heard tricks in the soundtrack that creep up on you.

As Friedkin told DGA Quarterly Magazine , there were several scary make-up test shots he decided not to use. However, as he explained, "I thought if we could just show it in one or two frames that it would be pretty frightening. I wound up using them as subliminal cuts, no more than two or three frames, an eighth of a second or so. They worked very effectively because the young girl was supposedly possessed by several demons; it looked as though it was the manifestation of these other personalities."

And as for the sounds, in The Exorcist documentary Fear of God , Friedkin recalled it took four months to put the film's audio track together, including a lot of experimental noises, like recordings of insects that creep up on you from deep in the background.

The Exorcist has no humor to break it up

Some horror fans don't like their horror mixed with humor, even though it was done to great effect in the Evil Dead films and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein . Well, if you don't want any humor in your horror, you came to the right place with The Exorcist .

Humor is often an essential element in horror films because it gives the audience a break and a chance to catch their breath. A good laugh in a horror film can get a lot of nervous energy out of your system after you get scared. But  The Exorcist isn't kidding around, and without any chuckles to give the audience a break, it gives moviegoers a relentless pummeling, instead.

For those who don't like humor mixed with horror, they'll often say they don't go to a horror film to laugh. If you haven't seen The Exorcist , trust us, once you check it out, you won't be yuckin' it up.

The Exorcist is still insanely scary and effective after all these years

When you see reaction videos to The Exorcist on YouTube, the people who've never seen it before are still freaking out, which is a testament to the film's lasting power. The Exorcist still hits people in the gut, and considering it's nearly 50 years old, it's passed the most important test — the test of time.

Yet if The Exorcist had nothing deeper than its shocking set pieces, it wouldn't be as well remembered today. The Exorcist has lasted because it's a well-paced story that's well-written and masterfully directed. Plus, it has believable actors in the key roles, it has practical effects that hold up better than today's CGI, and it's still incredibly thought-provoking.

There are certainly many terrifying horror movies out there, and many scary films that have tried to outdo The Exorcist in terms of gore, special effects, and shock value. But it's doubtful there will ever be a horror film that will have the same incredible impact that The Exorcist had — and continues to have — on people. You just can't repeat the incredible elements of the film that all came together and created a perfect storm of terror.

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The exorcist.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 66 Reviews
• Kids Say 167 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Trendsetting shocker about a possessed child.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Exorcist is a terrifying 1970s horror film about a young girl who becomes demonically possessed and violent. Expect extreme gore, grotesque effects (bulging eyes, sores, etc.), and scares, and two important characters die. A girl repeatedly stabs her crotch with a cross and…

Why Age 16+?

Extreme violence, gore, and psychological torture. Upon demonic possession, a ma

A little girl taken over by the devil doesn't hold back in the swearing departme

Social imbibing, and a character is drunk at a party. Mention of pills and pot.

A possessed young girl lewdly propositions priests and repeatedly stabs her crot

Any Positive Content?

Father Merrin demonstrates immense courage by sacrificing his own life to save a

All characters are White. Father Merrin and Father Karras portray Catholicism in

The film hints that faith can save and redeem people, but in general, violence p

Violence & Scariness

Extreme violence, gore, and psychological torture. Upon demonic possession, a main character kills someone off-screen and repeatedly punches and slaps others. Grotesque appearances include bulging and darkened eyes, sores, and extreme scarring. There's projectile vomit, and a character crawls upside down along a flight of stairs, rotating her head completely around. A character harshly and repeatedly stabs her crotch with a cross while laughing hysterically. Verbal abuse targets characters' traumas and insecurities, and two positive characters die -- one by falling out of a window and rolling down flights of stairs, blood pooling.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

A little girl taken over by the devil doesn't hold back in the swearing department: "F--k," "f--got," "c--ksucker," "c--t," "s--t," "bastard," "ass," and "hell." Characters say "Christ" and "Jesus" both in religious contexts and also as exclamations.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A possessed young girl lewdly propositions priests and repeatedly stabs her crotch with a cross while chanting "let Jesus f--k you" and "lick me."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Role Models

Father Merrin demonstrates immense courage by sacrificing his own life to save a possessed girl. He perseveres through the evil force's insults and assaults and never stops trying to defeat it. The younger priest, Father Karras, also sacrifices his life to save an innocent one. Chris shows courage and love by standing by her daughter throughout these trials.

Diverse Representations

All characters are White. Father Merrin and Father Karras portray Catholicism in a positive light, selflessly fighting evil. Elder priest Merrin is a guiding light in this otherwise dark film and mentors the younger Karras. Chris shows courage and love by standing by her daughter, Regan, even when Regan can no longer recognize her. But extreme violence against women, seen through Regan's horrifying self-harm and abuses thrown at her mother, victimizes rather than empowers them.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Positive Messages

The film hints that faith can save and redeem people, but in general, violence prevails in a dark world.

Parents need to know that The Exorcist is a terrifying 1970s horror film about a young girl who becomes demonically possessed and violent. Expect extreme gore, grotesque effects (bulging eyes, sores, etc.), and scares, and two important characters die. A girl repeatedly stabs her crotch with a cross and crawls a flight of stairs upside down, turning her head completely around. She also frequently says "f--k," "f--got," "c--ksucker," "c--t," "s--t," "bastard," "ass," and "hell." Though the film generally shows darkness prevailing, it hints at hope, and characters demonstrate positive strengths such as courage, perseverance, and self-sacrifice. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (66)
• Kids say (167)

Based on 66 parent reviews

A horror classic, but keep it away from kids!

What's the story.

In THE EXORCIST, Linda Blair plays Regan MacNeil, the bright 12-year-old daughter of successful actress Chris ( Ellen Burstyn ), who can afford to raise the girl in a nurturing atmosphere with live-in cooks and nannies (Regan's absentee father is written off as self-absorbed and oblivious). The first signs of trouble include Regan playing with a Ouija board and claiming she's communicated with a ghost she calls Captain Howdy. Then the girl begins behaving abnormally, urinating in front of party guests and foretelling death for Chris' film-director boyfriend. While Regan suffers grueling medical exams and gets progressively worse, the story line simultaneously follows Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller), a Greek American Catholic priest with some doubts about his religion. When medical science fails to cure the howling, obscenity-spewing, uncontrollable Regan, doctors point Chris to Father Karras, whose background in psychology includes the now-rare rite of exorcism. Karras summons another priest to help, the wiser and older Father Merrin ( Max Von Sydow ), and together they begin to do battle with Regan's occupier.

Is It Any Good?

This shockingly violent film was reported to have made audience members faint when it first came out in the 1970s. Director William Friedkin defined the modern horror genre with The Exorcist , using perversion and brutality as key traits. Thanks in part to Blair's wrenching, Oscar-nominated performance, the film was a huge hit, earning 10 times its $10 million budget -- a then-lavish sum for a horror flick. Movie historians cite it (along with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ) as the conclusive end of old-school spook shows featuring Dracula and Frankenstein and bobbing rubber bats. The moans, snarls, and profane words from Regan (most are actually the dubbed-in voice of a well-known older actress, Mercedes McCambridge) amount to some of the most chilling audio ever done for film. And the infamous effects of projectile vomit and blood, blaspheming, and general obscenity remain as disturbing today as ever.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the film's religious and scientific overtones. Does Father Karras regain his religious faith in The Exorcist 's finale?

How does Father Merrin demonstrate courage and perseverance ? Is it worth it for him to sacrifice his life for his faith?

Why do you think The Exorcist stands the test of time as one of the best horror films in Hollywood history?

Is the film's violence and language on par with what we see today? How do you think the film impacted audiences when it first came out? And how has the horror genre changed over the years?

Which characters demonstrate courage and perseverance ? Why are these important character strengths?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 26, 1973
• On DVD or streaming : March 26, 1997
• Cast : Ellen Burstyn , Linda Blair , Max von Sydow
• Director : William Friedkin
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Warner Home Video
• Genre : Horror
• Run time : 132 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : horror elements, violence, profanity and intensity.
• Last updated : May 18, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Moments in history

A priest explains what 'the exorcist' tells us about evil.

Priests, played by Max von Sydow and Jason Miller, try to help a possessed child in The Exorcist, from 1973. Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images hide caption

Priests, played by Max von Sydow and Jason Miller, try to help a possessed child in The Exorcist, from 1973.

Not much power has leached from The Exorcist since its first release in 1973. The horror film's upcoming 50 th anniversary has unleashed an inevitable new version out in theaters now, as well as countless other tributes, including articles, special screenings and podcasts.

Among the latter, the podcast Taking on the Devil is notable for its heady, intellectual interrogation of The Exorcist 's theological implications. The host is horror movie scholar Gina Brandolino , who teaches at the University of Michigan. (Full disclosure, I became friends with Brandolino while on a fellowship there.) Her partner in the podcast is Gabrielle Thomas , an ordained priest and Emory University professor of early Christianity, who has written about representations of the devil. The two debate questions such as how The Exorcist helps us think about evil in the world.

The Exorcist on the marquee at the Warner Rendezvous cinema in London in March 1974. Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

The Exorcist on the marquee at the Warner Rendezvous cinema in London in March 1974.

The film has had an ongoing impact on pop culture and contemporary Christianity, Thomas told NPR. "I mean, the Church of England I'm ordained in," she said, "we actually had to go back and look at liturgies for exorcism and deliverance and that kind of thing as a result of that movie."

Long ago in early Christianity, she said, exorcisms were a completely normal ritual that took place before baptism. "Everybody was exorcised because there was an assumption that everyone would be experiencing some kind of demonic oppression, because that's where the church was at that time," she said.

PG-13: Risky Reads

Possessed by 'the exorcist': are you terrified yet.

"How humans have thought about the devil has evolved" over centuries and across faiths, she added. For example, the devil was once usually presented as being blue in the Christian contexts Thomas studies. He was seen as being like the sea, wild and inexplicable. "We understand that there's chaos in the sea," she said. "And it's relatively recently that we ended up with this red thing with horns and the trident that slightly comical... There's been a sort of 'nice-ification' of the devil."

In this era of grinning purple devil emojis, cute cartoon characters like Hot Stuff and sexy demon antiheros on popular shows like Lucifer and Good Omens , the devil in The Exorcist punches with medieval-era power, Thomas says. This demon, Pazuzu, is not palatable. He is grotesque, primal and scary, regardless of your faith or lack thereof.

Despite sub-freezing temperatures and rain, a crowd waits in line outside the Paramount Theater in New York City for a showing of The Exorcist in February 1974. Ron Frehm/AP hide caption

But ultimately, Thomas said, The Exorcist is not really concerned with the devil. It's about the people who observe his possession of a 12-year-old girl named Regan who did nothing worse than play with a Ouija board. Which raises the question: why Regan? And that in turn, Thomas notes, raises an even older question: "Why hasn't God stepped in and solved all of this? Which is a question that lots of people are asking all the time."

Why do bad things happen to good people? Thomas says this is not an inquiry for God. This is a question for humans.

Movie Interviews

Four decades on, 'the exorcist' is still a head-turner.

'Exorcist' Director Makes A New Movie About Exorcism (It's A Documentary)

"What I loved about The Exorcist is that it gives us a [sense of] how to respond, in the sense of these two priests," she said, referring to the characters Father Karras and Father Merrin, who perform the film's dramatic exorcism. "They're not perfect. They're completely messed up, just as many people on the street would be. But they respond with love," she said. "They're absolutely not the most successful in the way that they approach it ... but they're present in it. So Regan is not alone ultimately."

And right at a moment when the world feels caught in something profoundly, cosmically terrible, maybe The Exorcist still carries a message.

Pop Culture Happy Hour

'the exorcist: believer' is possessed by the familiar.

"It doesn't leave us with a sense of 'there's just nothing we can do'," Thomas said. "It leaves us with a sense of: I can be present. I can be present with the person who's experiencing evil. I can stand with them. If I'm a priest, I might pray some particular prayers. If I'm not a priest, I might not pray these prayers, but I can be with that person or with that group of people... For me, it was the message of presence."

The director of The Exorcist always insisted his movie was not a horror movie . It was a movie about faith. And it reminds us that when we feel helpless and hopeless, there is power in being present.

Edited for the web by Rose Friedman. Produced for the web by Beth Novey.

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• The Exorcist
• Peter Blatty

'The Exorcist: Believer' review: Sequel is plenty demonic but lacks horror classic's soul

The devil’s been plenty busy on screen in the past 50 years. Think of all the possession films that “The Exorcist” spawned – some good, many bad, and arguably none quite as unsettling as the original 1973 horror classic.

So it’s fairly ambitious to craft a new direct sequel and renounce all other “Exorcist” episodes here in 2023. Following David Gordon Green's resurrection of another iconic franchise with 2018’s outstanding “Halloween,” the writer/director's “Exorcist: Believer” (★★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters now) does a decent job living up to a legendary predecessor. Original star Ellen Burstyn returns in the latest film, which also goes all in exploring every parent’s deepest fears, but while it tries admirably, “Believer” is nowhere near as profoundly scary as William Friedkin’s genre-defining chiller.

Thirteen years after his wife died in a Haitian earthquake, Victor (Leslie Odom Jr.) is a photographer and single dad raising teen daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) on his own in the Georgia suburbs. Their relatively peaceful life is upturned when Angela and her best friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) take a detour home from school through a nearby forest and disappear for three days, worrying everyone in town.

'It's not cheap scares': How 'The Exorcist: Believer' nods to original, charts new path

The girls are found 30 miles away in a barn, treated at the hospital and sent home. Soon after, they begin showing signs that something is seriously not right. Angela attacks her dad in their home. Katherine, in church with her devout parents Miranda (Jennifer Nettles) and Tony (Norbert Leo Butz), drenches herself in communion wine and frightens the congregation by chanting “Body and the blood!” in a most unholy scene.

Miranda turns to her religious beliefs and is the first to raise the possibility it might be demon-related instead of a medical or mental health issue, and while skeptical, Victor desperately wants to figure out what’s wrong. With the help of kindly nurse Ann (Ann Dowd), the concerned dad reaches out to an infamously embattled mom: Former movie star Chris MacNeil (Burstyn) wrote a book about the possession of her daughter Regan (played in the first film by Linda Blair) and has spent the past five decades coming to grips with what happened.

'The Exorcist': That time William Friedkin gave us a tour of the movie's making

Chris sees for herself how bad the situation really is with the girls, and leaders from across the religious spectrum – including a rebellious priest (E.J. Bonilla), a Baptist pastor (Raphael Sbarge), a Pentecostal preacher (Danny McCarthy) and a root doctor (Okwui Okpokwasili) – gather for an all-out, last-ditch exorcism that tests everyone in attendance.

While high up in the fright-fest annals, the original “Exorcist” leans more thoughtful and theological overall, making the demonic incidents much more unsettling. “Believer” is a more conventional horror tale, with constant dread and eerie thrills: It's definitely haunting but lacks the first movie’s soulfulness. 

Still, Green’s new outing definitely succeeds in paying homage and borrowing from the best. There are Easter eggs and throwbacks galore, plus a nifty retooling of “Tubular Bells,” and of course nothing good happens when a crucifix comes into the picture. Odom gets a meatier character arc than Burstyn did back in the day, and while her return isn’t as integral to the story as Jamie Lee Curtis’ was to the rebooted “Halloween,” Chris’ appearance adds needed weight to the “Believer” narrative.

Halloween movies: Peep these 20 new scary films, from 'Saw X' to 'The Exorcist: Believer'

Just like with Blair in the OG “Exorcist,” a lot of the sequel depends on its young stars and they’ve done their possessed-kid homework. Bedecked with top-notch physical effects, Jewett and O’Neill are more and more unhinged as their characters become increasingly demonic and yet at key points, the real girls rise through their bedeviled surface. (O’Neill’s gut-wrenching delivery of “I don’t want to go to hell” cuts right to the bone.)

Sure, we didn’t need another “Exorcist.” And Green’s recent “Halloween” trilogy ended up fumbling a good start. With a formidable “Believer” and two more “Exorcist” movies in the pipeline, though, at least this franchise still has a prayer.

• Trending on RT

The Exorcist: Believer First Reviews: Leslie Odom Jr. Shines in Underwhelming Sequel

Critics say the new film starts off strong before succumbing to shopworn genre tropes, ultimately failing to make effective use of ellen burstyn's return to the franchise and uphold the exorcist legacy..

TAGGED AS: First Reviews , Horror , movies

Here’s what critics are saying about The Exorcist: Believer :

How does Believer compare to the original?

“Green and his co-writers do a clever job of evoking the original film’s autumnal feel and credible characters while establishing a new setting and new themes that are intriguing in their own right.” – Nicholas Barber, BBC.com

“ The Exorcist: Believer is a more conventional horror tale, with constant dread and eerie thrills: It’s definitely haunting but lacks the first movie’s soulfulness.” – Brian Truitt, USA Today

“ The Exorcist: Believer fails to capture even an ounce of the terror and emotional heft of the late William Friedkin’s original.” – Belen Edwards, Mashable

“ The Exorcist: Believer is a pale reproduction, grafting franchise iconography onto a slick, uninspired production, lacking a compelling reason for its existence or anything of value to say.” – Matt Oakes, Silver Screen Riot

“While it tries admirably, The Exorcist: Believer is nowhere near as profoundly scary as William Friedkin’s genre-defining chiller.” – Brian Truitt, USA Today

(Photo by Eli Joshua Ade/©Universal Pictures)

Is it scary?

“If there’s one thing an Exorcist movie, be it a sequel, prequel, remake or sequel, needs to be, it’s scary. David Gordon Green’s 50-years later requel, The Exorcist: Believer fails that most fundamental test.” – Matt Oakes, Silver Screen Riot

“How horrifying can a movie really be when its entire purpose is to deliver, on cue, every trope that decades of demonic-possession movies have geared us to expect?” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Does it start out strong?

“The opening half hour, in which the trauma of missing children is dramatized with a vividness that bleeds, slowly, into the supernatural, exerts a certain pull.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“The first half of The Exorcist: Believer effectively leans into the trauma of something horrible befalling your child, and although it moves fairly slowly, it made me want to give the story the benefit of the doubt even when it turned to cheap jump scares.” – Matt Oakes, Silver Screen Riot

“Until about halfway through, I was a firm believer in The Exorcist: Believer .” – Nicholas Barber, BBC.com

(Photo by ©Universal Pictures)

Are there any standout performances?

“Leslie Odom Jr. undeniably shines as the movie’s standout, commanding every scene he graces with a quiet intensity. His pervasive presence throughout nearly every frame of the film lends it an emotional depth that arguably surpasses what the movie and its writing deserve.” – Matt Oakes, Silver Screen Riot

“Odom effectively takes on the lead here and does nicely, as do the two girls who really go through the ringer with no small help from makeup designer Christopher Nelson. Both are excellent.” – Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“Jewett and O’Neill prove to be excellent successors to Linda Blair’s Regan from the original; both young actors nail the intense physicality and twisted facial expressions that stem from the girls’ possessions, and they are responsible for much of The Exorcist: Believer’ s thrills.” – Rachel LaBonte, Screen Rant

How is Ellen Burstyn in her return to the franchise?

“Chris gets a smaller role in The Exorcist: Believer , but Burstyn certainly makes the most of it. She is a commanding presence onscreen… There’s little question that her appearance is one of the highlights of the movie.” – Rachel LaBonte, Screen Rant

“ The Exorcist: Believer almost immediately sidelines her, once again excluding her from some of the film’s most climactic moments. Burstyn barely gets a chance to do anything.” – Belen Edwards, Mashable

“I was grateful for her saturnine grace until one of the devil girls attacks her, in a Herschell Gordon Lewis moment that Green should have axed right out of the script. Why bring back Ellen Burstyn only to martyr her force?” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“The need to bring back a legacy character even if you have no use for them in the narrative is a clear sign of lazy storytelling, indicative of horror movies having already quickly exhausted the novelty of such returns.” – Matt Oakes, Silver Screen Riot

What is the film’s biggest problem?

“A film that was shaping up to be an intelligent and respectful homage to The Exorcist descends to the depths of a cheesy, straight-to-streaming rip-off.” – Nicholas Barber, BBC.com

“ The Exorcist: Believer’ s worst sin is the simple fact that it’s boring.” – Belen Edwards, Mashable

“ The Exorcist: Believer often feels like a promotional pamphlet for attending church or one of those ubiquitous Jesus billboards that dot the landscape along rural highways.” – Matt Oakes, Silver Screen Riot

Is there any hope for the teased sequel?

“It’s no secret Green and powerhouse production company Blumhouse has a trilogy in mind for The Exorcist … As far as first steps, The Exorcist: Believer makes some solid ones.” – Rachel LaBonte, Screen Rant

“With a formidable Believer and two more Exorcist movies in the pipeline, though, at least this franchise still has a prayer.” – Brian Truitt, USA Today

“Perhaps that film could possess even an ounce of The Exorcist’ s power, but given the pure tedium of this attempt at a legacy sequel, I can safely say I’m a nonbeliever.” – Belen Edwards, Mashable

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‘The Exorcism’ Review: Russell Crowe Plays a Fallen Movie Star Playing a Priest in an Exorcist Movie. Is This the Sign of a Career Gone to Hell?

Crowe stars in his second exorcist film in a year. His acting isn't bad, but by the end the message seems to be: The power of residuals compels you.

By Owen Gleiberman

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While we’re on the subject of art-and-life parallels, this is the second exorcist film that Russell Crowe has made in a little over a year (the first, “The Pope’s Exorcist,” was released in April 2023), and that might well be the sign of a once-hot movie star’s fall from grace. But Crowe remains too good an actor to phone in what he’s doing, and his performance as Tony has an undercurrent of shaggy despair unusual for the genre.

Early on, Tony’s 16-year-old daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), returns to his funky New York loft apartment after she gets kicked out of Catholic boarding school. For a while, we’re invested in whether Tony can mend fences with her, and whether he can turn his broken life around by portraying the priest in a movie whose director, played with amusing Machiavellian ruthlessness by Adam Goldberg, will do whatever it takes to wring a good performance out of his leading man, even it means abusing the hell out of him. (In this case that’s no metaphor.) “You still devout?” asks Goldberg’s Peter, saying it like it’s a dirty word. Tony is a former altar boy, so I guess that’s supposed to hit him hard.

On set, Lee bonds with Tony’s pop-musician costar, Blake (Chloe Bailey), the lead singer of Vampire Sorority. And Tony is coached by an on-set priest, Father Conor, a kind of intimacy-with-the-almighty coordinator played with amiable cynicism by David Hyde Pierce. There are omens, like Tony’s bloody nose on the first day of shooting. The bottom line is that Tony is not giving a good performance, and what’s standing in his way is his guilt for his sins, as well as the “mysterious” trauma that brought on his bad behavior. This is a movie that plays connect-the-dots with exorcist/Catholic/addict themes.

“The Exorcism” was directed by Joshua John Miller, who’s the son of Jason Miller, the late costar of “The Exorcist,” which creates, I guess, a kind of Satanic synergy. As the movie goes on, Tony starts slugging whiskey again, which on the story’s terms is a sign that the devil has appeared. The trouble is that a good exorcist movie requires a confrontation with the devil. Crowe is playing an actor playing an exorcist, and the way “The Exorcism” is structured what he needs to be is the therapeutic Father Merrin of his own soul. But the darker the movie gets, the less there is at stake, and the more that Crowe seems to be going through the motions of trying to save not his soul but his career. The power of residuals compels you.

Reviewed at Digital Arts, New York, June 13, 2024. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 93 MIN.

• Production: A Vertical Entertainment release of a Miramax, Outerbanks Entertainment production. Producers: Kevin Williamson, Ben Fast, Bill Block. Executive producers: Padraic McKinley, Scott Putman, Andrew Golov, Thomas Zadra.
• Crew: Director: Joshua John Miller. Screenplay: M.A. Fortin, Joshua John Miller. Camera: Simon Duggan. Editor: Matthew Woolley. Music: Daniel Bensi, Saunder Jurriaans.
• With: Russell Crowe, Ryan Simpjkins, Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg, David Hyde Pierce.

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The Deliverance Review: Precious Meets The Exorcist in Lee Daniels' Bad Faith Horror Film

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This article contains spoilers for The Deliverance and details sensitive subject matter that might not be suitable for all readers. Please proceed with caution.

" THE FOLLOWING STORY IS INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS ." Is there any greater tell-tale sign that what you are about to witness should be taken with a grain of salt? Lee Daniels' latest film, The Deliverance, begins with those words. The film is inspired by the true story of Latoya Ammons, who, along with her mother and three children, were allegedly subjected to possession and haunting in Gary, Indiana, in 2011. To give credence to such a story, one with such egregious examples of psychological manipulation of children 12, 9, and 7, is a risky and questionable endeavor, but the gamble is fascinating nonetheless.

As a producer, Daniels has courted controversy with films like Monster's Ball (Marc Forster, 2001) and The Woodsman (Nicole Kassell, 2004), the latter film starring Kevin Bacon as a convicted child molester who is having trouble adjusting to life on the outside. As a director, Daniels took on light subjects such as stepmother and stepson sexual relations, terminal cancer, and killers-for-hire in his debut, Shadowboxer (2005). His next film, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (2009), was a roaring flame of powerhouse performances, not limited to but including Gabourey Sidibe (as Precious), Mo'Nique (who won an Oscar for her role as Precious' mother), Mariah Carey, and Lenny Kravitz.

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Beyond the stunningly uncomfortable raw energy exhibited by the on-screen talent, Precious is lousy with all the hallmarks of self-importance; it's the sort of film that amasses as many bodily infringements as possible in a pile-up of do-better-isms. But its commitment to providing a neverending cascade of feel-bad moments is commendable and most indicative of the zone in which Daniels thrives.

Daniels officially directs his first horror film with The Deliverance , but, really, he's been making them forever. The film stars Andra Day as Ebony, the alcoholic, abusive single mother of three kids ( Caleb McLaughlin , Demi Singleton, and Anthony B. Jenkins) with whom she lives along with her dying white mother, Alberta (Glenn Close). If these elements sound like more than enough narrative cloth to make up a series of feature-length family dramas, that is because they are. Between Ebony's financial struggles, trouble with drink, and her duties as a mother contrasting her impulsive acts of violence, the scene is set for absolute ruin. Add to it the roiling resentment Ebony feels toward her mother, a former addict herself, who has, some time since developing cancer, had a come-to-Jesus moment, and echoes of Precious come veering into view.

The Deliverance Takes Its Cue From a "True" Story but Fails to Observe the Obviousness of the Situation

By adding a supernatural element, the film, in effect, fails to report on real-world abuses.

Yet, there's more still, with the addition of a demonic entity. Daniels has always been drawn to stories in which race, abuse, and humanity's odd but oft-occurring extremes figure heavily. Here, adding something ungodly, something definitively evil outside of individual capacities for cruelty, offers a chance at redemption -- a way to cast definitive blame and come away cleansed of shortcomings (to put it lightly). As Ebony's mounting pressures begin to take on a more sinister shape , she relies increasingly on old vices and habits that offer little in the way of absolution.

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What's most remarkable about The Deliverance is that Daniels sets his eye on Ebony's actions and behaviors without judgment -- unless it comes from Alberta or one of Ebony's good-time friends. We watch Ebony go from sharply lucid moments of conviction -- like when she confronts her eldest sons' harassers -- to the depths of ecstatic and then deeply remorseful stupor, unsure of what she says and does and unable to control herself from circling the drain. It's in the supplemental occurrence of the supernatural that the seams begin to show in not just The Deliverance but in Daniels' viewpoint of abuse, addiction, and religion's place in the home.

Ebony's actions are unforgivable. Not only does she willfully lay hands on her children, but never once in The Deliverance does she seem to want to change -- that is, not until a symbolically charged, utterly pointless bit of convenient faith comes to her rescue. Ebony's plight as a single mother and provider of four (including Alberta) puts her in a perpetual state of action and consequence. She doesn't have the time to take a step back and account for herself, nor does she want to. When Mo'Nique appears as the social worker (part of her divorce arrangement), Ebony is quick to shoot threatening glances at her scared kids and assembles shoddy excuses that smack of disingenuous ass-covering. If the abusive mother from Precious doesn't believe you, then you know you're up to no good.

Lee Daniels' Viewpoint Watches Ebony's Actions Without Judgment

The uneasiness of the deliverance comes from a sense that we are viewing cruel behaviors that will be forgiven through omnipotent means.

The Deliverance is careful not to asperse Ebony's actions through righteous undoing, which makes for an intriguing, albeit frustrating, glimpse into a pattern of behavior, presented from a vantage point that allows viewers to sit and consider what meanings they want to glean. Still, the stance also reduces Ebony's struggles to an extension of how she was raised and one particularly grotesque act of violence and passivity that solidified her parenting technique. There is no question that Daniels delights in stories that illustrate nadirs of interpersonal conduct, but The Deliverance is hard to stomach.

The most intelligent aspect of the film is that it approaches Ebony's life unrelated to the supernatural events haunting the family. No, the Devil did not make her do it; she is the caretaker and prime enactor of violence. But the mechanic of something evil offers an opportunity for tax-free salvation. Confronting evil made manifest in her basement, Ebony smashes her eyes closed and is brought briefly to a blindingly bright place, and at once, she can truly believe in God. As a bonus, this also gives her the added oomph needed to cast the demon back from whence it came. However, none of this will hold up in court when all's said and done -- but The Deliverance will never address that.

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At the center of the film, Andra Day delivers a compelling, fully realized performance. In one scene, Ebony sits at a bar talking with two men in soused lightheartedness, taking a moment from her family and troubles. The wordless scene shows Ebony swaying, laughing with her interlocutors, and bearing all the mannerisms of a person whose immense pain seems present even when she's living in the moment. It's not long before she's snapped back to reality, but in that short sequence, it's clear that Day is the real deal. If only the film were about something other than presenting religion as a Get Out of Jail Free card.

Also of note is Glenn Close . It's essential to save the best for last, and Close's Alberta is jaw-dropping. The role can instantly placed among the actress's best, most convincing, and unshakable performances. Alberta is recognizable, the sort of person plucked from reality whom we rarely, if ever, get to see on-screen. As the mother whose past sins have shaped the present, The Deliverance offers a bizarrely situated character who would shine if the story didn't use her to provide a familiar face for the Devil to exploit. Alberta's faith is the most genuine of the film, a belief born of bottoming out on substances, but ever-present as she comes to terms with her illness. It would have been a more encouraging display of hardened perseverance and metastasized regret if The Deliverance cared to tell that story.

The Deliverance premieres on Netflix on August 30th.

The Exorcist: Believer

“The Exorcist: Believer” is a pretty good movie that’s so stuffed with characters and not-quite-developed ideas that you may come away from it thinking about what it could have been instead. 

Directed and co-written by David Gordon Green , who recently oversaw a trilogy of “Halloween” sequels, it focuses on the simultaneous possession of two young girls (apparently by the same demon that haunted the first movie) and the harmonic convergence of parents and clerics trying to liberate them from evil. It’s probably the first “Exorcist” sequel since 1977’s fitfully brilliant “Exorcist II: The Heretic” to capture the persistent sense of the uncanny that made William Friedkin’s first entry in the series a smash hit. 

The opening third, which sets all of the narrative pieces in place, is the slowest and subtlest part of the movie. But it’s also the most satisfying because of the confident way it uses silence, misdirection, and negative space to make the audience wonder if evil is already present in the story or if we’re just being paranoid. Green has clearly studied William Friedkin’s original as if it were a holy (or unholy?) text and reproduces some of the master’s techniques for setting viewers on edge: for instance, adding a disruptive sound (such as a car horn) when the movie cuts from one scene to another, or cutting away to unnerving, oddly framed closeups (flashes of demonic faces and bloody wounds, shots of jackhammers, and so on) when characters are having important conversations. The film becomes less compelling as it goes along, however, ultimately succumbing to the horror movie equivalent of the problem that often afflicts superhero movies packed with lots of heroes and villains. The story’s energy gets dispersed, and the movie gradually loses touch with the source of its initial power, the privilege of focusing on the main characters: a widowed father named Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) and his daughter Angela ( Lidya Jewett ). 

We meet Victor in the film’s prologue, set in Haiti, where Victor and his very pregnant wife, both photographers, are vacationing. An earthquake collapses the building they’re staying in and crushes her, though not before she accepts the locals’ blessing to protect the baby. Doctors tell Victor they can save his wife or unborn daughter, but not both. We know how that turned out. The script elides exactly how the decision came about and how it affected Victor, saving it all for future revelations and gradually expanding flashbacks. 

Thirteen years later, father and daughter live in Atlanta, Georgia, where Victor has a thriving photographic portrait studio. The now-13-year-old Angela asks permission from her understandably super-protective father to have her first-ever after-school studying visit with a classmate: her best friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill), whose parents ( Jennifer Nettles and Norbert Leo Butz ) are Catholic. Unfortunately, this is no ordinary study break: the girls spent a couple of furtive hours in the woods near the school, communicating with a spirit at the bottom of some kind of abandoned shaft, and emerged, um, different.  

The movie initially seems as if it’s going to be another Catholicism-centered exorcism flick, but this is a misdirection that sets up some good jokes (not on Catholicism itself, but the way so many exorcism movies treat the Vatican as the spiritual equivalent of The Avengers). The film ultimately opts for more of a United Nations-of-spirituality approach, noting that most cultures throughout history have had equivalents for possession and exorcism, then assembling experts to attack the demon from multiple theological angles. 

Raphael Sbarge plays the priest at Katherine’s family’s church who bears witness to a disturbing outburst by the demon-possessed girl, who grows increasingly impatient and irritable as a Sunday service unfolds. Ann Dowd has a supporting role as Paula, a next-door neighbor who realizes while caring for Angela at the hospital that the kid isn’t acting that way because she’s got the flu. Though not an ordained holy person, Paula has connections to the Catholic faith and rallies to the cause. She’s joined by Father Maddox (E.J. Bonilla), a goodhearted but fainthearted young padre who goes to the Church seeking permission for an official, sanctioned exorcism and ends up becoming a bit like the skittish young priest that Richard Pryor played in the old “Saturday Night Live” parody of “ The Exorcist ” (“Father, where is your faith?” “It’s in the car … I’ll go get it!”) There’s even a demon-battler imported from Haiti ( Okwui Okpokwasili ) who pushes Victor to reconnect with beliefs he rejected after his wife’s death.

Then, of course, there’s Chris McNeil (Ellen Burstyn), the mother from the original “The Exorcist,” making a “legacy sequel” appearance that connects this entry to the series’ origin point. The handling of Burstyn’s character is, unfortunately, the weakest part of the film’s midsection—a study in misdirection that disappoints rather than surprises or delights. The movie sets up conditions wherein Chris seems poised to become this sequel’s version of Max von Sydow’s battle-hardened old priest in the first movie, and channels Burstyn’s offscreen involvement with spiritually-oriented subjects and causes , then builds and builds and builds to the sequence where Paula gives Victor the memoir Chris wrote about her daughter’s possession and recovery and then …  pffft . Nothing. After one big scene, “The Exorcist: Believer” seems to have to remind itself that she’s part of the story and find ways to connect her to the other characters through editing.

Green keeps all the different elements in play and tries not to short-shrift any particular character. It’s not easy, apparently. But the movie has personality, at least. Green has had one of the oddest careers in Hollywood, starting out with achingly sincere independent dramas (“ George Washington ,” “ All the Real Girls “), pivoting to stoner comedies (“ Pineapple Express ,” “ Your Highness “), and somehow ending up in major-label franchise horror. He knows his way around this genre, and he doesn’t just apply the “Halloween” template again; he knows it’s a different kind of story that requires a more patient and earthy approach. The movie’s quasi-documentary impulse (complete with handheld camerawork and French New Wave-style editing in montage scenes) goes a long way toward making you believe that you’re seeing plausible individuals confronting the unspeakable and unmeasurable. 

But in the end, the movie still becomes more of an exercise in logistics than the kind of work that’ll keep you up till dawn wondering if you made sure to close every window to prevent the dreaded demon Pazuzu from sneaking in and possessing you (which is how the writer of this piece spent several insomniac months after seeing the original “Exorcist” on TV as a child). The performances are all beyond reproach, even in relatively small roles like that of Sbarge’s priest, a showboater shocked and humbled by what he’s gotten himself into. Odom is especially impressive because his character is so internalized and uncommunicative, but he still manages to get across the father’s distress and complex and often contradictory emotions. The child leads are superb and seem to be having fun saying horrible things to adults. 

If only the exorcism itself had any novelty, much less real dramatic power: between the fact that nearly ever exorcism sequence is basically the same and the glut of “Exorcist”-type projects in recent years (including the original, excellent “ The Conjuring ” and the “Exorcist” TV series), there’s nothing in the final sequence that will shock or even surprise viewers, except for a few character moments that would have landed harder if the large cast of characters were more finely etched. The climax of this one doesn’t hit as hard as it should because we haven’t gotten to know all the people in that evil-infused room (not to mention the details of their faith). The spectacular movie moments that screenwriter William Goldman called “The Whammies” can’t knock the viewer over unless the characters have weight.

Friedkin excelled on both fronts: the drama and the whammies. The original is still effective because it takes its sweet time establishing characters who seem like real people, then puts them and the audience through a prolonged, brutal ordeal together—one that, at the time, no one had ever seen on a screen before. Clocking in at a relatively breezy 121 minutes in length, “The Exorcist: Believer” is a rare case where a long cut would play better than a short one. Given that the hero and his late wife were photographers, you’d expect photography to play into this film the way sound recording did in the first one, but either the script isn’t interested or just part of the movie got cut down to almost nothing. And there are a lot of underdeveloped themes and elements, including the notion that a culturally divided America needs to come together for the sake of the children, as well as oddly off-brand positive exhortations that everything happens as it should, even trauma, and there would be less evil in the world if we were more emotionally connected to one another. The message at the end isn’t, “The real exorcist is love,” but it almost seems that way.

In theaters October 6th.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

• Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil
• Ann Dowd as
• Jennifer Nettles as
• Leslie Odom Jr. as Victor Fielding
• Raphael Sbarge as Pastor
• Olivia Marcum as Katherine
• Lidya Jewett as Angela Fielding
• E.J. Bonilla as Father Maddox
• Antoni Corone as Father Phillips
• Amman Abbasi
• David Wingo

Writer (screen story by)

• Danny McBride
• David Gordon Green
• Scott Teems
• Peter Sattler

Cinematographer

• Michael Simmonds
• Timothy Alverson

Writer (based on characters by)

• William Peter Blatty

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‘The First Exorcist’ – ‘Wolf Creek’ Director Greg McLean Sets Up His Next Horror Movie

Filming will take place next year in Australia on The First Exorcist , Deadline reports today , a supernatural horror movie being directed by Greg McLean ( Wolf Creek, Wolf Creek 2 ).

The upcoming exorcism-themed horror film from Emu Creek Pictures and Helium is said to be “a spellbinding fusion of religious and supernatural events set in Biblical times.”

In The First Exorcist , “A mother goes on a harrowing quest to save her daughter from demonic possession. As their lives descend into a nightmare, the mother learns of a mysterious healer with the power to expel demons, and embarks on a dangerous race against time – encountering hostile Roman authorities on her perilous mission to find the healer.”

Deadline notes in today’s report, “The plan is to use cutting edge virtual production tech in Victoria to bring epic ancient cities and locations to life.”

“Greg’s script delivers an intensity and emotional depth that, combined with jaw-dropping scares, a fascinating historical setting and powerful supernatural themes, will create a milestone film experience,” teases Helium’s Mark Fennessy. “His refined storytelling and dynamic visual style will elevate The First Exorcist , and we are thrilled to bring his spine-chilling vision to life.”

This will be Greg McLean’s first movie since Jungle starring Daniel Radcliffe back in 2017. He also directed The Darkness (2016) starring Kevin Bacon and The Belko Experiment (2016).

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‘Terrifier 3’ Trailer – Art the Clown Takes a Chainsaw to the Holidays on October 11!

Christmas comes early in  Damien Leone’s  slasher sequel  Terrifier 3  from Bloody Disgusting and Cineverse, which brings Art the Clown exclusively back to theaters on  October 11 .

With less than two months of waiting left, Bloody Disgusting has officially debuted the official trailer for Terrifier 3 this morning. Watch the full “Naughty Cut” version below, which catches us back up with Sienna and previews Art the Clown’s bloody takeover of the holiday season!

Get your tickets now and check back for more listings in the coming weeks.

In  Terrifier 3 , directed once again by Damien Leone ( Terrifier, Terrifier 2 ), Art the Clown ( David Howard Thornton ) is set to unleash another round of chaos on the unsuspecting residents of Miles County as they peacefully drift off to sleep on Christmas Eve.

Here’s the brand new plot synopsis…

“After surviving Art the Clown’s Halloween massacre, Sienna and her brother are struggling to rebuild their shattered lives. As the holiday season approaches, they try to embrace the Christmas spirit and leave the horrors of the past behind. But just when they think they’re safe, Art the Clown returns, determined to turn their holiday cheer into a new nightmare.

“The festive season quickly unravels as Art unleashes his twisted brand of terror, proving that no holiday is safe.”

Returning cast includes  Lauren LaVera  (Sienna),  Samantha Scaffidi  (Victoria Heyes),  Elliot Fullam  (Jonathan Shaw) and AEW superstar  Chris Jericho  (Burke), with  Daniel Roebuck  set to debut as Santa Claus. Makeup effects legend  Tom Savini, Jason Patric, Antonella Rose, Krsy Fox, Clint Howard , and  Jon Abrahams  also appear.

Terrifier 3  opens exclusively in theaters nationwide on October 11, 2024.

Written and directed by Damien Leone,  Terrifier 3  comes courtesy of Dark Age Cinema Productions. Phil Falcone Produces with Lisa Falcone acting as Executive Producer. Co-producers include Michael Leavy, Jason Leavy, George Steuber, and Steve Della Salla. Brad Miska, Brandon Hill, and Erick Opeka Executive Produce for Cineverse. Matthew Helderman and Luke Taylor also Executive Produce.

Terrifier 3  was named by USA Today as one of the Top 10 most anticipated Horror films of 2024. Following the theatrical run, Cineverse plans to release the film across all platforms, including its SCREAMBOX horror streaming service.  Terrifier  is also bleeding into other areas, including t-shirts, Halloween decorations, podcasts and  novelizations . Stay tuned for more…

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10 fall movie releases I'm most excited to review — Bob Dylan to Beetlejuice

To be a critic is to be an optimist.

You go into every movie or TV show you watch hoping it will be good. You have to. If you don’t, what a miserable existence it would be.

Of course, to be a critic is also to be frequently disappointed. Best wishes aside, most movies and shows aren’t good, and almost none are great. Which is fine. It makes the few that are great all the more enjoyable.

So far, 2024 has been an OK year for movies. I’ve only seen one great film ( “Civil War” ), though I’ve seen some very good ones. But now it’s fall, at least in terms of movie season, and that’s when we usually see the prestige movies. That said, there’s still a pandemic hangover and fallout from dueling strikes in 2023. Despite that, some intriguing films are coming our way.

These are the 10 movies I’m most looking forward to this fall. We’ll see how that works out. (Dates often change, so always check local listings.)

'Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice’

C’mon, how can you not be at least a little excited? Tim Burton’s in a dry spell, true. But Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara are back and Jenna Ortega is on board. Most importantly — without him, there is no sequel to the 1988 film — the great Michael Keaton returns as the title character, or actually Betelgeuse, the otherworldly “freelance bio-exorcist.” It’s sort of surprising, but I’m glad he did.

How to watch:  In theaters Friday, Sept. 6.

'His Three Daughters’

Three women gather to keep watch over their dying father while working out their problems with each other. Clearly, the success of Azazel Jacobs’ film will be heavily dependent on who plays the roles. Not to worry. Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen and Carrie Coon play the sisters. That’s a powerhouse trio. This has a lot of promise.

How to watch: In theaters Friday, Sept. 6. Streaming on Netflix on Friday, Sept. 20.

‘The Substance’

Demi Moore plays a fading star who desperately tries a drug that creates a younger version of herself (Margaret Qualley). But there’s a catch — you go back and forth between the old and new you every seven days. Moore is getting high marks for her performance. It certainly sounds intriguing.

How to watch : In theaters Friday, Sept. 20.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt reunited in an action comedy. This could be the biggest movie of 2004! Or maybe 2014! Can it be a big movie in 2024? Are audiences still drawn to two of the biggest stars in recent movie history? We’re about to find out. Both play “fixers” who clean up the mess after crimes. They end up working together, though not happily. Kind of an “Oceans 2.”

How to watch: In theaters Friday, Sept. 20. Streaming on Apple TV+ Friday, Sept. 27.

‘Megalopolis’

This should be interesting. Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project has been in the news for all the wrong reasons — his reported behavior on set, a bizarre ad campaign that used fake negative reviews, Coppola financing the movie and the publicity with his own fortune. On the screen, Adam Driver plans a utopian version of New Rome in the future and runs into trouble. (There’s a lot more to it than that.) The cast includes Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Laurence Fishburne and Dustin Hoffman. Go big or go home, I guess.

How to watch: In theaters Friday, Sept. 27.

‘Saturday Night’

Jason Reitman (“Up in the Air”) co-wrote and directed the story of “Saturday Night Live” — specifically, the first night the show went on the air, on Oct. 11, 1975. Behind-the-scenes antics and fights are the stuff of legend. There are some interesting casting choices, like Cooper Hoffman as NBC honcho Dick Ebersol (and Matthew Rhys as George Carlin!). Gabriel LaBelle, so good as a young Steven Spielberg in “The Fabelmans,” plays Lorne Michaels, the mad genius who dreamed it all up (and still runs the show).

How to watch: In theaters Friday, Oct. 11.

‘Nickel Boys’

RaMell Ross’ film is based on the novel by Colson Whitehead — surely one of the great writers of the 21st Century. It tells the story of two friends who try to survive the Nickel Academy (based on the real-life Dozier School for Boys, a Florida reform school known for horrific crimes and abuse. Whitehead’s novels lend themselves to cinematic portrayals; “ The Underground Railroad ,” directed by Barry Jenkins, was a great limited series on Prime Video in 2021. Of course, like always, you should read the books (both novels won the Pulitzer Prize), but this is exciting.

How to watch: In theaters Friday, Oct. 25.

‘Nightbitch’

Amy Adams plays an artist-turned-stay-at-home mom who sometimes turns into a dog. It’s a horror comedy. Truly, do you need to know anything else? OK, fine. Marielle Heller directs and co-wrote the film, based on Rachel Yoder’s novel. Scoot McNairy co-stars. Adams’ character is listed only as “Mother,” which means Kerry O’Malley’s character is “Mother’s Mother.” I hope they can work a grandmother in there somewhere.

How to watch:  In theaters Friday, Dec. 6.

‘Nosferatu’

There are already at least two great versions of the famous “Dracula” knock-off — “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” from 1922, one of the great silent horror films, and the moody, atmospheric “Nosferatu the Vampire,” written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski, which really is all you need to know to want to see it. There’s also “Shadow of the Vampire,” the 2001 film that imagines that Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe), star of the 1922 version, was a real vampire. So why make it again? Because Bill Skarsgård stars as Count Orlok, the vampire, and it’s written and directed by Robert Eggars, whose “ The Witch ” I loved (“ The Northman ,” not so much).

How to watch:  In theaters Wednesday, Dec. 25.

‘A Complete Unknown’

When you think of Bob Dylan, Timothée Chalamet is probably not the first name that comes to mind. Maybe now it will be. He plays Dylan in James Mangold’s biopic; Elle Fanning plays Sylvie Russo, based on Dylan’s girlfriend (that’s her on the famous cover of Dylan’s album “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.” Edward Norton as Pete Seeger certainly has a bizarre appeal. It could be a disaster, but Chalamet usually rises to the occasion, and Mangold did direct “Walk the Line” (2005), the well-received biopic of Johnny Cash. Just weird enough to work (maybe).

How to watch: In theaters Wednesday, Dec. 25.

10 best films of 2024 so far: And how to watch and stream them

Reach Goodykoontz at   [email protected] . Facebook:   facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm . X:   @goodyk . Subscribe to   the weekly movies newsletter .

Kick Off Spooky Season With Two Horror Classics Arriving on Max

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The Big Picture

• Get ready for spooky season with classics like The Exorcist and The Shining on Max starting September 1.
• Learn the stories behind these iconic horror films, from possession and demonic forces to isolated hotels.
• Dive into the chilling world created by William Friedkin and Stanley Kubrick, perfect for horror lovers this fall.

Pumpkin Spice lattes are dominating the menus at coffee shops and there’s a bit of a chill in the air, which can mean only one thing - Fall is just around the corner. In the world of entertainment, the vibes of the season are coming out in full force as streamers are beginning to get audiences pumped about the spooky scary offerings they have rolling in over the next month. This year, two of the greatest genre titles are set to arrive on Max, with both William Friedkin ’s The Exorcist and Stanley Kubrick ’s The Shining joining the platform’s lineup on September 1. The two movies pair perfectly with other classics already on Max like Scream and Midsommar , making HBO’s streamer one of the best options for horror lovers this fall.

In 1973, Friedkin stepped into the shadows to tell the story of a young girl tormented by the devil. Starring Linda Blair as a possessed child named Regan MacNeil, The Exorcist was as unsettling to audiences then as the Terrifier franchise has been today. At its core, The Exorcist is a test of faith and belief as two priests, Father Lankester Merrin ( Max von Sydow ) and Father Damien Karras ( Jason Miller ), attempt to foil Satan's power. The movie also showcased a terrific performance from Academy Award-winner Ellen Burstyn ( Requiem for a Dream ), who played Reagan’s mother, Chris MacNeil. Slammed and protested by the Catholic Church and other religions, The Exorcist was one of the biggest films of the year, even becoming the first horror film to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.

Less than one decade later, the already legendary filmmaker, Kubrick, picked up Stephen King ’s book The Shining and decided to adapt it for the big screen. However, the term should really be “loosely adapted” because the film keeps very few things from the book on which it was “based”. The feature stars Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, an author suffering from writers’ block who takes a job as a manager at a Colorado hotel during the wintery off-season. Alone there with just his wife, Wendy ( Shelley Duvall ) and their son, Danny ( Danny Lloyd ), Jack falls off the sobriety wagon and gives into the hotel’s sinister plans. While it didn’t nab any Oscar nominations, The Shining will forever go down as one of the most beloved horror features of all time.

The Legacies of ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘The Shining’

Over the years, several directors have attempted to keep the haunting dream of The Exorcist alive through a slew of different sequels, prequels, and spin-offs. Most recently, David Gordon Green tried his hand at telling a story in the franchise’s world of demonic possession with 2023’s The Exorcist: Believer . Although the title failed at the box office as well as with critics and audiences , fans are hoping that the next film, set to be helmed by Mike Flanagan , will restore the franchise’s former glory.

Speaking of Flanagan, the director’s track record with follow-up horror titles is already terrific, as he was the helmer of The Shining ’s sequel, Doctor Sleep . The movie, which arrived in cinemas in 2019, saw Ewan McGregor ( Trainspotting ) as a grown-up version of Danny Torrance in the adaptation of King’s book of the same name. The film also included a knock-out performance by Rebecca Ferguson ( Dune ) and was largely met with positive reviews. Essentially, we’re saying that the next The Exorcist film is in good hands.

Check out where each of these iconic stories began when The Exorcist and The Shining arrive on Max on September 1.

The Exorcist

When a young girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.

The Shining

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future. 

Watch On Max

• The Exorcist (1973)

DC Universe

A genius director of modern horror would like to be part of James Gunn’s DC Universe

Mike flanagan, the director behind ' the haunting of hill house’ and ' the fall of the house of usher’ would love to be part of the new dc universe..

There are many confirmed projects in the new DC Universe of James Gunn , but few with names already confirmed. And with the size and amount of its planned productions, him and Peter Safran need to keep directors and filmmakers in mind. Enter Mike Flanagan , who established himself in the industry as one of the main references in the horror movie genre.

Flanagan came to be on the lips of all horror fans with films like ‘ Doctor Sleep ’ and ‘ Gerald’s Game ’, but his best moments came thanks to several successful series on Netflix: ‘ Midnight Mass ’, ‘ The Haunting of Hill House ’, ‘ The Fall of the House of Usher ’, among others. Now, Flanagan has admitted that he wouldn’t mind changing gears and getting into superhero movies, specifically with DC Comics characters.

“I’ve always been a huge fan of James Gunn as a person and filmmaker, and that is a universe that I would absolutely love to be a part of,” Flanagan said.

Mike Flanagan when asked if he will do something with DC: “I’ve always been a huge fan of James Gunn as a person and filmmaker, and that is a universe I would absolutely love to be apart of.” (via @pekennenino | Toronto FanExpo) pic.twitter.com/wNji6ezxfx — Home of DCU (@homeofdcu) August 24, 2024

In fact, a while ago a rumor arose that Flanagan had presented a project to DC Studios with Clayface as the protagonist, although he would not have been presented as a villain. There was also speculation that he would join the filming of ‘ The Batman II ’, but for the moment Flanagan is busy with his version of ‘ The Exorcist ’, which will presumably premiere in 2026.

James Gunn’s DC Universe starts this year

The first chapter of the new DC Universe, with the title of ‘Gods and Monsters’, will begin this coming month of December, with the premiere of ‘ Creature Commandos ’, the animated series that will be the first canon production of this universe. Gunn himself has directed its episodes, and it will feature the voices of actors and actresses of the caliber of Viola Davis, David Harbour, Frank Grillo, and Anya Chalotra.

Unfortunately, we will have to wait until summer 2025 to enjoy the first live-action full-feature production, which will be ‘Superman’, also with Gunn behind the cameras. After this others are planned to arrive such as the second season of ‘Peacemaker’, ‘Paradise Lost’, ‘Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow’ and a Batman movie based on ‘The Brave and The Bold’ with Andy Muschietti (‘The Flash’) directing.

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