This fall, it will be 50 years since the world first came to fear pea soup and tall Washington D.C. staircases. December 26, 1973 was the date of the release of the original The Exorcist, which became one of the biggest horror movies of all time, and launched a franchise that will now resume for modern audiences — with a legacyquel, rather than a reboot of the concept.
The new film, The Exorcist: Believer, follows a new pair of girls who become possessed with assorted unholy evils. One of the girls’ dads, played by Leslie Odom Jr., recruits Ellen Burstyn’s Chris MacNeil to help. Chris was the mother of Regan, the little girl (played by Linda Blair) who was possessed in the original film of The Exorcist.
The first trailer for the movie does a decent job of establishing the premise, and connecting back to the original Exorcist. (It also uses that classic Exorcist piano score as well.) You can watch the trailer below:
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This is the first Exorcist movie since two different prequels that were made as one long and troubled production and then released in 2004 and 2005. (Neither Exorcist: The Beginning or Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist got good reviews or did particularly well at the box office.) Since then, the series was revived on television by Fox, on a show that lasted two seasons.
Believer’s director is a man with plenty of experience with horror legacyquels: David Gordon Green, who recently wrapped up a trilogy of Halloween movies that continued the story of the original slasher.
Here is The Exorcist: Believer’s official synopsis:
Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, Victor Fielding (Tony winner and Oscar® nominee Leslie Odom, Jr.; One Night in Miami, Hamilton) has raised their daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett, Good Girls) on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine (newcomer Olivia Marcum), disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil.
Well, describing her as “the only person alive” with experience with exorcisms I guess reveals whether we’re going to see Linda Blair or Regan in this movie. But maybe that’s a marketing fake out.
The Exorcist: Believer is scheduled to open in theaters on October 13.
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