Blumhouse And David Gordon Green Revive A Horror Classic

“The Exorcist: Believer” casts “Hamilton” veteran Leslie Odom Jr. as a father whose daughter (Lidya Jewett) and her friend (Olivia Marcum) are beseiged by the forces of Pazuzu. Desperate for help, he turns to someone who’s encountered this particular demonic entity before — Chris MacNeil, with Ellen Burstyn reprising her famous role from William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist.” 

The whole setup has more than a whiff of David Gordon Green’s “Halloween,” with Chris set to follow Laurie Strode in becoming the next milestone horror heroine forced to confront their longstanding Trauma with a capital “T.” Judging by the “Believer” footage shown at this year’s CinemaCon, the film won’t be holding back on the grisly bloodshed either, much like Green’s take on The Shape.

In addition to directing, Green co-wrote the “Believer” screenplay and story with Peter Sattler (“Camp X-Ray”) and his “Halloween” trilogy scribes Danny McBride and Scott Teems, with the likes of Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Raphael Sbarge rounding out the movie’s cast. The ambition here is to launch a brand-new “Exorcist” film trilogy, with Jason Blum declaring it his and Blumhouse’s “riskiest” movie to date in terms of the cost and expectations.

Can Blum and Green deliver the goods? We shall see how they handle the pressure when “The Exorcist: Believer” begins haunting theaters on October 13, 2023 — just in time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Friedkin’s spider-walking, head-spinning, pea soup-spitting original.