The Exorcism (2024)

Blessed Are the Homage-makers

Let’s set the table. You may have heard that The Exorcism is the second movie in two years starring Russell Crowe as an exorcist. It's not. Here, he plays an actor playing the lead in a remake of The Exorcist–one who runs afoul of a dark spirit that’s haunting the set.

You may also know that Kevin Williamson is credited as a producer. In co-creating the Scream franchise with Wes Craven, he gave birth to the wry, meta-horror wave of the late-90s and early 2000s—a time when every other slasher flick or found footage movie was about dissecting, sidestepping, and often (oh-so-ironically) succumbing to the tropes of those very same films. Some movies pulled even further away from their diegetic reality by becoming about the process of making such movies. Very quickly, audiences got used to watching characters who were so busy gazing at their navels as to barely noticed the butcher knife poking through the other side.

The Exorcism isn’t one of those, either.

These are small distinctions, but important ones. They’re also the keys to understanding what sets this movie apart from others in the subgenre. Director Joshua John Miller and co-writer M.A. Fortin also wrote the 2015 meta-slasherThe Final Girls, in which a group of modern-day teens must flee a Jason-esque maniac after getting trapped in a 1980s horror movie. If you drove past what looked like another B-movie bouillabaisse, I don’t blame you. But you missed out on a clever sendup, a tight story, and a surprisingly touching mother/daughter relationship that, to this day, makes me misty-eyed whenever Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” comes on the radio.

To great effect, both The Final Girls and The Exorcism deal with strained family relationships using the language of genre filmmaking. In the new movie, Crowe’s character, Anthony Miller, nabs the lead in the Exorcist remake when another actor mysteriously dies during rehearsal. The studio also hires his estranged teen daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), as a production assistant–largely to make sure her famously troubled father stays on the wagon. This mirrors The Final Girls’ Nancy (Malin Ackerman) and Max (Taissa Farmiga) characters: the former is a washed-up scream queen, reluctantly supported by a daughter who wants nothing to do with fandom or Mom’s sad attempts to transcend her niche notoriety.

The Exorcism drills down into Anthony and Lee’s conflicts more than The Final Girls did. The first third of the movie is more character study than jump-scare jamboree, and I wondered if I had actually stumbled upon what one character described as (paraphrasing from memory) “a psychological thriller with horror elements”. Crowe’s and Simpkins’ codependence is magnetic; she’s reeling from the lack of parental stability that led to suspension from prep school; he’s desperate to prove that he’s still a viable actor and worthy of being a dad. Unfortunately, the movie-within-a-movie forces Anthony to re-engage with the Catholic Church—specifically, with the abuse he suffered as a teen at the hands of that institution.

He must also contend with the movie-within-a-movie’s director, a manipulative jerk (Adam Goldberg, dredging the depths of sleaze); its Catholicism consultant, a cagey and sickly looking old priest played by David Hyde Pierce; and its young star (Chloe Bailey, as the remake’s possessed pre-teen), who ends up falling for Lee. This thick coating of plot would be more than enough to sustain a movie that’s set in, but not beholden to, the horror genre. But we’re also presented with the reliable “haunted production” motif, in which falling studio lights nearly kill people, mysterious figures appear on set, and the demons in our protagonist’s head begin taking control of his body.

The further we venture down the well-worn horror movie path, the harder it is to remember just how much possibility lay in the earlier scenes. As a director, it feels as though Miller is more interested in his actors than with elevating the boilerplate horror movie atmosphere. Aside from a very effective (and refreshingly bloody) scene involving a shattered mirror, there’s little to recommend in the scares department—which, to be fair, could be the result of a studio trying to make an oddball horror product more commercially viable (The Exorcism is starting a mainstream theatrical run, meaning it doesn’t quite have the art-house cushion of a direct-to-streaming model).

The result is an uneven and often compromised-feeling movie. There’s genuine mystery surrounding Anthony’s early experiences with the Church, what the demon wants with him, and whether or not divine forces drew Anthony and Lee together in order to…ahem…exorcise a story/movie/franchise with a troubled history (much like the original Exorcist). Instead of digging into any of these themes, we’re left to contend with real head-scratchers—such as how a person can undergo an irrefutable, bone-snapping demonic possession on a film set, in full view of cast and crew, without A). showing any after effects of said bone-snapping possession, or B) having the entire production shut down, pending an investigation (especially after not one, but two previous on-set deaths).

Lucky us, The Exorcism sticks the landing with a climax that, sure, one could see coming a mile away (especially as the film mirrors The Exorcist in more ways than the remake conceit), but which also brings a level of intimacy to the fully possessed father and the desperate-to-save-dad daughter than was achieved in William Friedkin’s 1973 original. Though undeniably powerful, the final exchange between young Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) and Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) was missing something that I hadn’t noticed until watching The Exorcism. Much of that film centered on the struggles of Regan’s mom, Chris (Ellen Burstyn), but when it came time to truly confront the beast, she was relegated to rushing in during the aftermath to console her newly freed daughter.

In The Exorcism’s climactic fight, the demon may be staring down Lee from behind Anthony’s eyes, but it is Anthony we see: a beaten, scarred, overweight* disappointment to his daughter whose shame, desire for fame, and addiction to drugs left him wide open to sinister influences. Through all this, his daughter reaches out to him, pleading to hear from the sober, good-hearted man she knows he can be. If you cut out the “surprise” introduction of a third-party antagonist in this scene, these few minutes of screen time are highlights in an already remarkable film.

You may have noticed that Exorcist actor Jason Miller shares a last name with Exorcism director Joshua Miller. That’s no coincidence; they are father and son—which adds an entirely new dimension to the film, visually, thematically, and possibly spiritually. You might also recognize the younger Miller from Kathryn Bigelow’s 1986 cult vampire movie, Near Dark, which came out the year before Josh’s half-brother, Jason Patric starred in Joel Schumacher’s vampire movie, The Lost Boys. If you’re a horror nut, The Exorcism has plenty of deep cuts for you to explore—many of them rising far above the easy, Scream-style references I talked about at the beginning of this review.

But can you enjoy The Exorcism if you don’t know anything about the co-writer/director’s personal life or his famous family tree? If you’ve never seen The Exorcist, will you understand how the demon-fighting climax amounts to far more than teary pleas, blue hues, and fright makeup?

I don’t know.

I’m too far into horror culture to say for sure that the human drama bookending the film is enough to sustain normie interest. Maybe this element is the only solid support on a wobbly, three-legged stool. It’s different enough that I can recommend you give it a shot.

Whether that turns out to be a blessing or a mortal sin is out of my hands.

*What’s weight got to do with anything? Not much, really. Most of us lose the ability to effortlessly burn calories as we age. But in recent years, Russell Crowe has really leaned into not being lean. His slim, muscular, movie star looks have given way to paunch and a bear-like, lumbering gait. This has served him well in this off-the-A-list stage of his career.

Whether playing the decadent god Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder; the jolly, devil-defying Father Amorth in The Pope’s Exorcist; or a beleaguered, road-rageaholic in Unhinged, there’s something kind of perfect about an actor who’s willing to literally let it all hang out.

So when I say I now think of him as “Russell Cronut”, understand that it’s coming from a place of love (and recognition).

For some brief insights into the making of The Exorcism, please check out my recent interview with Josh Miller and Mark Fortin!