A reboot unworthy of being compared to the original

Johnson Thomas

This is a half-baked remake of William Friedkin’s ‘The Exorcist’, in which Russell Crowe plays Anthony Miller, a washed-up actor and recovering alcoholic. He suddenly gets a lifeline when the original lead actor of a film that sounds similar to ‘The Exorcist’ passes away unexpectedly and the director casts him in a pivotal role as the priest. It’s doubly fortunate for Miller because his estranged daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), who has returned to live with him after being kicked out of school, takes up the job on the sets as his PA. Father Conor (David Hyde White) is the on-set theological adviser and Blake (Chloe Bailey) is the lead actress in the film within a film.

Though the film within a film story here has a little more complexity than the original, the subtleties and organic progression in the event-ology are sorely missing. Peter, the director within the film, as a bully quite happy to criticise his leading man in front of everyone, is the trigger for Anthony’s internal breakdown. The atmosphere on the sets turns wild once Anthony begins to exhibit signs of demonic possession. Lee discovers him at the bottom of the stairwell muttering Latin rituals to himself. It’s expected of the audience to be familiar with ‘The Exorcist’ and its history, including the bird strike story and the electrical fire which affected the Friedkin set. This is followed by more such events involving bodily gyrations and demon eyes. The people on the set soon go into a state of panic, impacting the film’s production and putting the crew in jeopardy. Predictably, an exorcism is recommended and all hell breaks loose.

Anthony’s past traumas come to the fore as Father Conor seeks to exorcise the demon within him. ‘The Exorcism’ pursues poorly-constructed horror events but the production design by Michael Perry is fairly grit-inducing. The cinematography by Simon Duggan isn’t effective enough to be macabre or suggestive of the paranormal.

The narrative plays in slow motion. Scary scenes fail to light up enough to generate fear and tiresome gimmicks surrounded by flickering ‘light and darkness’ shadows make a mediocre play for impact.

Joshua Miller fails to go beyond clichés and overused trickery in order to generate credibility. The screenplay feels like a crude reworking, interspersed with formulaic assays. There’s no suspense to speak of. A few half-decent set pieces fail to rev up the scares either. The under-cooked treatment is at fault here. Crowe has an imposing physical presence but his talent is utterly wasted here. So is Sam Worthington, in a supporting role that fails to register.