Here’s what we know! There are stairs. Creepy stairs. That’s Good. There’s no Tubular Bells. That’s bad. But there’s Scarlett Johansson! There’s no Linda Blair, but there is a new director, Mike Flanangan. That’s probably good too. On par, we’re thinking the pros outweigh the cons!
For the record, I quite liked 2023’s Exorcist Believer. I found that David Gordon Green did a masterful job at cribbing shots, scenes, focus, and other film tricks from the great William Friedkin. So much so, that at times you’re lulled into the sense that you’re watching a film from the 1970s. The editorial trickery and pace of the film are fully engaging and force the audience to become invested in the girls.
That said, there were some definite problems with the film. To the point where the studio yanked the reins from David Gordon Green and gave him and his writing partner, Danny McBride, the heave and the ho. Enter Mike Flanagan. The most consistently inconsistent horror director out there. He’s done some brilliant work in the Haunting of Hill House, but he’s also done some pretty awful work as seen in Oculus. Yes, Oculus is an overrated pile of glass.
When we heard that Flanagan was being given the keys to the church we couldn’t have been more excited. He’s got money, talent — Scarlett Johansson, John Leguizamo, Diane Lane, and even the great Laurence Fishburne — and all these signs point to Exorcist: Martyrs being a full frightful frightfest.
According to the way too early summary of the 2027 film, IMDB notes that the film will tentatively follow “A determined rookie detective eager to establish herself confronts a horrifying darkness that challenges her deepest convictions and tests everything she thought she knew about right and wrong.” Sounds promising in an reverse Exorcist III kind of way.
The big question remains…where will Exorcist Martyrs fit into the somewhat robust pantheon of this demonic legacy? Better than the often maligned Exorcist II, worse than the truly awful Exorcist: The Beginning from 2004? Or will we see something that rivals the greatness of the unimpeachable Friedkin joint from 1973?
Who knows!?!? Until 2027, we’ll just have to bask in this spooky trailer that just dropped.
