BY CHRISTOPHER STAMM
GUEST MOVIE REVIEWER
The Exorcist: Believer (In theatres now)
Rated R for language, violence, and disturbing content
When I was 12, my parents pulled the trigger and got cable, and with that package came HBO, so I could watch movies unedited at home. I was excited, my parents not so much. As a proud member of Generation X, I was often left to my own devices while my parents went out and did their thing. On one such occasion, I was told clearly, I was NOT to watch The Exorcist, which was the Saturday night HBO movie.
So, of course, I watched it. Now, as a kid, you don’t always know right away when you have messed up, but boy howdy, I knew immediately that I had made a critical error in judgment. As a cradle Catholic, The Exorcist messed me up. Its slow build, its shocking (by 1970’s standards) graphic nature and flat-out scary tone, ensured I attended Mass without complaint for some time after my viewing.
Over the years, there have been a few sequels that ranged from oh-so-very-bad to at-least-it-was-entertaining, so when I heard a direct sequel with some of the original cast was being made, I was intrigued. Then came a fairly decent marketing campaign and I was actually a little excited to see a solid scary movie, because let’s face it, they are few and far between.
So, I plopped down my free pass, grabbed my popcorn and soda, and headed into the theatre.
*Spoiler Alert*
It was all downhill from there. To say this was a bad film would be an insult to bad films. It is a hodgepodge of standard scary movie tones. It goes out of its way to make sure every religion is represented (I refer to the multiple people from every religion including, I swear, voodoo, that perform the exorcism in this film, as “The God Squad”) and the only death is the Catholic priest who shows up to save the day, only to get wacked within three minutes.
It was so ridiculous and dumb I actually felt my IQ start to drop as I watched this film.
Oh, and as to the original cast, total screen time about seven minutes.
One star out of five possible stars for this abomination of a film. Avoid it at all costs. If someone tries to get you to watch it, unfriend them immediately and run away; they are not your friend.
And to my friends at the Cosmo: Well done passing on this one. You would need to sanitize the screens to get the stink of this one out of there.