Movie Review: The Exorcist: Believer

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The way things are going, with so many Exorcist movies in the last 50 years, the decisions makers in Hollywood will probably never realize that equaling the horror and quality of the original “The Exorcist” released in 1973 will ever be achieved.

The stories of the audience’s reaction to the original film were unprecedented in movie history. This included: Many moviegoers vomiting at the horrific graphic images on screen. Others fainted or just left the theater, nauseous and trembling before the film was even half over. People were telling their friends and family members to “not go” to see this movie. This level of red-hot interest in a horror movie has never happened since The Exorcist was released, 50 long years ago. Since 1973 there have been 7 Exorcist movies, and several other movies with the word Exorcist in the title, including the recent and very bad “The Pope’s Exorcist”, reviewed in this blog, starring Russel Crowe.

The reason why the original Exorcist will always be more horrifying, is a documentary itself, to analyze why this movie is always at the top of all lists of the scariest and most unsettling movies ever made. No horror director has ever gotten close to matching the original, including the latest installment, “The Exorcists: Believer”. With this new film, there is a good attempt at the beginning to at least be different, with two young girls walking in the woods, and then walking into what looked like a man-made ditch (something that two young girls would never do), and then becoming lost for 3 days. Then somehow transported to a farm, some 30 miles away, thinking they were only lost for a few hours. Soon after they are found, they slowly become possessed and the rest of this story is the obvious exorcism climax scene for both girls, which I thought was poorly done with not enough buildup before the final climax scenes.

This film has three well-known actors, Leslie Odom Jr., who plays the father of one of the girls, and Ellen Burstyn who plays Chris MacNeil, the mother of Regan, the girl who was possessed in the original movie. I was rather surprised to see Linda Blair at the end of this movie, considering that her part in the original film at age 14 has caused her more downside than upside in her acting career. After starring in a movie like the Exorcist that was so horrifying, it would be impossible to play any other part because the audience will always think of you as that possessed young child. Becomming type-cast in any role has been the curse of far too many television and movie actors.

The ultimate problem with this Exorcist sequel, with another one following in 2025 “Exorcist: Deceiver” is that there was not enough originality, and an ending that was dissapointing, rather than new and ground breaking. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this film are a very low 20%, with my rating 30 and a solid miss for this one.

Movie Review: The Creator

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On Wednesday, September 13, 2023, the leaders of all the major tech companies testified to the United States Senate about their concerns to regulate and control AI technology. These leaders included the CEO of Microsoft, Tesla and Google. Some of the comments after the 3 hour meeting included, “The consequences of getting AI wrong are severe.”, from Elon Musk. Bill Gates spoke of AI’s potential to feed the hungry. Satya Nadella from Microsoft said “When it comes to AI, we shouldn’t be thinking about autopilot. You need to have copilots.” Someone always has to be overseeing AI to make sure it does not fall into the wrong hands, or go haywire.

AI has been one of the most important topics of conversation for over a year now, it is the new reality of the world. It was obvious that given the possibilties that will follow AI that tens of thousands of screenwriters around the world have started screenplays and there will be many AI movies in our future.

Unfortunately one of the first AI movies is the new movie “The Creator”. The story is basically about an ongoing war between AI-created machines and humanity. After a software error, according to the AI robots humans created a massive nuclear explosion, destroying the city of Los Angeles. The story starts from the aftermath of this nuclear accident and different battles between humans and robots, but not much else. There is nothing new in this story, other than a few well-done special effects. With something as interesting and new as AI, one would expect a much more imaginative script.

The movie stars John David Washington as the main character Joshua, who is a soldier who loses and then tries to find his wife Maya played by Gemma Chan. Joshua also befriends a young child robot Alphie played by Madeleine Yuna Voyles, a story line that seems more about chase scenes and explosions than any interesting story. The story of this film is all over the place, with many disconnected scenes, that also include lead soldier Colonel Howell, played by Allison Janney.

Unfortunately the first of what will probably be a string of AI movies that will follow, is a big miss. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a low 68%, with my rating 60% and a recommendation to miss this film.

Movie Review: Saw X

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On a recent entertainment talk show, the host talked about horror movie franchises like Saw, Haloween, Friday 13th and correctly stated that movies like these make millions and billions of dollars, on a low budget, virtually guaranteeing that there will be many sequels. This is the 10th movie in the Saw franchise.

Of all the Saw movies, that are all about horrible people who committed horrendous crimes and got away with it, being tortured and killed with elaborate mechanical devices, with scenes of dismemberment and horrific death that make you wonder how the writers and producers could ever think of these insane ways to kill people.

Throughout almost every film in this Saw franchise, the main character is John Cramer played by Tobin Bell, takes it upon himself to force justice on deserving bad people, but always gives them a chance to save themselves while trapped in the most horrific contraptions designed to kill a human being. Within all 10 of these movies, you cannot help but admire the imagination to conceive of and then build these mechanical killing machines.

This 10th movie is much different than the previous nine, entirely about John Cramer and his brain cancer and terminal diagnosis. Through another person at a cancer support group, who tells John his 4th stage Pancreatic cancer was cured, John falls prey to medical scammers in Mexico who promise to save his life. What follows is the obvious revenge on all the scammers involved, this time around showing some extremely horrific new methods of mechanical death.

The problem with this story, is that there are at least 3 major holes that a few more re-writes could have been fixed. The last stage of the revenge-death scenes is too risky and convoluted for someone at the level of genius of John Cramer would ever attempt. I thought the ending was not satisfying enough on two levels, with the final scene too abrupt.

Of all of the Saw movies, this tenth movie has by far the highest Rotten Tomatoes rating of 87%. I give this movie credit for the new perspective on the story, but I have to subtract for 3 glaring holes in the plot, with my rating a passable 70%. Odds are very thigh that there will be many more Saw movies, even though Cramer has terminal cancer, because these movies just make too much money. My guess is that his protege Amanda Young, played by Shawnee Smith, might carry on this series.