Starting June 20, you can watch a new horror movie in theaters «The Exorcism» starring Russell Crowe. The main filming was completed back in 2019, but later the filmmakers needed additional filming, which, however, had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, the production of the film stretched until January 2024. But finally, «The Exorcism» is reaching the big screens, and we are ready to share our impressions of the new story about hostile otherworldly evil spirits.
Pluses:
director Joshua John Miller's not unreasonable attempt at metanarrative cinema; a good scene with Sam Worthington; Russell Crowe's acting;
Minuses:
the film does not work on any of the given levels: metanarrative, genre, metaphorical, etc;
«The Exorcism»
Genre a horror movie about the supernatural
Director Joshua John Miller
Starring Russell Crowe, Sam Worthington, Ryan Simpkins, Chloe Bailey, David Hyde Pierce, Marcia Lynette, Tracy Bonner, Samantha Mathis, Adrian Pasdar, Adam Goldberg
Premiere movie theaters
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb
The actor Anthony Miller went through a difficult time. While his wife was painfully dying of a serious illness, he devoted himself entirely to drinking and drugs. That’s why he had a strained relationship with his daughter Lee, to put it mildly, and his career left much to be desired. However, the long-suffering widower gets a chance, if not for redemption, then at least for rehabilitation in the eyes of others and, in particular, Lee.
Today, Anthony is staying away from the bottle, trying to improve his relationship with his daughter, and landing a role in a new horror movie. It seems that fate has given him a second chance. But the hero did not even suspect that this job would turn into the worst nightmare of his life, not a new stage in his career.
Even though filmmakers have been systematically and persistently trying to squeeze something out of the exorcism theme, which has been heavily exploited over the past half century, it is hard to deny the fact that most of these opuses turn out to be at best a pale copy of William Friedkin’s cult «The Exorcist» (1973). It’s hard to invent something new in a subgenre that hardly allows for much room for maneuver, let alone rethinking.
Yes, we can recall the successful «The Exorcism of Emily Rose» (2005) and «The Conjuring» (2013), but for every James Wan, there are worthless one-dayers like «The Vatican Tapes» (2015), «The Crucifixion» (2017) or last year’s «Believer». The latter was positioned as a direct sequel to Friedkin’s classic and even involved characters from the original film in the plot. Although the film did well at the box office, it received a scathing reaction from audiences and critics.
At first glance, «Exorcism» also looks like a very standard and secondary horror story about demonic possession. Indeed, who in 2024 can be surprised or frightened by another victim of a demonic entity, even if the martyr is played by the «Oscar» winner Russell Crowe instead of the usual girl?
But the film has an interesting background, in that its director, Joshua John Miller, is the son of Jason Miller, who played the role of the priest Damien Karras in the aforementioned «The Exorcist». At its core, his film is not so much about the malevolent soil that has inhabited the next idol and growls ominously from the screen, but about the difficulties on the set of the 51-year-old hit. And as you know, there were more than enough of them, from Friedkin’s extreme demandingness to the actors’ injuries. Perhaps it is also about how participation in the movie affected Miller’s father.
It turns out that «The Exorcism» — is a metanarrative film, but the genre component is completely lost behind the facade of this feature.
The director suggests something like «Shadows of the Vampire» (2000), where the authors attempted to look at the set of the classic silent horror «Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror» (1922) by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. But this trick clearly didn’t work here. It is not known why J.J. Miller thought that his game of metanarrative in this particular form might seem interesting to someone.
Under other circumstances, the bet on eye-catching homages to classics might have worked (the original title of the movie is — «The Georgetown Project», which is already quite eloquent given the setting «The Exorcist»). But the problem is that it all looks blatantly boring.
Where the authors should have used dynamics or at least trivialized jumpscares to somehow revive the suspense less action, they offer mortal boredom. The latter is manifested in the complete absence of events and the dispersion of secondary storylines, such as the romantic interest of the protagonist’s daughter. Simply put, almost nothing happens on the screen during the hour-long runtime.
Things don’t get much more interesting in the climax, which looks downright strange. The weak horror component could be attributed to metaphor, as if Crowe’s character is fighting against inner demons, and the supernatural is a conditional final boss, without overcoming which it is impossible to overcome, albeit painful, but at the same time saving «healing». However, even this interpretation does not force us to look at local boredom from a different angle.
Russell Crowe, who after «Vatican exorcist» for the second year in a row, appears in a film about an unfriendly inferno, risks becoming a star of the genre. He turns out to be almost the only reason to pay attention to this movie. All the other actors in the show are unremarkable features, except for Sam Worthington’s character, who is featured in perhaps the only memorable horror scene.
«The Exorcism» — is not a very passable movie, but hardly necessary for this world. It’s especially disappointing for Russell Crowe, who has rarely been working on worthwhile projects lately (and his appearance in «Thor: Love and Thunder» — is a wild cringe). Worthington, a rare guest in the creepy genre, has a filmography that is filled with all sorts of junk, but he at least has «Avatar». But Russell, who is still in good acting form, urgently needs a new hit. Otherwise, he will only be left with sadness look back.
Spelling error report
The following text will be sent to our editors: