The Exorcist: Believer (Susan Hopkins is horrified but in a thoughtful way)

The Exorcist: Believer (Susan Hopkins is horrified but in a thoughtful way)

The Exorcist: Believer (2023) is the latest in a long line of supernatural horror films that have attempted to emulate the commercial and critical success of the late William Friedkin’s iconic The Exorcist (1973). It seems there is something so deeply compelling in the mythology of an innocent girl corrupted by a demonic entity that it still resonates in the popular imagination some fifty years later. Unravelling the philosophical ideas at the dark heart of demonic possession horror, however, is a slippery business, especially in the current political climate, for as much as we like to think that our attitudes toward religion, illness, sex and the body have evolved, what fascinates and frightens us, or what disgusts us and yet draws us in, is much the same as it ever was. While The Exorcist: Believer pays its dues to modern demands for diversity and inclusion, it still invokes ancient warning messages and meanings about monsters from the underworld. As evidenced by the huge commercial success of the Conjuring horror franchise of the 2010s, even well-educated, jaded, postmodern audiences apparently want to believe, not just in the existence of evil, but in the Devil as a knowable and nameable entity. And as the director of The Exorcist: Believer, David Gordon Green, has recently observed, horror is one of the few remaining forms of popular culture where sensitive and provocative images and ideas can be creatively pushed to their titillating extremes. Thus, in mainstream horror cinema, disturbing representations of moral chaos, corruption, illness, and suffering might still be explored relatively free of personal and social censorship.

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