The Exorcism Review – Lights, Camera, Horror

An interesting premise and some great scares await you in The Exorcism. Directed by Joshua Lee Miller, The Exorcism is a horror movie that follows an actor whose latest film – one akin to The Exorcist – is haunted by a demon. Russell Crowe (Gladiator) plays the lead role, as the fictional actor Anthony Miller. His daughter Lee who is hired as a production assistant on the film is played by Ryan Simpkins (Fear Street: Part Two – 1978). They are joined by David Hyde Pierce (Frasier), Chloe Bailey (Grown-ish), Sam Worthington (Avatar), and Adam Goldberg (Saving Private Ryan).

The film starts in classic horror movie fashion, with an opening kill. Adrian Pasdar (Heroes) plays the actor playing a priest, who is reading through his lines before facing the demon. Anthony is a former superstar actor plagued by guilt over his wife’s death while dealing with his own addictions to drugs and alcohol. He takes over the departed actor’s part, in an attempt to make a comeback to acting. In addition to giving a mediocre performance, trying to repair the rift with his daughter, and battling his demons, an actual demon begins to haunt him.

Have We Seen The Exorcism Before?

Exorcism movies are a well-worn subgenre of horror films. Some of those movies, like The Exorcist, are even referenced in this film. So, is The Exorcism just the same movie we’ve seen tens of times before? Thankfully, it’s not exactly the same as those movies with the backdrop of this movie being its saving grace. The story surrounding a disgraced older actor is interesting. The setting of a film set allows for some unique scenes that are somewhat meta. With a couple of good characters and an interesting premise, The Exorcism is worth watching.

Crowe plays the reserved, nervous actor well, and hams it up towards the end of the movie. Simpkins is good as Lee too, toeing the line between being afraid for their father and being emotionally distant. Goldberg and Bailey are fine, but they don’t have much to do. Worthington, on the other hand, does too little with too little, and he seems miscast. The best performance comes from David Hyde Pierce who has a couple of quieter comedic moments where he nails the delivery. Playing a consulting priest, he at one point suggests that Miller might just be method-acting, and he delivers it with the right amount of naïveté. 

Crowe’s Miller isn’t a typical one-dimensional character. He feels a tremendous amount of guilt over his addiction issues, and how he wasn’t there for his wife or daughter while his wife was dying. If that wasn’t enough, it’s revealed that he had a traumatic experience with a priest when he was younger. Even though he’s not too likable, this backstory makes Miller multi-layered and makes the movie generally more interesting.

A Dark Night

Even though there’s more characterization than your average horror movie, it doesn’t mean The Exorcism is well-written. Some great bits of dialogue stand out, like when the demon immediately outs itself as a bad guy by calling Lee a homophobic slur. Otherwise, the plot is fairly predictable and the dialogue can be mediocre. The Exorcism isn’t visually interesting either. Most of the shots are incredibly dark, and it looked somewhat murky. Although some of the makeup choices were compelling. The editing of the film’s flashbacks is also annoyingly weird, cutting between a young Miller, an open door, and a painting. It’s not consistent with the style of the rest of the film.

Easily the best part about The Exorcism is that all the jumpscares delivered. Two or three of them caught me off guard because they are barely telegraphed. It helps that the scares are accompanied by some killer sound design, whether it’s glass breaking, bones cracking, or Miller banging on a banister. The score isn’t all too noticeable, but the angelic singing in the final act does land the otherworldly nature of the last battle against the demon.

What The Exorcism does well is what makes it stand out against a sea of horror movies. Unfortunately, even though some characters are interesting and it has some good scares, it’s still an oddly told generic exorcism story. It’s a shame because the potential is there. So, if you’re a fan of Russell Crowe or exorcism movies, you’ll want to go to the theater for this one. If not, you can probably wait until it comes out digitally.

You can get scared yourself when The Exorcism releases in theaters on June 21, 2024.