The exorcist becomes the exorcised in The Exorcism
The last time we saw Russell in robes, he was taking mass and kicking cassocks as The Pope’s Exorcist, but this time, he’s not casting out demons but is instead the one being haunted. Thanks to the quirks of filmmaking schedules and that ever-pesky pandemic, The Exorcism (originally titled The Georgetown Project, which remains the title of the film within a film) was actually filmed back in 2019—or at least most of it was, with it needing some reshoots in 2023 before it could finally see the light of day, or rather the dark of the inside of a cinema.
Anthony Miller (Russell Crowe) is a washed-up actor struggling to escape the ghosts of his past and the demons of substance abuse when he gets a lucky break. The lead actor of a remake of The Exorcist (they’re not allowed to say it’s The Exorcist in the movie and they dance around it a little, but it’s totally The Exorcist) has died in mysterious circumstances and the hotshot director (Adam Goldberg) thinks Miller’s demons might just be the thing to make his movie really come alive. But as the intensity of the role takes a terrible toll on Miller, his estranged daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins) begins to fear he has slipped back into his addictions.
While it’s clearly a metatextual homage to William Friedkin’s 1973 genre classic, there are signs that the real horror influence over The Exorcism is Frankenstein, as what’s presented on screen has clearly been assembled from available spare parts and stitched together to get as close as possible to a releasable movie. There are just too many disconnects for it to be otherwise. Not only do the reshoot scenes stand out obviously thanks to Crowe’s changing physique, but amidst the aggressively loud sound design jump scares, there are leaps of narrative logic and flow which betray the huge chunks of plot which must be missing.
As it is, what we get is a typically intense tour de force performance from Crowe, albeit one robbed of important elements of context and the opportunity to develop any kind of ambiguity as to whether the goings on are ecclesiastical or pharmaceutical in nature. The set-up is there, but the execution unequivocally comes down on the side of the ecumenical very quickly, opting for shocks over suspense.
Although Crowe dominates the screen, The Exorcism tends to keep us firmly aligned with the perspective of his daughter. Ryan Simpkins shines as the initially resentful, then concerned, then fearful daughter, providing a grounded counterpoint to her father’s unraveling. She breathes life into the strained father-daughter dynamic that’s underserved by the butchered flow of the story. Other characters are conspicuously shortchanged, with Sam Worthington reduced to little more than a cameo and Adam Goldberg disappearing from the film altogether about two-thirds of the way through. Chloe Bailey and David Hyde Pierce fare a little better, although their increasing involvement leading up to the diabolical denouement feels clumsy and at times arbitrary.
Broken down to its component parts, The Exorcism has a lot going for it. Strong performances—especially from Crowe, Simpkins, and Pierce—a solid premise, and plenty of intense and scary scenes including the final confrontation and when it work, it really, really works. But somehow, when they’re clumsily combined together, they end up less than the sum of their parts. It’s an imperfect vessel, cracked and missing a few pieces, but there’s fascination in those imperfections, and there’s enough good work on show here to lament what could have been.
