THE EXORCISM (2024) – Misfired homage to The Exorcist

The Exorcism is a well-intended but failed homage to the horror classic The Exorcist. The plot involves the filming of a fictional horror movie titled “The Georgetown Project” which has a story that greatly resembles The Exorcist. The original movie The Exorcist takes place near the campus of Georgetown University. The director Joshua John Miller’s father is Jason Miller who played Father Karras in The Exorcist. It is also interesting to see Russell Crowe donning a priest’s outfit again so soon after last year’s The Pope’s Exorcist. In case you are wondering, this film has nothing to do with The Pope’s Exorcist. Russell plays a troubled actor, Tony Miller who takes on the role as the exorcist in the film. In fact, The Exorcism was filmed a good three years BEFORE The Pope’s Exorcist but film makers blamed COVID for the delay. The film was originally titled The Georgetown Project but renamed to The Exorcism instead, with the posters using a very similar font to The Exorcist. This inevitably provided the unmistakable (but unauthorized) link to The Exorcist and to some extend The Pope’s Exorcist that the film makers wanted. Afterall Russell Crowe did get some favourable reviews for The Pope’s Exorcist which was at least fun and entertaining and I suspect the film makers were hoping to capture the fans of that movie to check this one out.

Sadly, The Exorcism does not share any of The Pope’s Exorcist’s successes. While the underlying plot of a movie set that is haunted has potentials, the way the story is presents leaves a lot to be desired. The editing is bad resulting in a number of times where the film’s continuity suffers. Some of the scares and shocks seem to come and go without any consequences. For example, the film crew doesn’t seem too distressed by the weird goings on in the film set! The supporting characters with the exception of Russell’s daughter were very superficially written and the casting choice a bit curious. For example, Sam Worthington who admittedly has not been able to get any decent roles apart from the Avatar movies, plays a character that literally appears a few times and has absolutely no importance to the film’s plot! It is to Russell Crowe’s credit that he at least manages to give a good performance amidst the all the disarray. Russell plays a troubled actor, Tony Miller who takes on the role as the exorcist in the film. So he isn’t exactly reprising the role of an exorcist as he did in Pope’s Exorcist.

Russell Crowe has come a long way since his Academy Award winning days of the classic Gladiator in 2000. He has grown old rather ungracefully ballooning to a huge body mass and going the direction of actors like Liam Neeson and Nicholas Cage with regular appearances in numerous small-scale movies of dubious standards. He has had some hits like Unhinged and The Pope’s Exorcist but too often ends up in duds like The Exorcism. Word of advice to Russell … next time you don the priest’s outfit make sure it is within the Pope’s Exorcist franchise.