| Shane Meadows | Racing Movies |
CHRIS ALMIGHTY
THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER David Gordon Green gets original star Ellen Burstyn to take a leap of faith…
Legacy sequels are all the rage these days, and short of coaxing Jack Nicholson out of retirement for The Shining 2 (‘Hey, he was actually fine, once he’d defrosted…’), they don’t get any bigger than a new Exorcist movie featuring Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil.
Burstyn last played Chris, mother of possessed 12-year-old Regan (Linda Blair), in William Friedkin’s original 1973 masterpiece, with her commitment to the cause earning her an Oscar nomination and a lifetime of back pain after being flung across the room and injuring her lower spine. Since then, she has sat out of four more Exorcist movies (if you include both the Paul Schrader and Renny Harlin versions of the prequel) and Fox’s TV series, in which Chris did feature, but was played by Sharon Gless. So Burstyn’s decision to finally return for David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer is huge.
‘It’s incredible,’ beams Green, who cajoled Jamie Lee Curtis into returning as Laurie Strode in his Halloween trilogy. ‘I read her biography, and then it became like a mission: could I invite one of the Hollywood icons to step into this role that she hasn’t been in, in 50 years? That’s a true undertaking. The inspiration that her book gave to me in terms of her perspective after the movie, and how the success of the movie…’ He pauses. ‘I say “success”, but also a lot of obstacles and hardships were faced because of the notoriety of the film. So I got to know her, and we swapped literature and ideas, and we evolved this character to be meaningful for Ellen, beyond just a Chris MacNeil revisit.’
Green’s movie offers much to get excited about. For starters, the director/co-writer promises that the effects are for the most part practical, in line with the original movie. Then he attests that the film swerves cheap scares and instead seeks to disturb on a profound level. Much discussion, he says, went into answering the big question: just how do you terrify modern viewers who have seen two-dozen Exorcist knock-offs, and who perhaps give little thought to matters of faith? Well, The Exorcist: Believer features multiple possessions involving different faiths and those with no faith at all. Chris enters the fray when a desperate man (Leslie Odom Jr.) seeks her counsel, believing his daughter to be possessed.
‘She has taken her experience of 50 years ago and embraced that,’ says Green. ‘That’s who we meet, someone that’s experienced and educated. I guess the best way [to describe her] is [as] a teacher and spiritual advisor for other parents facing hardships of the unexplained.’
Well, you know what they say: the power of Chris compels you…
THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 13 OCTOBER.