The Exorcist: Believer was met with fairly negative reviews across the board, and legendary horror director John Carpenter now shares his two cents regarding the film's reception. Directed by David Gordon Green, the director behind the recent Halloween reboot trilogy, The Exorcist: Believer serves as a direct follow-up to John Friedkin's iconic 1973 original film. The movie hit theaters last week and earned a lackluster reception from both audiences and critics, which was reflected in a less-than-stellar box office performance.

Now, Carpenter, the director behind such films as 1978's Halloween and 1982's The Thing, reacts to the poor reception to The Exorcist: Believer in a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times. It doesn't sound like the filmmaker has actually had a chance to watch the movie yet, but he evidently sees the sequel as a missed opportunity. Check out Carpenter's full comment below:

“I like what David did when he made the three ‘Halloweens.’ I loved No. 2 [‘Halloween Kills’]. Thought that was fabulous. I heard ‘The Exorcist’ really didn’t cut it. That could be a kickass movie. I don’t understand how you can screw that up.”

The Exorcist: Believer's Poor Reception Explained

While Friedkin's original Exorcist remains a horror classic, most of the sequels don't have this same reputation. Much like 2018's Halloween, Green's reboot/ sequel represented an opportunity to introduce new audiences to the franchise while also appealing to those with a relationship to the original stretch of films. Ultimately, however, it seems like the latest sequel has missed the mark, failing to carve out a niche for itself and strike this delicate balance.

There's a clear attempt to harken back to many of Friedkin's original ideas and his stylistic flourishes in The Exorcist: Believer, including featuring the return of Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil. A common sentiment in reviews, however, is that Green's attempts to go back to the franchise's roots come at the expense of really adding anything new or fresh. The movie, then, ends up feeling like more of a retread of themes and ideas that have been explored more effectively before.

While there is one scare involving Chris in The Exorcist: Believer that is genuinely shocking, a common complaint is that there isn't really enough terror in the movie. It's hard to overstate just how groundbreaking and genuinely horrifying the original Exorcist was in 1973, and the new movie just doesn't capture this rawness and this novel sense of dread. All of this has culminated in a fairly lackluster reception to the movie commercially, which is exacerbated by the fact that Universal paid a whopping $400 million for the rights to the franchise.

Source: Los Angeles Times