Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Why, hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Movie Deputy. Reviews in your favorite podcast, the Movie Deputy podcast. Today we are actually to be talking about one of the new releases. Surprise, surprise. It's Friday. So that shouldn't really be a surprise to anybody. But you're probably wondering which one I'm talking about. Well, today we are going to be thoroughly interrogating The Exorcist Believer. Now, why am I putting it quite like that? Well, I want to say first and right up front that this movie definitely got a guilty rating. And honestly, if you were expecting anything less, you're on the wrong podcast.
[00:00:44] Just knowing how I am with some of my movies, but with The Exorcist Believer, I'm going to make you wait till the end to give you the score. Now, is that a good thing or a bad thing? You're just going to kind of have to hang on and find out. I do want to preface this that I have also reviewed The Exorcist and The Exorcist Two, like the sequel to it that came out back in the day. And those reviews will be up soon. But I wanted to get this one to you right fresh off the press. Not that I prepare anything except my notes ahead of time, but that's just me. So if you've come to know me, you've come to love me kind of thing with that or hate me, who knows either way. But this one, we start out by seeing a young couple down in Haiti. And he's a photographer, so he's using his wife as his inspiration. And while they're down there, they get caught in the middle of the Haiti earthquake. That was 1213 years ago. So I thought that was interesting that they kind of worked that in. And at the time, she's pregnant. And that kind of comes to play as the timeline jumps forward. You know me, no spoilers ever. So you don't got to worry about that. But this young girl, the baby is kind of in her pre or she's 13 now, but she really wants to go hang out with her friend. And in the process of this, they go off wandering together. And a couple of days later, things are kind of just really getting crazy. I mean, obviously their parents got people looking for them right away, but when they come back, they think they've only been gone a few hours when in fact they've been gone for three days.
[00:02:23] So how's that going to play out? It's like, okay, go back to the original Exorcist movie. If you've ever seen that one, you kind of know what happens and she gets possessed and then she just kind of goes crazy. And the rest of the movie is her mom trying to help her. Well, this one's not exactly like that. You see the girls come back, but they're different.
[00:02:46] And not just different like what we saw Linda Blair as like back in the day, but just different in just kind of a creepy sort of way. Now, you may think that description is a little bit OD, and you know what? Maybe it is. Maybe it is. But the thing is, just the way that they came back is there was something that came back with them. And that's kind of a really important part, because as the parents are trying to figure out what happened, and they're asking them what happened and trying to get into them, the girls go absolutely nuts. And it turns out that there's actually something a lot more that's connecting them. And ultimately the families reach out to somebody who might be able to help, who could help any better than I mean, she wrote a book explaining what she had kind of gone through with her daughter, with Reagan, and her book is the Mother's Explanation.
[00:03:47] They really dove deep into this book to try to find some answers. And of course, they turn back to the Church, and the Church tried to get the permission to do the Exorcism from this archdiocese and all of that. And all of that is kind of playing into this. And you're thinking, okay, it seems to be going a little bit different than your typical Exorcism movie. And you know what it is?
[00:04:08] I'll be completely honest. I'm partially so harsh on the original Exorcist movie just because I always say if I laugh at a horror movie, that completely kills the score. And I watched that movie even at a young age and thought it was funny. Okay, yeah, maybe I'm a little demented in some ways, but I didn't even see that one as even scary. This one delivers on the jump scares. This one delivers on the creep factor, at least to me. Now, as this all is playing out, I will say the ending does not end quite as you would expect it to.
[00:04:47] Okay, I'm not going to give any spoilers, which, you know, but I will say the ending is not what you expect.
[00:04:55] It's not even where I had anticipated it going. And I sat through all of the credits. I wanted there to be a bonus scene. I wanted there to be something else that was just going to show that the story was going to continue.
[00:05:09] And something happened at the very last scene of the movie. There's absolutely nothing in the credits, by the way. There's nothing at all in the credits, which is a little bit disappointing. But the story, there's a twist at the very end that will take your breath away. And I don't think that's an understatement. On the creep level, on the story level, I was initially thinking low mid eight. It's like I have not seen something that was this thoroughly creepy since the gallows. When the gallows came out, it was nice. There was nothing woke in this one, which is so surprising.
[00:05:50] It just had a spook factor it had just something different to it that we haven't seen in a long time. And in that, it created the intrigue. It created the what's going to happen next type thing with that. And ultimately the story asks, what do you think evil is?
[00:06:14] And if you did not know the answer to that question before you watch this, you're going to have a pretty good indication afterwards. If you like horror movies, if you like thrillers, if you like psychological thrillers, if you like anything that's even in that wheelhouse, this is going to be one that you're going to want to check out. I do want to put an important preface on there. If you are sensitive to religious horror, or if you are sensitive to religious things going on, or if you are really stout in your faith, I would not recommend this movie. And I'm going to kind of get into that here in just a second. But before I kind of go a little bit more into that, I want to share with you. I did promise you the score, and we're getting to the end here. The score that I ended up giving Exorcist Believer was a seven out of ten on the deputy scale. Now, you may be thinking, okay, why did she go so high?
[00:07:12] I've been seeing reviews on Devin. This wasn't very good. Well, like I said, the story delivers on this one. And at the same time, it's going to be a little bit too much for some. And just because the fact that didn't take the full on demonic creepiness thing, I'm actually rewarding it for that because it satisfied the creep level. But it doesn't go full on, in your face, demonic monstrous.
[00:07:44] It doesn't go down that path. And I think it's important to mention one of the reasons I gave it this score too, is like I said, I was initially like mid low, mid eight and stuff on this, right as I came out of the movie. And I asked people what they thought. And I write down if you're ever in a theater and somebody asks you what you think about a movie, it could end up on a podcast. You never know. But I talked to four completely different people, and I'm going to give you their exact responses. Person one was a male. I asked him what he thought. He goes, eh? I'm like, do you want to elaborate? And he goes, Eh.
[00:08:22] It's like, well, what does e me? And he goes, Eh.
[00:08:26] So that was literally the first response. And honestly, that one made me chuckle.
[00:08:33] His girlfriend, wife, whoever was with him, I asked her and she said I thought it was going to be much scarier. I'm upset about it. And I was like, okay, were you rewatching the same movie? I wouldn't call this scary, but I would call this intense.
[00:08:49] This is me again.
[00:08:51] There were two completely other people and they left separately. So they weren't together at all. But one of them, I just looked at her and I said, what did you think about it? And her eyes were about the size of silver dollars. And she goes, I'm never going to sleep again. And I thought that was it was just interesting to see just the different varying of opinions on that. And then the fourth person I talked to was it was an older lady. And she just looked at me and she was almost blank face. I mean, imagine you're talking to somebody that just has, like, no emotion, no expression, no nothing.
[00:09:30] And I asked, what did you think about it? She goes, I was not prepared for that, and asked her if she wanted to elaborate. And she literally just shook her head. So I was like, okay, she wasn't prepared for that. So just to kind of give you an idea, it's like I like to just ask random people what they think. It's like, I'm giving you what I think, obviously, and you can tell by the score. And of course, a seven is a watchable. Good story, questionable content. And for some people, this content is a little bit more than questionable. But there was just some things in it that just either went too far or not far enough, but they weren't key points in the story. The story has good flow. It carries on, and it explains a lot as it's going, which a lot of these stories don't always do. A lot of times they're just gory to be gory or scary to be scary. And this one actually has some substance to it. So if you're thinking about checking out this movie, like I said, or if you're a fan of the scary movies in general, I think you will enjoy this. So let that be your guide. And if not, if this movie wasn't for you, be sure to come back tomorrow as I'm going to be talking about another one of the ones that's opening this weekend. Till later. Bye.
