294: The Exorcist: Believer (2023)

SPEAKER_03 0:04

The Soul of Children is famously the breakfast of demonic champions. Spooky season greetings and salutations and welcome to Hack or Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. Do you mind if I sleep in your bed tonight? If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack, a total joke, a waste of time, or a slash.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Totally killer. Unintended.

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We believe horror is for everyone, and at such we're rating these movies with the perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

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Please make it stop. It's hurting.

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The classic horror connoisseur Sean.

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You're gonna feel a little bit of jelly and a little bit of pressure.

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And the paranormal paramour, Vinks. Poor Little Piggies. This week we're back in the theater to check out a Blumhouse direct sequel to an iconic possession film. Now in 1973, a story of demonic possession gripped the world and forever changed our understanding of horror. We dissected that seminal piece in episode 33, and if you're one of our patrons, you can actually revisit that experience with a rewind episode featuring our current host lineup in your member feed right now. And before we grab our crucifixes and see what's up this week, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Let's follow up on some stuff. Celebrating its 50th anniversary, The Exorcist remains one of the greatest thrillers ever. The film that changed the way the genre is defined is now available in Stunning 4K. Look for The Exorcist on 4K Ultra HD. But we can do a little bit better than looking for it. We want to help you win The Exorcist on Digital 4K. So The Exorcist, you gotta listen to the rewind to see what I really think about it, but there are some thoughts there. So let's go through it. Ten Academy Award nominations, two wins, based on the best-selling novel by William Peter Blatty. It stars Linda Blair, Gorge, Ellen Burston. Linda Blair, who played the Possessed Daughter, hated vegetables so much. By the way, that the use of the pea soup actually did make her vomit in real life. So I respect. If you want to win this movie, here's what you have to do: give us a follow on Instagram, comment on our post for today's episode with your thoughts on either The Exorcist or its sequel. Tag one horror-loving friend in the comments who you think might enjoy our show, and that's it. We'll select winners at random and we'll contact you directly with your code to redeem the Exorcist on Digital 4K if you're selected.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Which is such an awesome opportunity. I mean, now that I've rewatched The Exorcist very recently, I can't help but wonder, damn, what if I watch this not in a shitty quality?

SPEAKER_01 2:33

I think your life would be better for it.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

The bloody crucifix of it all makes me think maybe not.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Well, to wrap up our follow-up, let's say hello, thank you, welcome, etc., to the newest members of our patrons who joined during our new blood drive. Merritt, Maddie, Jane, Chris, Alexandra, Garrett, Mandy, and Navia. Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Hell yeah, welcome, welcome.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

So many new friends. You picked a great time to join the family.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

The best time.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Let's hope that none of you have to undergo an exorcism because I know that honestly, Sean doesn't have the stomach for it.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Yeah, and Mac, although very Catholic, doesn't believe in doing exorcisms himself. Mink Smite. I'll give it a shot. I'll be the skeptic in the corner.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

And that's our follow-up.

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This week we're venturing back into the unsettling world of the demonic possession with a newly released direct sequel from the mind of David Gordon Green. This sequel brings us into the woods where two girls vanish without a trace, only to resurface three days later with their memories gone. Clueless about what they've been through, one desperate father decides it's time to consult an expert on mysterious and malevolent happenings. Someone who herself has been profoundly changed by her own horrific past half a century ago. The film aspires to stand on the shoulders of its predecessor while pushing the boundaries of modern filmmaking techniques. The question before us is whether or not they were successful in that attempt. This week, we're talking about The Exorcist Believer. What were you all expecting going into this?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Man, I will admit, I was a little excited when I heard about this film or heard that it was coming out. I guess you could say it's kind of like a requel of sorts, right? Like it's just doing a new sequel, abandoning everything else. So I was a little bit excited for it. It's bringing back some original characters, which I think is what got me excited about this film because there have been other exorcist films, but outside of I think The Heretic with Linda Blair, they didn't really include any OG characters. But then one of the things that I started to think about, maybe even worry about, was if this movie is going to be as raw and shocking as the original film. Can it be in this day and age? I don't know, honestly. So needless to say, I was a little bit excited, but also a little bit nervous. And I want to see, you know, the depth and story and characters. I want to be shocked by what I was witnessing, but you know, I have a hard time believing that this is something that can be pulled off. So also a little skeptical. So that's kind of like all of the feelings I had going into this movie.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah, you know, I was thinking this is either gonna really hit the right notes or it's gonna fall flat. I think 2020s and other recent requels have the opportunity to just like really hit you in the nostalgia. Or to quote Kylo Wren, let the past die, kill it if you have to. I think, you know, after I actually really enjoyed the recent Halloween sequels, recalls, whatever you want to call them, I was cautiously optimistic.

SPEAKER_06 5:22

I think that's fair. I also was hoping and expecting for the same level of blasphemy like you were saying, Sean, but at the end of the day, you have to understand that it's 2023. They're gonna tone it down. It's a major box office film, so they're not gonna be able to get away with some of the things that they probably or rather they did in the original, of course. But I don't know, I still I still thought maybe, or could it be, right? I was expecting definitely some continuity, which is important. I definitely got the vibe that this is like a requel type of situation. So, you know, we've had a few of those already this year, even with like the continuation of the new scream movies, right? So I thought, okay, we can kind of expect that a bit. Was hoping still for those great special effects and makeup work, that continuity as well, because I think that's what makes the exorcist so unique and like impressionable, right? But the biggest hope and expectation that I had was are we gonna spend enough time with these now two girls, right? These two main girls, and even just the father itself. And then also, of course, me expecting that, okay, this is the exorcist, there's gonna be someone that is exercising them, right? So are we still gonna get that Damien type of situation uh where we're like buying into these characters, really taking our time with them? Because that's what I really love about The Exorcist.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

You know, I want to first start by saying what I expected, but then I want to tell you what I hoped for going into this because you know, last time David Gordon Green touched an iconic horror franchise, it was the one that I fucking love so much, right? And this is going into a franchise that I don't particularly care that much about. The Exorcist is undeniably iconic. It's not a perfect movie for me. So I think it allows me to have this healthy level of detachment and I don't harbor the same emotional investment that I think most people do for this movie. And I think that put me in a great position to watch this without any real disappointment because I expected it to be really, really good, but not great. And I expected that if anyone would like it, I would because I'm not that high on the original. Now, I did not expect the great effects. I really didn't. The Exorcist is so fucking incredible for the love and the tension and detail that went into its practical effects. And honestly, looking at that movie, I'm like, there's no fucking way they're even gonna come close. There's no way you can match the power of The Exorcist after its initial Indiana Jones movie that preceded The Exorcist. Once you get past that, I really hoped to go in a different direction. I hoped that we wouldn't get the same Halloween 2018 treatment. As much as I love fanfare and fan service. Hey, you know, like people down it, but we out here, we fans, sometimes we just want to get some good shit after a while, right? After decades of a drought in this franchise. So I hoped for a new direction. I hoped that Chris wouldn't have the Lori Strode effect, and I hoped that there would be a different message behind this movie so that it wouldn't just live in the shadow of its predecessor.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

I think you had a lot of really valid hopes. I think a lot of us had high hopes and kind of realistic expectations, you know, because we've been hurt before by recent sequels and requels and prequels and all the other things that can end with Quell. But I think when we're sitting there watching this, I just felt like this was very 2023. It's different, you know, there's jump scares and fast cuts and lots of visual flashes of evil just piled on. There's a heavy use of CGI in places. Uh, and of course, there's an interesting use of franchise characters that have chosen to return.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

That is true. It's hard to get away from you know the the modern technology to make films these days, right? I think it's easy to go down the path of like CGI and doing all those things. I think it's just what you end up doing with those effects and how you use them and do they look right? Do they feel out of place? And to your point, like how are you how are they using these characters? So I know we're gonna dive into that later, and I can't wait to dive into that topic.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Yeah, we're gonna dive into something, that's for sure. But let me tell you that watching this movie, I felt uncomfortable. Not the same level or even really close to the same atmosphere as being as uncomfortable as the original Exorcist makes me even still to this day. But I found myself engrossed in what I felt was the direction that they were going in terms of the believer of it all. I thought it was a really interesting approach for this movie to have. And I felt like, man, these little girls were working those fucking possessions. Like, good for that. Like, there's no Linda Blair. Like these poor girls, they had to go in and like you're you're doing the the direct sequel to a movie that starred the greatest child actor possession performance. Like, there's just no way, right? That's such a high bar. And I thought they did a phenomenal job. There were a couple moments where I felt like could have done without that, this, that. But overall, it was a pretty just fine experience.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

For sure. Like, I think it had similar vibes in some ways. It obviously it's not the same by any means, but it definitely tries to stick to some similar paths, right? You like you have this drama aspect, you have this sense of detective work, true crime feel to it. Like it's got those aspects. There is this underlying story of love and faith, but I I did not get the same feeling of shock from this film, and I think that's to the point of like, can they do this stuff now? What you know, what what's getting in the way of putting a film out in major theatrical releases these days and and all of that stuff. But the film did get me to react in several different ways. I I definitely felt emotional in some moments, but I also found myself laughing at some moments where I don't believe it was meant to be funny or campy. I could be wrong. I I don't know what that says about me, and I also found myself saying nope in a lot of these moments as well. Like, hell no, nope, not happening, whatever. Uh, which is kind of always a good time, right? Like when you're reacting in those ways. One thing I can tell you is that, you know, if my kid were to ever to do any of this shit, they're on their own. You can stay out in those woods.

SPEAKER_06 11:37

No kidding. Sean, I'm right there with you, truthfully, because at some point we gotta continue on with the trend of fuck them kids, and I don't know, it's giving spooky. But I'll tell you, I actually watched this movie twice, and initially I was loving the pacing of the film. We get that character development while picking up the pace a bit more than the first one. So I feel like I can vibe with what's going on. I was loving it. The problem here, and I think we kind of mentioned it a bit earlier, it's like it was giving too much 2023. So the way I kind of perceived it was that it was just coming off very generic. And so eventually it just becomes like every other possession film, and that's what I was feeling. It just felt very flat and very like, okay, I've seen this. There are some aspects of this film that I really enjoy, and we'll get into it later. I also love seeing, you know, obviously a father-daughter relationship. That's such a unique dynamic, especially coming from people of color that we don't necessarily see in the main forefront of a horror film. But just to kind of give listeners that haven't seen this movie yet a little bit of a morsel. Once again, and we actually mentioned this earlier in another film that we reviewed recently, a little bit of MCU, and I'll leave it at that. It's given a little bit of Avengers Assemble, and that just really overshadowed the whole experience for me. And then the second time around, I liked it a little bit more. I was kind of like, all right, power through, you can vibe with this. And then I ended up falling asleep. So there's that, and yeah, and you know what? That's ultimately what is the biggest disappointment for me is that man, I so we talked about it, right? You have this hype, you have this hope. You're thinking, all right, we're gonna really explore some of these things, we're gonna spend a lot of time with these characters, and and in some ways you do, but it just felt super generic, and there was also a lack of the vulgarity and blasphemy that I was hoping for, that I think makes the exorcist the exorcist. When you go too far into the other extreme, it just feels like every other possessed film. This could have been something unique. And although, like I mentioned, I I did like a little bit more of the character building that we got in the front end, especially more the second time that I watched it. When you fall asleep through, you know, a film and it's Dolby, I don't know, guys. That's that's a pretty heavy disappointment for a film.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

That's wild to me because I can't imagine falling asleep through this movie. But maybe if the mood is just right and those Dolby seats are that comfortable, maybe maybe because there is a bit of slowness to this movie, but for me, not to the drastic effect that I think the first movie had. That was too slow in so many moments, and I found that this one kept me invested or interested the entire way through. But let me tell you that with all the things that went on in this movie, things coming out of people's mouths that aren't vomit, or probably what my biggest disappointment was sometimes the sound effects, but also just the dialogue. There's a couple moments where I was like, okay, could have done without that. But then specifically with the possessions, it felt like things were out of sync. And maybe it was just in my showing, but there were so many moments, and like I feel like my brain is traumatized with by this from being a video editor. There were so many moments where I was looking at these little girls' lips, and the voice that was coming out was not even close to matching the movement of the mouth. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on there? I really want to think it was just my showing, but the jury's still out.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

I think I think they must have changed like the words, you know. So I think they they gave us the trailer, and then people responded to the trailer, and I think they're like, ooh, we need to make some adjustments, or maybe they did some screenings and they realized that because I had that same experience where you're watching them and you're like, I can tell there's dubbing and it's okay because they're supposed to be, but at the same time, it doesn't sync up. You're I don't think you're wrong there at all. So I think they must have changed like the verbiage that those voices were using.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

And it's so interesting because even the the words that come out look like they were supposed to be there. It doesn't feel like that. It just feels like a a slip, a little slip. Hop into fucking Adobe Premiere, hop into Final Cut, hop into fucking avid, whatever your fucking NLE is, slide that shit a little bit, a couple frames, left or right, this movie is gonna fucking sink up beautifully.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

I think the thing that mostly surprised me though was just like what a drastic change that this movie took and how it dealt with faith and religion. You know, The Exorcist is like obviously very heavily Catholic, but Exorcist Believer ironically did not feel bound to one particular religion. And I think that was a deliberate choice here, but it's a very different vibe from The Exorcist because of that. That's very true.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

And that is something that I actually really enjoyed because it felt like okay, how many more possession movies are we gonna get with just a priest coming out here to save the day? I loved that that's not what we got here.

SPEAKER_06 16:43

I agree. That's also what I what I also enjoy. I just think, and we'll get into it, but I just think that you have you explore that, but they didn't see it through completely. There were certain things that I would have loved some more context, some more understanding of said religions or or whatever, right? To like really buy in. And I feel like it was just kind of glazed over.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, I think I'm with you too. Like I appreciated them bringing different aspects of different religions in, but definitely they didn't explore them enough in the film to make it make a whole lot of sense all the time, or just didn't fit all the time. But I I just I I like the different angles, I will say that. I mean, it definitely still has like its, you know, faith aspect in some regards, right? But it doesn't, it just doesn't stick to just Catholicism. So good or bad, you know, it it was the choice they made. I wasn't really surprised by a whole lot in this movie, I would say. I guess the one thing that I was surprised at, and I think you mentioned it, Chris, was just how good some of the movie really looked and its effects and makeup, because I gotta admit, I I was, you know, I was kind of 50-50 from what I got from the trailers. When I first watched the trailer for the first time, I was like, man, I don't know if this movie's really gonna look that great. There was just something about it, and it could have just been where I watched it at the time, it just didn't look great, and then I watched it again, it looked maybe like it, okay, maybe I was just tripping, maybe it was just maybe it's gonna be a little bit better. Um, but I was pleasantly surprised by how this movie looked. So that's one thing. I will say, disappointment-wise, I was pretty disappointed in how they handled bringing back some of the original story and more specifically the use of the characters, but again, we've got to save that for the spoiler zone, so we're gonna dive into that later.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

And you know, for as much as they brought back some some source material, right? We think about just the power of that story, that movie was considered one of the most frightening movies of all time. And I know we had our own take on that over in the Rewind episode, so our patrons can listen to that now and hear hear what we had to say. But I think what this does do in terms of the 2023 of it all is include a lot of those jump scares. I had a couple that, as I was watching the other people in my theater, there were two moments that people really got got, and it wasn't enough to really move me, but I do think that this movie is just spooky enough to be like a good head to the theater in October, and you'll get your your your cup filled.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

That's interesting. I didn't notice in in my theater that many like large reactions from people. I I can see this film being scary for some people out there. It's definitely dark, it's evil, it does try to build some tense moments that give you a little bit of the creeps here and there. For me, it did honestly like it had the jump scare aspect, and that's cool. It did fail to get me to react. I didn't really necessarily notice anyone jumping in the theater. I may have heard some gasps here and there, but and maybe that was the jump. Obviously, I'm not watching people, I'm watching the movie, but I I don't know that it was super, super frightening, and it doesn't have that shock value that it did in the original. So for me, it wasn't a very scary film, but I can definitely appreciate some of the creepy moments it tried to build throughout the movie.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Yeah, I I'm gonna say that it's just not scary, and I think part of this comes back to the vibe that uh that Binks mentioned earlier, and that it's closer to just a bunch of other possession movies that we've gotten in the last couple years, and so it does feel a little bit more generic, and because of that, it just feels something that I would it feels like something I'd fire up on Netflix, to be honest, and so I just didn't find it the kind of movie that would give you nightmares or make you check your closet or anything like that.

SPEAKER_06 20:22

I have to agree with you, Mac. It's not scary, and that's saying a lot coming from me. It's that I did get got by things that you probably shouldn't have gotten got? Does that make sense? There there were certain jump scares that I think were meant just to be very subtle, very slight, not to be the main fright, and that's what gave me the main fright. Now, if we want to talk about the classic human condition, there are certainly some circumstances here that play that are in play, especially as a parent, that are obviously crazy, that are definitely scary, frightening. I don't even know what I would do in that situation a thousand percent, right? There's actually two instances of that. So I do love that, but when we're talking about the classic stuff, it didn't do it for me, definitely did it for my mom. She was scared probably the whole friggin' time. So I love that. And that's good. You know, if we're gonna do a 2023 blockbuster, very modern, and you're doing the jump scares, kind of like we were saying, Chris, then do it right and cater to those people because I need it. I think if you're not necessarily the the biggest consumer of horror and jump scares all the time, this is gonna be a fun film to kind of like get you spooked out by for sure. And the acting from these two main girls will do it to you for sure, giving them the credit. But I was honestly surprised that I wasn't scared, which is why I was like, man, what is this? Like a lullaby to me that I fell asleep? I kept waking up, and even the like the jump scare moments that you would think, especially in Dolby, would wake me up. I was fast asleep.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

You know what scared me the most in this movie?

SPEAKER_04 21:58

What?

SPEAKER_03 21:58

At some point, my Left eye, and again, like not touching my eye, not doing anything. My left eye just starts leaking, just like tearing. So I had to pee pretty bad, and I went to go do the bathroom real quick. But when I looked at the mirror, my entire eye was fucking red. Whoa. And like swollen. And I had no idea why. I rinsed it out, everything's fine. As you can see now, my eye is okay. But I'm like, what kind of demonic bullshit is happening in my fucking eye right now? That was scarier than the movie. You might have gotten possessed. It's possible. But you know, for as much as these scares didn't do it for me, what did do well by me was its approach to its story. This is the movie that put exorcism on the map. Like this franchise, The Exorcist 1973. You cannot follow that. Like that is a hard act to follow. And instead of going so hard in the direction of let's recreate the original, they put a greater focus on people and the humanity of it all and the greater spirituality instead of the narrative of just one faith. And honestly, I think it was the best possible direction they could have gone to avoid just living in the shadow of its predecessor.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

So what's interesting to me though, like I can see that there's this linkage to The Exorcist. It was very heavy-handed, the fact that they wanted us to believe that the two were related. It feels more linked to like the conjuring universe to me or other recent possession movies. However, the commentary in the movie about this current state of the Catholic experience is very similar to the type of commentary we got in The Exorcist. The Exorcist, of course, had that post-second Vatican Council thing going on, right? And they had to comment on that by having the two different priests and the differences between, you know, modernity and the past, whatever, right? This one deals with that very, very differently. And we've mentioned that there's like multiple faiths brought up and there's like a whole team effort and all this sort of stuff. And I think that it you could say that it's just trying to be modern, but in reality, it's trying to show that there is a slipping grasp that's been rapidly slipping over the last 50, 60 years, almost to the point of irrelevance. That's what it feels like in this movie. And that can be, you know, for most people, okay, that's just reality. And to other people, that can be insulting. So I'm curious how some folks kind of feel while watching this, like they feel like it should have been more Catholic, or if they feel that it's commentary on, you know, the current nature of our society.

SPEAKER_06 24:30

I think it's just that you expect possession films and Catholicism to go hand in hand because it in the in the public eye, it seems like they feel like Catholics are the ones that are the most involved. However, it's obviously not true. Any study of the diaspora of all of these religions would tell you that, especially and I and we're exploring specific ones that are very culturally that I loved because it's very familiar to what I know. Being from the Caribbean, right, being Cuban, uh I could pick up on certain practices and things that I can relate to, or rather, that I've been exposed to. So definitely that's the case. But for me, I feel like what was missing here was kind of explaining all of that. You know what I mean? Like it gets very surface level with that. And so that's where we're probably gonna have some people being like, that's strange. Why wasn't there enough? Like, why wasn't there more Catholicism? You know, it when you don't have context to everything else, that's probably gonna lend itself to something that's like that. Now, when we talk about originality altogether, I think that's definitely what makes this movie stand out in comparison to the first one. But I go back to everything else was just about every other possession film I've seen. There's one special effect or scene that it was like what? I are we going into like Ed and Lorraine Warren's stuff right now? Like what's happening here? And you would think that I'd be all about it. Didn't love it. So it's unfortunate. And then even then, you mentioned fan service a little bit earlier. It it was a little too forced to me. It seemed a little too like we're gonna really try to do these nods and we're gonna deliver it real strong, but it's too awkward.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Here's the thing. I I'll give this movie some credit. It's originality in the way it attempts to carve out its own story from the original. I think that's where the originality comes in. I definitely see the the points of like they really went you know away from just focusing on the Catholicism of it all, right? But I think we're at a time where like it's probably more accepted than anything that we're gonna that we're gonna bring in a multitude of different views or different faiths or different religions or what have you. Uh, I can definitely see where some people might want to see that that you know original type of good and evil battle, but I I think I'm not really mad at like the different you know cultures or different religions coming together in this film. I I think that the film has to create a story of what is happening and what has happened from the original film and then weave that into this modern storyline. So for that, I'll give it originality. Was it great? Well, that that's gonna be determined later on, right? But outside of that, I I think it does kind of feel like a lot of what we have gotten with almost every other possession movie following The Exorcist. So it has originality there in its approach and in what it was able to do, but then you get all of the stuff that's sprinkled in throughout the movie, the meat in the sandwich, if you will, and that right there is stuff we've seen before. So when you take that out, you're just left with two pieces of bread. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 27:45

Well, hey, I like bread. And I'm do I I I I went through many a poor year just eating bread and hot sauce. So, you know, fuck it if I like trash, I guess. But one thing that I did appreciate was this ending. And I'm not saying it in the way that's like uh oh, the best part of the movie was when it was over. No, it's not not in that way. I liked the wrap-up and the conclusion for this story, and it didn't do anything that I didn't expect in terms of its end result, but it did do it in a way that I didn't anticipate. And I got to see more than I expected we would, and that made it made it a very satisfying experience.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

That's so interesting to me because I I didn't have a good time with the ending. I didn't have a good time with the final third of the movie. You know, I think the Exorcist has one of the most memorable endings in horror movie history. This one just seemed muddled and honestly forgettable.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

I don't know. Man, that's rough. I don't know if it's forgettable by any means. I don't think it's going to hit the same as the original Exorcist. I think it tries to give you some really, for lack of a better word, intense moments, right? That that happened. There's a couple of moments in the ending that I think it really tries to really get you with and really land. Overall, I think the ending was pretty good. We get that final showdown. There was a lot of emotions running through the ending of this film. Uh, I think you had everything you probably wanted there. Like I do feel like there was intensity. I think it did have some surprising elements. I'm not saying that it wasn't predictable in the overall formula or outcome, but I think there was a couple of moments that were a little bit surprising in the way that it happened, and I think it even left you with a half happy ending in a way, which I, you know, I'm not mad at either. So I don't know. Overall, I'm not mad at this ending. I think it was pretty good.

SPEAKER_06 29:43

You know, I want to go back to what you said, Chris, because I'm wondering if it's the same thing. Because I I definitely was afraid of what where this was gonna go. I anticipated it, but then it pleasantly surprised me a bit with the delivery. Now, it was a great wrap-up, but this is where I'm talking about the Avengers stuff. This is this is the height of the of the classic MCU type bullshit. So I don't know. It was like I'm loving where this is going while also seeing the the the typical blockbuster move is right behind it, and who's gonna win out, right? So I loved where it was going and I love the conclusion, and I think it made sense, especially if they're even planning to do more movies, whatever. Man, I can't wait to talk more about the way that they soured it just a smidge for me, though, because it just seemed like uh I I go back to the dialogue part. Dialogue could have been a little bit better.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

Yeah, so I think for me, what I'm referring to when I say I I liked it was the end end, and what you're referring to is the third act pre-ending start of the conclusion of everything. And I know what you're referencing with the MCU of it all, but holy shit, you're making me so glad I don't give a fuck about the MCU of it all, because I feel like that would have soured the experience even more. I think not having dealt with and experiencing that or only really seeing it through memes, I saw it and it did stick out. And I was like, oh, okay. It's one of the two things that I could have done without, but it wasn't enough to tank the movie for me. But it sounds like maybe it was enough to tank it for some of you. So let's start making our way to our scores. But before we actually rate this movie, Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_00 31:25

You know, from a gore aspect, like we got some some really great effects that look really good, but overall, when it comes down to the gore of it all, we we get a little bit of gore. That's cool. I I think it's really feeling like it's teetering on like a medium low gore score, to be honest with you. I I don't I don't look at gore from just a special effects or makeup standpoint. I'm I'm talking I'm talking about like are we seeing blood and guts? And from that, I'm I'm I'm on a medium low.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

And what about the animal report?

SPEAKER_06 31:52

There are very little, if not maybe just one animal featured, and even then, we're safe.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Let's go ahead and get into our ratings then. The Exorcist Believer from 2023. Was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_06 32:05

Alright, so I'll I'll start us off. It's unfortunate for me to say friends, but truth be told, this movie just didn't do it for me. And I don't think that's much of a surprise, as we've probably heard all throughout this episode. There was potential for me to love this, and I really was starting to. I like that we were exploring what's happening to two little girls versus just one, right? We've got a main character, which is a father grappling with something that's traumatic completely. And I even love that we're incorporating these different religions, like I've mentioned, and their perception or what they do, what in the context of exorcisms. But it just felt so incredibly generic for about I dare say maybe 75% of the film, that it just didn't hit the mark for me. It wasn't really memorable, it just didn't stand out or live up to the hype that I was expecting, much less what it was following, which is hard because when you've got something that to me is like a perfect film when it comes to The Exorcist, you can't, it's too high of a standard. And I wrote wasn't really looking for that because I love this kind of stuff. I love the paranormal, I love possession films, but it just felt too blockbustery and honestly a little bit mid, and it was feeling forced to try to do the fan service. There's a lot of things going on, but most importantly, it just wasn't blasphemous enough. And so for that, I'm just giving it a hack.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Wow. You know, I think as a movie, this was kind of middle of the road, supernatural, demonic possession flick, right? It was, as you mentioned, kind of mid, but as a movie that uses the exorcist in the title, ooh, I was very disappointed. The original film nailed subtleties, nuance, and restraint. The Exorcist Believer, I don't think did any of those things. I think it was over the top almost constantly. It utilized jumpscares when the original basically didn't have to. It used CGI almost to its detriment, and in my opinion, it abused its connection to the original film by only wasting appearances by returning characters and completely abandoned the in-universe rules established in the first film. I honestly think I prefer the prequel to this requel. Sure, this is an entertaining movie to stream at home eventually when that's an option, but I don't think that this is the exorcist in any way. I think if you're gonna wedge yourself into the franchise with a 50-year-old cult classic award-winning film, you better really deliver, and The Exorcist Believer did not. It's a hack.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

You both have made some pretty good points, right? I I think that this film has really gotten a lot of heat from fans and critics alike already. I think for me, I see the points that you're making. I also see some things that I like in this film. I was really 50-50 on this film after watching it, right? I'm back and forth on a lot of different things. Some people are calling it boring, some are even calling it a travesty. Hell, apparently, even William Friedkin was not a fan, right? Even before this film was finished, a film critic by the name of Ed Whitfield posted on his social media accounts that Friedkin once told him, in quote, Ed, the guy who made those new Halloween sequels is about to make one to my movie, The Exorcist. That's right, my signature film is about to be extended by the man who made Pineapple Express. I don't want to be around when that happens, but if there's a spirit world and I can come back, I plan to possess David Gordon Green and make his life a living hell. That's pretty intense. Now I don't think the film was that bad, but it wasn't super great either, right? Like I enjoyed some of what the movie did, but some of the storyline felt unfinished or underdeveloped. I think the use of some of the original characters in this movie were mishandled in my opinion, and there was a missed opportunity there. I enjoyed the first and third act of this film a lot more than I enjoyed the second act or the middle of the movie. I think it's extremely hard to live up to the name of The Exorcist, and especially when you're trying to make a direct sequel to the original film. So to your point, Mac, if this movie was not affiliated with The Exorcist, would it be getting as bad of a rep? I'm not sure. Overall, though, I did feel entertained and enjoyed a good amount of this film. I think I'm 50 maybe 50, I don't know, 5149 on this film. I can honestly put this film into soft slash or soft hack territory, but for me, I think I'm going to let this one go with a soft slash. I think it deserves at least that.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

The amount of absolute hate this movie is getting kind of blows my mind, and it feels reminiscent of the 2019 Black Christmas. And that is a movie that dares to make a remake or a spiritual successor, not a not a requel, not a sequel even, but to take on that name and make a film when it was an absolute fucking classic beforehand. I think my expectation setting going into this movie, and I think my honestly dull admiration for The Exorcist set me up well here because I had fucking fun. And I didn't I'd be hard pressed to find a lot of things in this movie that I really want to complain about. Is it Academy Award winning? Absolutely not. Does it stand up or even come close to being in the same conversation as Linda Blair? Absolutely fucking not. But it's a fun movie. And I'm not even someone who particularly cares for possession movies overall, but the story that we get with this father and daughter, the dynamic that we get with the intersection of so many different faiths, I absolutely love the potential of that. And sure, this is again Chris Rojas falling in love with potential, and maybe not what we actually get, but all this movie really had to do was not bore me, and I wasn't bored. And that's already a market improvement upon my experience watching the original. The effects aren't anywhere near as good as the original. I think the gamble that they take making you care about two little girls instead of one, it hits in some spots and it misses in a lot of others because there's no way either of them are really going to be Reagan. This movie doesn't dare to try to be more of the Exorcist. It dares to expand the universe of the Exorcist. And that is something that honestly I'm 100% a believer of. So it's a slash. And with that, the Exorcist Believer from 2023 has earned two pretty strong hacks and two slashes. Now you can't find this movie playing in theaters right now, or you can check the link in our show notes to see where you can find it right now. If you're listening to this episode post its theatrical run, either way, check it out. Then join us in the second half so we can get into these spoilers together. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

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SPEAKER_00 40:55

Well, it's definitely not a high kill count by any means. We only have three deaths throughout this movie, but that's enough for us to dive into them. So let's talk about these three deaths. Did any stand out to you?

SPEAKER_06 41:08

I guess it's weird to say that it would be a favorite kill, but one the one that stands out to me is obviously Mama Fielding. That whole scene in general, considering that it's also the opening, right, was so difficult for me to watch. Just because that is the reality that happens, especially in Haiti and just the Caribbean in general, right? Some of these spaces where these earthquakes happen and they destroy these places. And it's so, so sad to think about. That's the only thing that resonated in my mind both times. Hard watch, so sad to see that she had so much hope and was so grateful for the blessing that she received and really immersed in this community. And I don't know, she seems so happy. And then it's like, ugh, reality sets in. Natural disasters are scary as fuck.

SPEAKER_03 41:51

And so, yeah, a thousand percent. And that is the earthquake in Haiti in 2010.

SPEAKER_06 41:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

And I had this mind-fucked moment the second that earthquake started, and I'm like, wait, wait, wait, what year is it? Like, when does this take place? Is this like a fictional earthquake that's inspired by? Because I remember when this earthquake happened, it was like months before I went on deployment. I remember being on the ship and we had to like send humanitarian aid to Haiti. And that's just like such a mind fuck when it says then jump now 13 years later. And to think now, that was 13 years ago. Over 220,000 people died in that earthquake. And that is just a tragedy.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Bold move to incorporate it in here, but wow. Yeah, it was it was shocking.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

Yeah, that it is it is a uh a tragedy for sure. And I was thinking the same thing as you, Chris, when it happened. I was like, oh shit, are they actually like tying in these real world events into this film? Which, you know, it is bold, uh, but I think it did add some value to the film. I think it it definitely, you know, wasn't like it wasn't like a bad choice, in my opinion. I think it it did add this heaviness to the film to start the film off in that way and just really kind of set that tone. So, but yeah, what a what a tragic death that was, and and really, really tough. And then what we kind of learn towards the end, I think, man, that really hits hard too. So I'm sure we'll get to that point. But man, crazy.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

Yeah. It's something that obviously is not my favorite death one. I think we do have a a note for coolest, but also maybe most goofy death. But I want to talk a little bit about Catherine because the second we get less of her and more of Angela, you know that if one of them has to go, it's gonna be Catherine. You know what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_04 43:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

I was pleased to see the direction that went with this father being so goddamn selfish and just shooting at the last second. Catherine's mom is staring at her and holding strong. Angela's father is holding strong. And then this one guy who can barely hang, who's in and out, in and out, in and out. He is the one that makes a decision that ends his daughter's life. And it is terrible. It's heartbreaking. It's tragic. But for us to actually see her get dragged into hell and to hear her begging for help, that was a really sobering moment. And again, this movie doesn't hit quite the same as The Exorcist does, but that moment in particular, ooh.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

Yeah, it was it was crazy. I think it was like, I don't know if the movie intended Catherine's death to be like a curveball in a way. I think in retrospect it's kind of predictable based on the turn of events. Or I I mean, I just think, you know, we knew at least one of them was gonna die based on what was shared in those final moments, but I think it it was hoping for you not to guess that it was going to be her, even though with the way that the father acted, even if you didn't guess it at that point, I'm sorry to say, he deserved it. Sucks for Catherine, but it's on him, and I wash my hands of that.

SPEAKER_03 45:00

So Catherine wasn't really having main character moments, though.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. It's interesting. Here's the here's the we'll probably talk about it in characters, but here's the thing between Catherine and and Angela in the film for me is like I I feel like I feel like Angela was a bigger was almost like a bigger focus in the film, right? But I feel like Catherine had more of the possession. Like it just felt she had she had more like heavy hitting possession moments throughout the film. And so like it was kind of I don't know, the the balance between those two characters is a little bit interesting. I think from a character standpoint, Angela's got it, but I think from from the actual possession and the way they looked standpoint, I think Catherine has it.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Yeah, it's because Angela's armor class is beefed up with that blessing.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

True. That this is true. This is true.

SPEAKER_06 45:51

But here's the problem. To me, I think of like, okay, people are coming to this film probably to primarily see how these girls are gonna act when they're possessed. And the biggest takeaway that they're gonna have and the things that they remember is the possession, right, of these girls. Heck, certainly is what people remember from The Exorcist, the original one, right? So what's unfortunate is that you don't then see Angela fully, completely and totally unhinged, possessed, you give it to Catherine. And so that's the unfortunate part. And then even then, even the stuff with Catherine is just like it's it's fanfare a little bit in certain points. I don't know. I just felt like it would have been cool to see both, to see both completely unhinged. And I understand in some cases it's all about the plot, right? And the circumstances and the differences between these families. One is quick to get their daughter the care that they need, as unfortunate as it is by putting them in, you know, this institution. The other is so delusional that they think, oh, we can handle this in the comfort of our home. So of course you're gonna have to see in some cases, then that means you're gonna see Catherine more than you're gonna see Angela, because what you would then have to explain why is it that we're keep going to this institution, that we're just watching her at all hours of the night. I get it. But I don't know. It would have been I would have been okay with maybe just seeing both of them in their homes just a little bit longer, or more of them in their homes progressing to extreme state just a bit.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

Yeah, maybe, but I think even for as less unhinged as Angela may seem, she had my favorite possession moment when she's talking to Anne.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 47:37

And she's talking about Sister Mary scraped out like a rotten pumpkin, and then you just get this fucking blood seeping through the sheet. That is some shit.

SPEAKER_04 47:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

I think it's it's on a parallel with in The Exorcist when Pazuzu knows Damien's mother and that she recently passed. It's that kind of thing, but for some reason, this little bit, it hit me a little bit more spooky.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

That was a great moment, and I think Catherine's possession was was definitely was definitely more interesting in in many cases. The trouble I have with her death in particular is that that whole dynamic of you have to pick which child lives and which one dies was not like an established thing. This wasn't brought up earlier in the film. This is something they just made up right at the very end that these possessed girls just said, and they're like, okay, I guess we have to roll with it. When in the previous, you know, I mean, at least in the first film, they would have just said, shut up, I'm I'm exercising, I don't care what you say. And of course, since they didn't have a professional here, they couldn't really get to that point. And they tried, but then their weaknesses failed them. And the fact that they actually killed her off, I think was a mistake. I I don't think it should have happened. And I think there's this weird thing now in modern films where you like you always have to subvert the audience's expectations. I think it's like something that people are constantly trying to do. And I'm and sure, sometimes it works out well, but it's not like you need to, it's not a requirement. Sometimes what you need to set up in the audience's mind is a desire to see a certain outcome, and then you have to make them work to see that pay off. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just because something is like, okay, I could, I think they might do this, and then you have to you have to like bear through some craziness together, and then it happens, it's like ah, satisfying. Instead, what we're getting is, hey, we're gonna throw this random thing at you that you weren't expecting because that's subverting your expectations, that that makes us good filmmakers. And I think her death here really showed that that's absolutely not the case. It was just like to me, was kind of a letdown, and the child didn't deserve it. So, like, why did why did that have to happen? I don't know. I just like I didn't enjoy that that happened at all, especially when they like give us the scene of her going into hell. Like, okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 49:50

Mac, this is the year of fuck them kids. How could you possibly be surprised by this? Oh my, you know, I mean Bro, like you had to have seen this coming. It's tragic. I don't think Catherine deserved it. She obviously did not deserve this.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

She didn't deserve it, no.

SPEAKER_03 50:09

However, it was a choice.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Yeah, they made a choice. That's you know, that's for sure. So we we get to that we get to that critical moment where they're really pushing the parents on choosing a child, and and you can see that they're failing, and we don't know exactly what's gonna happen. Now, the expectation, I think, for many of us is that at this point Father Maddox is going to step in and do the thing, and we're all gonna be saved, and the parents are gonna feel guilty that they were choosing, but then they kill him off, yeah, right? And they kill him off using the whole the whole like neck head spin around thing that Reagan does in the first movie, which is like an obvious tie back, and that's fun, of course. Yeah, except instead of his head turning all the way around or their heads turning all the way around, he's just they just break his neck. Like, okay, that was why was he why was he even a character in this movie if that's how it was gonna happen, you know? It just feels wasted.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

For me, it was very unexpected, and man, it was like one of those moments. This is one of those moments. I don't know what it says about me, but this is one of those moments where it happened, and as it was happening, I kind of laughed out loud a little bit. And my and I and my wife like nudged me, like, you shouldn't be laughing at that. And I'm like, Well, I don't know, man. I don't know what to tell you. It was kind of comical. Because when you think about it, this dude is out there like, oh, I can't do this, like he's you know, whatever. He's scared to go in, or or he doesn't want to be a part of it. You know, he's got the you know, they didn't condone it, that the church or whatever, so he's not gonna do it, doesn't want to go against the church, he's going back and forth, whatever. He's struggling with that outside. They're going through all this shit inside. This motherfucker just strolls, dressed to the nine, ready to go. He's got his fucking crucifix in one hand, he's got his rosary in the other hand, he's coming in like he's some hot fucking shit, and he starts doing his prayers, whatever the fuck, and he comes over and he rests his hands on both of their heads, right? And you're like, man, this guy's just coming in to save the day, just like you said, Mac, right? Obviously, we know don't touch those fucking kids, but he touches them because you know, whatever, he thinks he's the best, and then they just slowly just turn it back on him and and twist his neck and he dies. And I that was for me at that moment, I was like, wow, and I just laughed.

SPEAKER_06 52:21

The way I interpreted it was it's kind of like he busts in there, kind of like that. Um, is it from that comedy skip from Dane Cook where it's like the Kool-Aid man who just like busts in through the wall? Yeah. That's kind of like what it was giving. He just busts in there and he's like, I got this, I'm Catholic, touches their heads, I've I'm gonna like, you know, be the hero of the whole situation. It's kind of like if I again, this is where the heavy Avenger stuff happens a little bit, and it's like, you know, the Avengers are all together, but they're missing Captain America, and all of a sudden, this priest comes in and he's Captain America, he's gonna kick everybody's ass. Nope, just kidding. Neck right ringed. But I I I didn't I didn't full-on outlight laugh, but I did roll my eyes.

SPEAKER_03 53:05

That was the big moment for me. It was the neck turn that I thought looked cool, but the comedy of him walking in there, I was like, alright, this is this is no good, puppy. You already did your piece, you're not the big superhero here. The other thing that killed me was earlier in that scene when the guy literally says, Oh, I get it. It takes all kinds. Sir, I was feeling it, you didn't need to fucking say it. And that was where I struggled with this movie.

SPEAKER_06 53:37

It felt like a s like a Pokemon strategy. Like it takes all like all kinds of Pokemon types to be able to, you know, conquer weakness weakness. Come on, man.

SPEAKER_00 53:48

Fight fire with holy water.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

Yeah, that was that was definitely like one of those two on the nose kind of moments where it was like some some character should have been saying, is he the exorcist? Believer. It was it was it was bad, you know. Um, I think you know, we when we when we talked about the original exorcist, though, I think we liked a lot of the stuff that was grounded in in religion visually. And I think we did like miss a little bit of that here, because we kind of broke free from that, of course. But one thing that I think you guys have brought up is that introductory scene. And I think that was visually stunning. One, we have, I mean, amazing sets and architecture, and there was so much to look at. But that earthquake, that earthquake hurt to watch. They did a really wonderful job, I think, using the effects, making it feel real. Almost too wonderful, because like, you know, great job, you made me hurt inside. That's basically the effect that they got, but that was just so incredibly effective.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

Yeah, I think, yeah, one one of the things overall that I really enjoyed about this film was the cinematography. I I overall, like throughout the movie, you've got the earthquake scene in the beginning, you've got some really great shots throughout the film, right? You've got even the shot, like there's some shots where you're seeing the sun beaming through the trees in the woods. I thought was really nice. You get shots where you're really close to the ground that I really liked. You get some really cool camera angles throughout the film. I think overall cinematography was really well done, in my opinion. And I and I talked about that earlier as or this earlier as well with the with the makeup and stuff. And I I think I was a little skeptical when I first watched the trailer, but ended up being pleasantly surprised by just how the girls possessed looked. I I think when you when you put it up against the original exorcist and you think of it that way, and you know, obviously a difference in what kind of effects that they had back then versus now, but still I I wouldn't say it holds up by any means to the original because nothing just hits like the original, but the girls looked pretty good, possessed, especially towards the end there. I mean, you even when you look at like how Catherine looked with that inverted cross carved into her forehead all bloody, like that just hits.

SPEAKER_03 55:57

Yeah, I gotta agree with you. The cinematography was fantastic, but specifically for me was the composition of the shots, because there's even moments where we have subtle reflections in mirrors or little glimpses of these girls as they're possessed as people are moving through the house. And it's that kind of composition that like really just sent me in this entire movie. I think there's even a moment where you know Angela is in bed, she's home, she has just revealed you took my connection to her. Like there's no spirit there because my mom couldn't be there because you took the fucking scarf. And then we see this ghoul behind her dad. And it was giving a little bit of insidious, it was giving a little bit of the further of it all, it was giving a little bit of talk to me, but fuck it, it's fine. If you've seen one demon, you've seen them all. But can we also just take a moment to acknowledge the dead mom of it all in horror this year?

SPEAKER_04 56:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

We got Boogeyman, we got Talk to Me, we got Exorcist Believer. I'm gonna need this shit to chill out and take a fucking break because my heart can't take this shit anymore.

SPEAKER_06 57:01

Definitely needs to stop. Absolutely. You mentioned the ghoul, and that honestly, I don't know. Even it's like, oh, you've seen one, you see them all. It's like, I don't want to see it though, because it didn't really fit in the movie, that's for sure. But whatever. That's neither here nor there. Again, that's where the blockbuster part of it all. And I'm I'm sure you're not saying that you loved it either, but yeah, no, I'm not saying that I loved it either.

SPEAKER_03 57:22

I don't I didn't really I it wasn't crazy about how the ghoul looked, but I did enjoy just the depth. You know what I mean? Like that kind of like the shot composition was fantastic, and then also there's a moment where we have Chris and getting her Saint Lucy the Blind eyes popped out. Listen, the blood was something to behold, but the top-down shot that we get when she's in the fucking ambulance riding away, again, there are so many moments in this movie that just looked great.

SPEAKER_06 57:52

Another moment that I think looked great, and it also truly is my favorite scene, is the girls at this point have just been found. They're in the hospital, and now they're doing like all of the medical exams. That part, aside from the whole thing with the earthquake, is the only other part of the movie that my the hairs on my arm were raised because that is how that plays out. It's so uncomfortable, it's so unfortunate, so many people in the room, and you think of things that have happened to young women or women in general, or just anybody, right? But the circumstances of why they're asking so many things, especially something in particular as to like explaining why they are doing a hymen check and all this stuff is just oh man, now that's the brutal stuff that's like a little too real, but shot so beautifully.

SPEAKER_03 58:44

Yeah, that was the moment that made me feel the most in this movie. It was something that I was like borderline. I don't know if I can handle watching this right now. Not because of like the quality with which it's done, but just the subject matter of it all is really, really intense. On top of then the fact that you have this really delicate balance of the gentleness of the doctors while it also being very cold and clinical because it has to be, but then also it's so overstimulating. Like there's so much that this movie does with its sound. I'm thinking about in the classroom when Angela's whispering to her friend, I couldn't hear a goddamn word. I don't know if anybody could, but I could not fucking make a single thing out.

SPEAKER_04 59:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:24

Then you get into this the busyness of the hospital, how many voices? You have the same thing happening to both girls with different doctors, and they're doing their best to explain, but it was so much that I could barely process it. So you are dropped into feeling just as overwhelmed and overstimulated as these girls feel. And that was a fucking stroke of brilliance.

SPEAKER_06 59:46

Can I tell you something funny though? Can you imagine how intense the medical scene is? And then you're in the movie theater, and there's just like a moment of silence, and someone farts, because that's exactly what happened to me. Talk about breaking the talk about breaking the intensity of a scene.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:05

It was that it was so awkward.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:07

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:08

It was so awkward that everyone busted out into laughter because you're you're watching something that's so tense, and then someone must have felt so overstimulated that they let one rip, and it was just the funniest thing ever. I had to share.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:23

That's amazing. I mean, man, so we talked, we talked a lot about a lot of different things with visuals, right? That really just tie into a lot of these scenes. And I think a lot of these scenes, you know, there's there's a lot to to like, I think, in some of these scenes. Maybe they're short, longer, whatever. I I think one that stands out to me, uh, there's two. I think Chris, you mentioned you mentioned the visual, right, of of Angela or that moment of Angela in the hospital. And I think that scene where you liked her possessed there maybe the most, or it stood out the most to you. I think that scene was really well done. It was dark, it was evil, it was intense. You get that emphysema laugh that she does. It it's it's truly a great scene. I also think call it fanfare, call it what you will. I I think the confrontation scene between Chris and Catherine was pretty good. I loved it, I actually kind of enjoyed the back and forth that they had. Uh I I I think it was intense that she got like her eyes taken out, right, with the crucifix or whatever. That was intense. Like that was really cool. Do I like that? That was like how she just got removed from the storyline almost altogether, and it was just it. No, I don't think that that was great. Um, man, but the scene and the the dialogue, I think that was something, you know, whether it was fanfare or not, I really ate that shit up in that moment.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:51

And I want to take a second to just unpack the dynamic of this because I think this is where maybe all of us, if not just maybe a couple of us, diverge. I love that she was dispatched so quickly because let's be real, Chris, you were an actress. You came from a lot of wealth and a lot of privilege. Yes, you got to study things, but also you kind of just homebrewed your knowledge on this whole situation. And so you went into this while admirable, about to do a rite of exorcism on this child. It was a little bit too convenient. And based on what it happens in the movie, you know that shit's not going to be successful. So I actually love that she was dispatched so quickly because yeah, she's been through it before, but let us not forget, even according to her, she wasn't even there for the actual exorcism. She was there for the possession. So having that confrontation was so fucking good. I loved seeing the courage in her to stand up to this. But at the end of the day, had she been the superpower to hold this down, it would have been giving too much Lori Strode. What it did instead was sideline her for the Halloween kills Lori Strode in the hospital bed, which I'm okay with that. But to have this moment of revisiting, I think she served the purpose well of showing this is the world in which this happens. And I think only through her could Angela's dad have found the ability to be less of a skeptic. All she had to do was make him believe in the possibility. And I think she served that purpose really well.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:26

Yeah, I uh you hit some good points there. Like I I'm not saying that I feel like she should have been the one to come and save everything, because I also agree that it it just doesn't make sense that she would, because she literally had very little to do with any of the exorcism in the original film. She wasn't in the room at all, she wasn't, you know, present for the actual events, she was just in the other room. And so, yes, I agree with you on that point. That if they even went further into that situation, I would have hated it for sure. This confrontation was great. I just think that there should have been a little bit more to how they use the characters, not from not saying that she should have been the savior or the one that was able to put a stop to all of this or whatever. I just don't I don't I don't really care for that aspect. I I just don't I don't like how they used her. I just think that it shouldn't have been just like that quick for me. I I don't know what the answer is for that. I don't know that she should have been the prominent OG character to come back, but that's just me.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:32

That's just me.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:33

I feel you. Can I tell you what I am excited about though with her coming back?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:37

It really solidifies what I said in the exorcist rewind, which is your mother-daughter relationship, just don't come back from that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

Wait, that was that was definitely proved in this in this movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:48

I'll take my I'll take my check, David Gordon Green. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:52

I'm gonna I'm gonna agree with with with Sean here though that it was kind of a waste because I don't actually think she accomplished anything. I think she basically did nothing for the film. I mean, her presence was was, of course, amazing, but like dynamic-wise, I don't think she really pushed things in one direction or the other that wouldn't have have happened without her in it. Um and I think that it was just like we got we're going to tie ourselves to the first exorcist, and so we need a character to do that with. And I just like I don't think she effectively was important in in the film. I think he would have gotten there anyway after seeing his daughter do all these insane things. The blinding was definitely bothersome for me. I that was I was like, I thought that we that we were just gonna kill her. I thought that's what was gonna happen. It was we're gonna stab to the head or stabbed to the neck, she was gonna be dispatched, it's it's game over. And then instead she's blinded. Um, which okay, she's still alive, so that's I guess kind of nice. But then we get we get not her, but we get to see Reagan again for for a split second.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:53

I just wanna say that if she had died, it would have been two Sally from Texas Chainsaw Massacre twenty twenty two. So Happy medium between our Sally and our Lori here.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:02

Although there is a weird moment where when everything is hitting the fan, it cuts back to her and it's like she feels the presence of an exorcism happening from the hospital room. I'm like, buddy, come on.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:13

Yeah, it doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:14

Doesn't make sense at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:15

Not for nothing. That shit was my absolute favorite scene. Just to be very clear. Revenge of the Chris, the Chris returns. Fucking hands down, best part of the movie for me. Especially we get the rocking back and forth on the bed and the almost channeling Reagan of the please help make it stop. It was intense. I liked it.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:36

You know, I think it's nice to kind of see obviously returning character come back into this, but I do like the change of main character energy when we see a father, like I mentioned earlier, a father that has gone through something so horrendous, is grappling with his own belief system. And even from the very beginning, we have those that brief quick moment where he tells his wife, like, oh, you believe in that stuff. You know, so when you get that little morsel of a hint, you're already like, okay, that's his main issue, his crux, right? Is gonna be that, or rather, flaw, I guess, is that he doesn't believe. And guess what? It's called exorcist believer. Yippee. Anyways. So that's great and all, but I really loved seeing a father, a single father who's gone through so much, so much grief, have such a positive relationship with his daughter. They get along so well, you know, they have this understanding. Yes, he's kind of maybe a little bit too attached, right? But wants to believe that he can let his daughter have fun and be a teenager. And I think that's really nice. Only thing, I guess, that I struggled with is like then it becomes I don't even know who's what is he, what would he equivalate to? Is he maybe like Iron Man at this point in terms of the Avengers? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like now he's trying to get his own squad together and give like a whole speech, but then we've got Captain America come in and it's just like what's happening, you know? It would have been would have been really wild or extreme to think like some way somehow he's going to be able to like take this down or like find a way, like be more of an active role. Obviously, it wouldn't make sense for him necessarily to perform an exorcism. That's a I know I'm asking for much, right? But it was something about the integration of all of these different religions and not getting any context, and then expecting that this father, who doesn't really believe, is going to be the first one to just rally all the troops and let's, you know, join forces in all these religions, is I don't know, it was tough. It was tough to like really buy into that completely.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:44

It was strange to me how they they introduced the entire movie with him and his wife, and they're in Haiti, which is a country where like more than 50% of the people are Catholic. And they instead chose to show us, you know, a non-Catholic kind of blessing going on, and that was so that's cool and that's interesting. I think you know, voodoo, I think, is practiced by like two percent or less than that of of Haitians. Not that that was necessarily voodoo, but it's weird that like there's no tie back to Haiti basically at all with his character. You know, we obviously call back to his wife, of course, later on, but like nothing to his time on the island or the trauma that he went through. And I think it was a missed opportunity. I know that they wanted to move away from Catholicism here because the way that they reference it, like we need the owl religions and uh they killed the priest off, of course, right away, and the Catholic Church in this movie won't approve the exorcism. I think they were definitely trying to show that, like, hey, they've lost it. We've got some irrelevance basically going on here. We need to move on and we need to get a bigger, better group where everyone can kind of do their part to help with these two little kids. But I think it's one choice. I I am obviously biased here in that I would have preferred that they stuck to a little bit more of the formula from the first movie, but we just like we don't have that character of Father Damien in this movie. However, the dad here is the closest we get to that in terms of a sympathetic character. I think we have the closest relationship with him. He's basically got that main character energy. I don't know. I just I'm kind of I kind of wish that we had, again, stuck a little closer to the first to the first film and played with those boring, played-out Catholic archetypes, stereotypes, etc., here because I just think it would have worked better than the muddled mess that we got where we had smoke coming out of mouths, fighting with smoke coming from a fire.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:28

Which reminds which reminded me a lot of like Haunting of Connecticut. That's almost shot for shot. Where again, in possessions, in quote unquote real life, you wouldn't actually be seeing entities or like things coming out of the mouth and floating and then smoke and then it was a little bit more for the theatrics in this, where I appreciated the exorcist for pretty being a solid well, granted, yes, floating in the I get it, right? But I don't know, it w it was kind of seemed campy almost when that particular moment came out. And then again, there is so much history and richness in let's assume voodoo. I we don't even know necessarily what religion per se she represents, right? I'm assuming voodoo, or obviously from what I know is santeria, right? So like those kinds of practices and those kinds of things, I would assume maybe she represents that. We don't know. And then when you see that kind of stuff, it's like, oh I I don't know. I just it felt a little campy when we should probably be taking it a little bit more serious in what she's doing specifically. Because to me, out of all of them, she was the one that was putting in the most work.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:36

She's a ritualistic healer, and I know it doesn't get much more into detail than that. I I think that that's just probably some stuff that I missed. But I want to circle back to something you said, Mac, when you're talking about him being the closest you get to a sympathetic killer, but wishing they had done more because I feel like they did just enough. Because I feel like if you went too far back into the trauma, then it just kind of overpowers everything else. But we have this great fucking reveal. Granted, I mean, this movie really tried to lead you into one direction with make your choice and then all of a sudden you see the daughter, but you have the reveal that that's not what he chose. We know from the exorcist that Reagan didn't remember shit after her exorcism. But what if Angela did? That is a family-breaking moment. We think about even there's a moment where that doctor says to him, you know, thinking about the the shells of the oceans that carried people from their home, enslaved people from their home. There are so many ties to his wife and Haiti and thinking about the portraiture there. And I felt like it was the perfect amount. I felt like I got everything that I needed from him, especially coming down to the moment where he goes back and he grabs a scarf and he wants to help her feel that connection to her mom again.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:50

Technically, in the montage moment in the end, that I think you were saying that you really, really like, she seems to be pretty hunky-dory and happy. Not well, that's an extreme, but like she seems okay with her father. Okay enough that it would you could assume that maybe she doesn't remember everything, but she must remember just enough because she looks at that empty desk and notices that Catherine's not there. We don't get much, right? But I agree with you, would have been really insane and really heart-wrenching if it was a case that she does remember. And maybe even in that montage, you can see the after effects of everything that has happened to her. Unfortunate, but reality.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:29

This movie was announced as part of potentially a trilogy. I think at least the sequel is confirmed. So who knows if there's gonna be these characters or different characters, right? Like who knows if we'll get more ramifications of this falling out. You know, I think at the end of the day, when you go through something like that, if you can remember, maybe you put the you didn't choose for me to live aside for a little bit just while you're healing your body from demonic possession. Who knows? But man, the fucking bond between them as father and daughter, I absolutely love, and I couldn't disagree more about giving some more of that old Catholic stuff. The Catholics have had enough exorcism movies. It's time for something new. This is something new, and I think it was fucking great.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:10

Man, when you get to you know Victor and Angela's relationship and their history and everything and leading into the end, I think it's it's there's a lot of depth there, and I and I can appreciate a lot of that. I I also can appreciate the the heavy weight that you know is that reveal of like him not choosing you know his daughter over his wife. And you you gotta think like if you're in that position, you have the person that you love, right? The love of your life, you do anything for. Sure, they're pregnant or whatever, and but you don't know that, you don't know that baby yet. So like I I can see like, man, like some people may say, like, oh no, the baby's life is the most important, but then like, man, what would you choose? Because you don't know that baby's life, and you do know the person that you've loved for however long. That's a really tough choice to make. So I I kind of appreciated the weight of that scenario. We'll see if they ever explore that in in this sequel, uh, or whatever the hell they're gonna do with it. I think one thing that stood out for me about Victor and maybe just you know, just the acting in general, because I think Victor overall, I think the character was great. I think you're right, Mac, you know, this is a almost a relatable character, the the maybe the most relatable in the film or whatever. I I think it's just interesting that, you know, aside from you know the beginning of the film and and aside from maybe when Angela and Catherine are missing and he's frantically trying to do what he can to find his daughter or whatever, when it gets down to the rest of the film, all the way to these final moments, there's not a lot of reaction from this guy, right? Like, there's some intense shit that I'd be like, what the fuck is happening? Like, I would probably be freaking the fuck out. And he is like, maybe just purely from a facial expression acting point of view, is just standing there taking it. Like, I would be freaking the fuck out. But it took literally him getting called out on that moment we're talking about for him to evoke any kind of reaction out of him in those final moments for him to go and do these things and become a believer, right? And believe that, you know, faith or whatever the hell it is, right? I just thought that was so interesting. I don't know if that was intentional by any means, but I just thought it was really interesting. It was something that really stood out to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:23

Oh, I think it was absolutely intentional because who knows how life has conditioned him before we even see him with his wife in Haiti.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:30

Like obviously that's a moment of joy, vacation, like they have a new family that's being built, but we don't know this man's life. And none of the stoicness felt out of character for me. Because I think it's very evident, right? When you see these movies and you have someone who's just not giving and not serving, it's clearly a lack of talent. But this, it felt intentional. This felt like he showed nothing while also showing everything, which I think is so fucking impressive.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:57

Yeah, I agree. I interpret it as like someone who, maybe at the very least, has grown to be such a cynic and maybe so numb to extreme circumstances that when shit really hits the fan, it's doesn't really hit him until it's like you have no choice but to face it. For example, when he puts his daughter in the bathroom. This is actually a moment that everyone in the theater kind of giggled at because he just like closes the door slowly and he's like, okay, like what the fuck do I do? You know? Not a freaking out like there's blood and like there's na you know what I mean? Like nothing of that nature. Just a just a light version of this is odd, I don't know what to do, but I guess I'll just, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:38

That's because resilience is a trauma response. Okay, but also I ate up those Linda Blair photos. Listen, we're talking about families. We can talk about families. Fucking I loved the Linda Blair return. Call me a sucker. Yeah, that was nice.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:51

I definitely turned to my friends and I was like, guys, guys, look who it is. They're like, who? And I'm like, it's it's the main girl from The Exorcist, because that mom that we've just been watching this whole time is also the same main mom. And they're like, oh, okay. I'm like, God damn it.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:06

Hi, you don't even understand.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:07

Not as excited as me.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:09

You don't get it. You know what this would have been like? This would have been like in Halloween 2018, they brought back one of Lori's original children for all these fucking timelines. And we finally got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:20

Seeing Linda Blair was one of those moments where, hey, this is what the audience really would like to happen, right? And we have references to her along the way, and then when it finally happens, satisfaction. Yeah, we just want more. That's all we want now. It's like thank you, but please more.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:33

I don't even know if I want more because then I think about what does more get me? More could get me Nancy Thompson in Dream Warriors, and she ends up dying. More could get me Sally in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022, ends up dying. More could get me literally fucking anybody who returns for a requel and then is just easily dispatched. Let this girl have her life. You know what I mean? She's there with her mom, they've mended their relationship. I'm okay with them ending things here because we know that this is the universe in which they exist and they got their happy ending, albeit more blind. And I will say that while that was a high point of the movie for me, the absolute lowest fucking point of this movie was the priest's dramatic entrance when he decided to stop being a little bitch. Walk up in the house, like what up? Let's do an exorcism. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_06 1:19:16

Being called out while he was in his little Toyota Corolla praying and knocking on the window and being like, the fight's in there. Yeah, buddy. Obviously. I think he knows that. A. B. Was that really the moment that he's like, you know what? You're right. Let me stop sweating. Fuck everything that these, you know, that the church has told me. I'm going in there because I'm a boss ass bitch. Nope, you're not.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:36

I mean, if yeah, he was not the guy for the job.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:39

I will say though, mentioned it a little earlier. For me, the best part is that refreshing change of relationship between a parent and a child, specifically from a single, you know, or a widowed father, really, and their daughter, and that being like kind of still the main focus, like in the first one, but switched just a little bit considering the circumstances. And I don't know, I I really bought into that. I think that's also why I just loved the first part of the movie even more the second time that I watched it, because I was able to relive even just the moment of them having breakfast and running around and talking about, you know, little piggies. I don't know. It was just so cute, and I I loved that.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:14

I have to say, I think the best part of the movie for me was that they stuck to a similar structure to the first movie, and that the exorcism itself is only like what, a quarter of the film, right? Of a two-hour film, it's only about 30 minutes. And I think that's an excellent choice. I think we get a lot of other possession movies where it's like half of the film, 75% of the film is just us watching them yell at a person pretending to be afflicted with a demon. And, you know, if you can, if you can limit that part of it and actually like build characters and have a story and like allow us to get to the point where we actually care about what happens, I think that's an excellent choice. I think that introductory, you know, scene that I've already mentioned is is a great scene, but we continue from there and we we get to see the girls in in school and talking to each other, and we kind of go further along the way as as we realize stuff is going on. The amount of time we spend with them in the hospital getting evaluated is like such a realistic scene that no other movie is probably gonna put that much effort into. And I just think all those little details where it's like let us spend the necessary time before we get to the yelling. Excellent choice.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:11

Man, so the worst part for me, and I know we've talked about things that we like and dislike about these original characters coming back, and this is this is where I am gonna say, so like I'm okay. Linda Blair coming back at the very end. What a what a nice moment. That's cool. I didn't really care. I don't really care for that. Like it didn't make anything better for me, didn't make the movie end better for me. I didn't really care or need to see it, to be honest with you. I I think the use of them is the worst part of this movie. I think maybe this movie could have even been better without any of them in the movie. Like, they didn't even have to bring them back at this point. I was excited for them to be back, and then I saw them back in the movie, and I was like, nah, I don't even think they needed to be in there. However, if you're gonna have them in there, I I do think that they should have been used a little bit differently. I don't know exactly what that looks like. I definitely don't think that Chris should have been the one that was like this all-knowing, you know, knowledgeable person that was, you know, enlightening these people or wanting to whatever. The confrontation was cool. If you're gonna put Linda Blair back, I honestly think there should have been a bigger role for Linda Blair. I think uh I think she deserved a bigger role in the film. I think that I'm just thinking on the fly here, I think that it almost could have been a better situation for Linda Blair to be the one that is studying all of this based on this, you know, shit that happened to her, her mom. Obviously, the dynamic of the relationship. Maybe she didn't remember after that, but maybe, you know, her mom, you know, is talking to her about it. Maybe it does come back to her. We don't know. We don't know the backstory, but maybe they could have even tied this back and made parallels to the original movie by Linda Blair being the one that has this connection and has to confront this demon again and comes back and confronts this demon in front of these children, and maybe she does what Damien did and takes this fucking demon back into her and then sacrifices herself and she does fucking die. Maybe that's a better way to use her character. I don't know, but I don't really care to see her like two seconds coming back, hey mom, and then it's over. That's cool, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:15

Shawn wants the true requel.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:17

I think it would have been a good ending note to close the chapter for Linda, right? Just like, hey, I'm gonna do this thing, I'm gonna face off against this thing, and I'm gonna be the one to stop it this time. I think that would have been badass.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:30

I feel like if we were gonna have a Kool-Aid Man moment, it would have been cooler for it to be of Linda Blair, or rather Reagan versus, you know, mi Primo.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:38

Could you fucking imagine this little guy is out here being a little bitch in his Toyota Corolla, and then all of a sudden you just see a close-up on some feet walking in some heels down the street. You open the fucking door, you think it's gonna be the father. No, it's Reagan. Suddenly ordained. What? No, I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:58

Suddenly ordained.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:00

Chris, I'm sorry, but you know what? With how generic this film is and how like blockbuster, yeah, quite frankly, if you're gonna do it, let's just fucking send it and give me the stereotypical, like, who's at the door? We don't know. Boom. Reagan. How did she even find the address? Who the fuck knows? And who the fuck cares? She's there to save the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:19

Imagine though, she shows up, right? But you don't know it's her yet. All you see is a car pull up, she steps out, the tubular bells hit, the hair comes down, knock on the door, right? That would slap.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:31

It's the tubular bells that did it for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:33

The tubular bells.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:35

I think I would have taken a descendant of the original priest. I think I would have taken a sight worker in the Indiana Jones portion of the original Exorcist movie over Reagan because let her live.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:47

Let her just have a good time. Keep her away from this shit, bro.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:51

I mean, fair, she's already gone through a lot, but I'm just saying, you know? I just don't want to see her die.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:56

First of all, she's the one that fucked around with Captain Howdy and the Ouija board, so don't let her fucking live. She fucked around and found out. She started this whole thing. Let her fucking finish it.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:05

You know what? To be on brand, you would be you would say that about what, an 11-year-old kid?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:10

Face your consequences. Child. That's the moral of this story. You make choices, face your consequences.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:17

Fifty years later.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:18

Screaming.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:19

You remember that stupid thing you did when you were 11? Now you're 60. Time to pay up.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:24

That's right. Let's go. Also, you know what? I'm not gonna let this episode end without saying the words cunting daughter, because of course they bring that back.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:34

Yeah, that was a good moment.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:36

And I'll and I'll take it. Also loved when Angela turns around and says, Correct me if I'm wrong if the delivery is wrong, but it's something along the lines of like, oh, did the power of Christ compel you, or something like that? Throwing it back in our face. I was like, Oh, it was an after-dark moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:49

I was like, damn, that's a mic drop. There were some good lines for sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:52

But I'll tell you, for all the good lines, don't think I'm gonna see this movie anytime soon. Already seen it twice opening weekend, and I'll give it its rest, give it its time. I never want to say that I'm never gonna see this again because who knows? I did fall asleep for the majority of the second half. So quite frankly, it's I really watched it one and a half times, right? So maybe somewhere down the line, if I come across it, maybe with a friend, I'll give it another shot and go. Because it wasn't absolutely horrendous, but I certainly wasn't a big fan, so I'm not gonna go out of my way to re-watch it.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:21

Yeah, I think about the movies that I've re-watched in theaters. I think of Halloween, obviously. I think of Terrifier 2. Somehow I watched that what feels like 30 times in theaters last year. This one, not so much. I do want to watch it again, but I will watch it when it's available to stream at home. But I specifically want to watch it after I have watched at least a few more entries of the original franchise, so I know how much better this shit is than that.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:48

Well, I was about to make a reference to that. I think it's going to join the the second and third Exorcist films for me, in that I probably will never watch it again. It's not that I think it's it's a film without merit, you know. It's it's not. It's actually an entertaining possession film, just a generic kind of mid-feeling film, as as Binks mentioned earlier. And so I'm not against it. I just like I've seen that enough. I'm not really into possession movies at all. The Exorcist is the one glaring exception for me that is just so masterfully well done that like I love it. You know, it's up there, top, top number one, top three, top five, whatever you want to call it. It's it's way up there. This is nowhere near the top 10, like maybe top 2000 films for me, maybe at best. And so if you have a good time with it, like there's nothing wrong with that, you know? It's it's entertainment, that's cool. Um, it's just not something that I can see myself seeking out.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:41

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think I I don't know that this movie has a ton of rewatch value. Will I watch this one again? Maybe if the time was right, I was bored or just watching through the franchise. It may pop up when it streams. I don't know. I never say never, right? Like, I think it'll probably find its way back, and I'll probably Watch it at some point. I just don't think there's a ton of rewatch value in the movie in general. And I doubt I'll watch it anytime soon. And to your point, Mac, like you know, it it is it can feel kind of mid in some areas when you look at it from a possession movie. And in this day and age, like we've seen so many possession movies, and I and I enjoy possession movies. I think they can be fun, I think they can be really good if they're done right, if they're handled right. But I think at this point, like we we gotta do something a little bit more out of the box. And so when I think of some, you know, you know, look at like what Git Out did, right? Like that is a good, different type of possession movie from a different aspect, and right, it maybe not demonic possession or religious or whatever, whatever you want to call it, but think outside the box, man. We can't just keep regurgitating the same shit over and over again. Like people are gonna get bored. So I think, you know, uh I get you want to do a sequel to The Exorcist. Did The Exorcist need a sequel? I don't know. I don't know. But I I'll watch it again at some point, I'm sure. I'm not gonna watch it anytime soon. There's just not a lot of rewatch value there. I'm sorry, there just isn't.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:10

I feel like I might end up being the only person to give this movie life after its initial fucking death of the box office. Well, there you have it, folks. It was a mixed bag for the Exorcist Believer in 2023, earning two hacks and two sloshes after its theatrical debut. Now, while we certainly had a robust discussion here, talking a lot of trash, it doesn't end here by any means. You want to know what you think.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:33

Do you think this movie does the first movie justice? As a sequel, let us know. You can join in on the conversation by hanging out with us for free in our Discord. Click the link in our show notes to sign up.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:42

If you've enjoyed listening to this episode, consider becoming one of our patrons. Visit patreon.com slash hacker slash to enjoy more of the show with early access, extended episodes, bonus content, and live shows.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:52

We'll see you next time, folks, and remember, sometimes to go forward, you have to go back.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:57

And that's how demonic possession works.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:09

My friends, I have a troubling question.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:11

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:12

I know. When you were young, like let's just really throw this right back to you being a young child, sick in bed. You are uh pretty ill. You're not just like a regular cold, like you're doing some vomiting, right? And this movie really triggers a lot of those memories. Naturally, there may be a point where you may not make it through the night without vomiting. Did your parents ever give you something or put something beside your bed in case you in case you throw up?

SPEAKER_06 1:30:39

I shouldn't I should have known where this might have been heading. Yeah. I mean, it's a smart thing to do, it's a more practical thing to do. Okay. I had a small little trash can though.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:48

Okay, small little trash can, perfect. What else?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:51

I mean, it was definitely a small trash can for me as well. I think there may have been a couple times where it was like one of those big plastic like salad bowl type things. You know what I mean? Oh, I see. And I'm sure we use that for salad later on too. Hopefully washed. Hopefully washed.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:09

Wait a second. Because I'm here thinking, like, how is there how what a trash bin? What there are other options to this? And then you said a salad bowl that we ended up reusing.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:18

Bro, okay, this is my fucking problem. But Mac, continue.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:22

Okay. Um, I was waiting to see who was gonna say mixing bowl, specifically a large metal one. I feel like those are commonly used. Uh in my family, if you need a vessel, it's either gonna be a bag of some sort or it's gonna be just a bucket. You're just gonna like the type of bucket you would use for like mopping or like wedding rags to wash something. Yeah. And if you use it to puke into, it's definitely we never would have used like a food like storage uh device of some sort. That was out of the question.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:49

Yeah. I was absolutely fucking floored when I learned from an ex-girlfriend that some people in the Midwest have fucking bowls. Like bowls that they use for cereal or anything else. Like large ones, obviously, like salad bowls, like you described, Sean. And that is the designated family vomit bowl. What the fuck? Why would you vomit into a bowl? The fucking trajectory of that, the splash zone of fucking vomiting into a bowl? Absolutely not. Priority one, toilet. If you can't make it to the toilet, it's a fucking trash can lined with a bag, and that trash can never gets used for anything else.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:26

But you do you do know that these things can be sanitized, right? You can wash these things.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:32

Like it doesn't fucking matter, Sean. No.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:34

You can't sanitize if you accidentally throw up on yourself, bro. You can wash your skin and continue to wear your skin. You know what I mean? You don't have to cut your limbs off or anything.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:44

How dare you make that comparison? How dare you?

SPEAKER_03 1:32:47

That's not even You cannot sanitize the fucking memory.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:50

I don't believe it because Nal genes smell simply from water. So I don't know. I'm not buying it.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:57

For me, I loved the the use of the of the splash zone, because that's what I'm thinking as well. Also, when you carry it, like what if you lose your balance? That thing's just gonna go No.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:06

You know, right off the bowl.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:08

We're not talking about like a small soup bowl. You know what I mean? We're talking about a pretty big bowl, like you know, like maybe like a five or six quart bowl, you know, something really.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:20

Who the fuck owns a five or six quart bowl around their house? What are you how much salad are you eating?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:26

I have a few actually. I've got a wood one, I've got a metal one, I've got a glass one, I've got a plastic one.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:31

I'm about to go to my kitchen right now and see. Because I'm thinking if it's the one I'm thinking, yeah, it's pretty deep, but even then, that's a little bit of a splash zone, like keep keep your balance situation. If we're talking a whole freaking like that's a spill danger, you know, I I don't even know what to I don't even know what to compare it to. I'm just so shocked.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:48

As a kid, I'm not cleaning up anything after myself. You know what I mean? Like I'm sick, so if I throw up into a bowl, you know, my parents are balancing that shit to the bathroom or wherever the hell that vomit is going.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:01

But that is still disgusting.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:03

I also don't I also don't recall throwing up like in my bed. Like it was always there, you know what I mean? But it was never like something that I actively used very often, maybe a couple times, like if I was in like a really bad, like feverish state, you know what I mean? But very, very rare do I feel like I'm sitting in my bed throwing up. Like I'm probably getting up and go to the bathroom.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:25

So I went ahead and I did grab a bowl that I just had in my office. I don't know why I have this here, but that's not the point. We're looking at this here, okay? This is actually pretty deep.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:34

It's pretty deep, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:35

And if anyone is filling up this container, which listeners, so that you know, this is like probably a hand like a whole hand's worth deep, right? Like it's pretty substantially deep. Probably probably ten pounds, just definitely, right? Okay, if someone is throwing up this much and it's in the splash zone, they probably need to go to the hospital immediately.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:58

Okay, well, the question is who is throwing up that much into a bowl to fill that thing up to the brim? Like, that is insane.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:07

Have you met me, bro?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:08

Listen, I don't know. I don't know, but if I'm throwing up that much, I'm not leaving the floor of the bathroom. Like I am going to hug the toilet until I can confidently say it's over.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:20

Yeah. I mean, listen, again, priority one is to make it to the fucking toilet. That is priority one. But sometimes it just hits you. And that's why you need a tall vessel, like a trash can. So that way when you're projectile vomiting off the bed into this vessel, it doesn't go spraying anywhere else. Or if you have like with a bowl, I wouldn't be confident in my aim. I would want to have to like pick that shit up to try to like puke in it. And then that's like a spill zone disaster. It's also just like the vomit bouncing back.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:52

So, first of all, I want to clarify that thing that Binks just picked up and and demonstrated is more accurately described as a pail. Like that's not real that's not really a bowl, you know, based on the shape that I saw. Maybe is it rounded on the bottom?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:04

Um, I mean, I couldn't tell.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:07

Because if it's rounded, it's a bowl. It's flat, though. It's a pail.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:10

Yeah, it's a pail.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:11

That's a candy pail. Almost like a candy bucket. That's true. That is the appropriate type of you know, vessel for this sort of situation because it's large and it's flat on the bottom. If you have a rounded bowl, you're definitely in danger of getting getting, you know, shrapnel, if you will. I feel like a trash bag is probably the ideal situation. You know, get that GLAD force flex just so I can it can really expand with whatever you end up putting in there. That works really well. And if you have to use a bucket, you know, that's it's fine. You know, buckets you you mop stuff up with it, it's gonna it's gonna handle it, you can wash that out. But I have heard plenty of people say that they used large mixing bowls. Yeah. And so I'm curious to see what like other items around the house people use. So, you know, do people use like margarine tubs?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:56

Margarine tubs? No.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:58

I'm just curious, you know. You got food in there though. That's what's supposed to be in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:02

So hold on. Margarine tubs, you mean like the little butter tubs?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:06

Like the country crocker, whatever the fuck ones that like we know have all types of random shit in that. That's so small. Is that a small baby puking? What is this?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:17

Well, we're talking about kids, and uh you and the you would imagine that kids puke less because they're physically smaller, but I think kids puke more. So that's why I'm in favor of if they can't make it to the bathroom, giving them a full kitchen-sized trash bag.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:31

Till that trash bag.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:32

I will say that after having gone through gallbladder removal, the best item are the bags that the hospitals have that have a ring around the top because then it it's always open. You don't have to worry about the bag like falling and closing around your mouth, and oops, now you're puking on the outside of the bag. That's that's a bad time. That's true. But like it just keeps it wide open, the bag expands with whatever you are vomiting into it. Kind of an ideal situation.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:56

This sponsor should have been a vomit bag episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:00

True. True.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:01

You know, the the goal here though, the goal here, just so everyone is aware, because you know, we're talking about like something that probably isn't super realistic. Like the goal here is yes, you get to the bathroom, that's your first plan. You can't make it to the bathroom, you throw up in whatever object that you or your family chooses to put next to you, and then you get to the bathroom and you finish throwing up, right? That's the goal. You don't just lay back down and hope for the best, fill it up some more, lay back down, fill it up some more until that thing's full, and you're like, Well, I gotta balance this shit all the way to the trap, whatever. You know what I mean? Like, so be smart about it, everyone. Be smart about it. I I I definitely have experienced crazy situations, but I feel like I'm able to get through them as incognito as possible. So, to put to put this as an example, right? I'm in Vegas one time.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:52

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:52

We're fucked up. Like fucked up. You know, there's alcohol, there's some other stuff. It was fun. We were we were pretty messed up. I'm at the craps table, things are going a little bit wild, my vision's getting a little bit shaky, I'm starting to feel a little bit nauseous. I'm like, man, I look around, I'm in the middle of the casino floor. There's not a lot of areas to go here, but I'm about to throw up. So I do throw up, but I hold it in my mouth and I walk away from the craps table. I walk calmly all the way, normal pace, all the way across the casino, to a trash can, by the bathroom, release it into the trash can, go to the bathroom, rinse my mouth out, good to go. What the fuck? Who are you? Good to go.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:37

Nothing good to nothing good to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:39

I I have thrown up several times while flying. That's about the closest I get, maybe, you know, to throwing up in public. When I was younger, I definitely dealt with um motion sickness a lot worse than I than I do as an adult. And I didn't know the tricks to getting by when you're flying. And so yeah, you would take off, you'd be like, oh, this is cool. I mean, I love I loved flying when I was young. I thought it was so cool. But the second you start moving the right ways, then the plane is setting you off, and it would just it would need to come out. And I'm glad that I always had the time to get the the the barf bag ready to go. Um, because I can't imagine what if what if you're like, oh, I don't need it, I'm not gonna have it ready. Oh no and you made it midair and then puked all over the place. That'd be really bad. But yeah, I I think in terms of public vomiting, that's probably the story for me. It's just flying. I don't know about any other places like school or or anything else like that, except for being in a hospital when I was horribly ill, uh, in which case I had one of those super cool ringed bags at the ready. But the barf bags they use are effectively just like lined popcorn bags almost, you know? They're just they're paper and they have a waxy liner on them. And where is it gonna go? It's just going to emit that fragrance for the entirety of your flight. And you know when you're getting on a flight, you know, when people have deplane and they're cleaning it up and you get on, it's in the air. You can you can you know that somebody in the previous flight puked. You can always tell. And it's that same like weird fragrance uh when you walk into like a uh a Target and they have that strange popcorn and cleaner smell. Yeah, it's the same smell you get on an airplane.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:14

Wait, okay, now that I'm back. Were you talking about throwing up on an airplane?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:20

This is fantastic because that's my story. That's amazing. So here's what happened to me. Wow. Look at God. Anyways, so here's what happened. The night before I had a conference to go to in LA, it was one of my closest friends' weddings. I thought, I'm gonna be fine. I have a very early morning flight, but I don't plan to drink. It's not a big deal. Everything's gonna be okay. Well, very wrong. Should have known better. And these are all my college friends, so one can only assume it really hit the fan. I got so plastered that I woke up to several phone calls and text messages from my friends that were going to be going on this flight with me. It's 6 30 in the morning. So this is how stupid I am. That I really thought I was gonna go on a flight at 6 a.m. after having a wedding the night before. Clownery. They're calling me. They're like, Bianca, where are you? We're boarding this flight. I'm freaking out. I've never driven faster in my life to the airport. Like, oh my gosh, I'm falling apart. I am insanely hungover. And I'm crying at the I don't even know. I'm I'm crying to the staff. I don't know what they're called right now, but like trying to tell them, like, I'm supposed to be on this flight to LA. I'm going to a conference. Please re-book me. All these flights are unavailable, but I'm crying. They feel so bad for me. And I look like I've seen hell and back. They put me on the next flight. So I'm trying to keep it together. I'm trying to hydrate. I am I've I'm like, how am I even gonna get on this plane by myself now? Because the problem is that before I was with some friends, now I'm by myself on this plane. I'm on the jet bridge or whatever to wait to get into the plane, and all of a sudden I feel it. It's like coming right up. Like you were saying, Sean's like, comes right up, and I try to hold it in my mouth, and um, I'm afraid to say what I did next. I hope no one judges me. Look, you know what? Fuck it. We've all been there, okay? We do questionable things, and it's probably not good for you, but I ended up having to swallow my own vomit, okay? I had no other choice.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:20

That would have made me puke more. I know that's hard to do.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:23

I had no other choice. It was definitely top three worst feelings ever. But you know what? I got on that plane and I survived. What is it, like six hours to LA, I think? Something ridiculous like that. This isn't even like a short flight, friends. This is me from Miami going to LA, hung over as all hell, with a heart condition that I shouldn't have even been drinking to begin with.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:48

It was questionable things.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:49

We're done. But there you have it.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:51

I am so shocked. I can think about that and vomit right now. There's no way I'd be able to swallow it.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:56

Imagine what it the conversation was like when I got to this conference, which by the way was paid for as well. Like I felt terrible. It's not like I this was a a sponsored conference I was going to. Luckily, my old boss, shout out to Steph, she's amazing, super understanding. She was like, friend, you've done some crazy things in the last 24 hours. Are you well? Like, let's maybe you missed the like you missed the first couple sessions. Take a breather, you know, settle in because you need to get yourself together. And only because we were planning to go out again later that evening.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:27

So my gosh.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:28

You know what? You uh puke and rally is what people like to say. That's kind of what happened there. Except I swallowed my own puke.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:35

I I 100% thought you were gonna tell us that you puked on somebody's child. I was not expecting you to have to ingest your own, you know, projectile vomit.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:44

But puking on a child would have been far worse. That's like childhood trauma that that kid will never have to, like will never be able to recover from.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:50

My gosh. That's true. I thought it was gonna be like from you know what what what movie was that in? Sandlot or Stand By Me or something like that? Yeah. That's Oh, the Sandlot. That's what I was imagining. Just like a chain of events.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:02

Oh my gosh, yeah. The sandlot with the chewing tobacco or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:06

No, no, no, the uh the pie eating contest scene from one of those movies. That's what I'm thinking of.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:10

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:12

What movie was that?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:14

That's an I don't think that's the Sandlot. That's something else for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:17

I think that's Stand By Me.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:18

Yeah, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:20

Maybe. It it sure it sure is. Oh boy. It's a campfire story, and yeah, if you want to feel grossed out, watch that scene.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:26

Or not. Can't do it. I can't really do movies where people puke. I don't know how I've been dealing with the exorcist lately.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:31

It's the bright green of it all that makes it okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:34

Also, like what a fucking terrible experience that must be. Like, for me, it's it's one thing to endure the exorcism of it all and the possession of it all. But I think I draw the line at having to clean up that kid's puke.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:46

That that's where you're drawing the line?

SPEAKER_03 1:45:48

Like, nah, I'm hiring a fucking cleaner, bro. Nah, I can't do it. Like, I I love you to the ends of the earth, but I'm not cleaning up your fucking demon tar puke.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:56

Yeah, well, I'm not doing any of it. So those kids can kick rocks.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:00

Are we talking specifically like children's vomit?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:03

Any any any vomit, probably.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:05

Any vomit. Demonic possession vomit. Oh, possession vomit. Oh, okay. Yeah. Possession vomit specifically, that's the next level of stuff. Normal projectile, like, you know, people have tough times, okay? Have some compassion, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:46:18

It does always back the question of uh while they're possessed, they never show them eating. So how how are they getting like nutrients and stuff? You know, is that I mean, I guess if it's only like a day or two, they'll probably be alright. But like if it's been a week or two of them being possessed, they're gonna like start wasting away.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:32

The soul of children is famously the breakfast of demonic champions.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:36

This is true. Well, they are kind of wasting away in a sense, you know. They're s they're slowly dying.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:42

Yeah, see how fucking frail they are?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:44

It's just at the end of everything when they just come back to normal miraculously, and they don't have to deal with the repercussions of everything that did happen. That's that's the that's the part that doesn't that doesn't resonate properly, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:46:56

This entire genre, and all they needed to do was give them a Snickers bar. That was it. You're not yourself when you're hungry. That's right. The power of nougat compels you.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:06

You know, actually, another thing that I wanted to mention, just because I'm it's hitting me now. One comment that I made at the theater was this movie was not scary, but I'll tell you what will be prick pretty scary, at least to me, is the haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights that we're about to embark on in just a few days. Oh fuck yeah. That is gonna mess me up, and that is gonna be far scarier than the movie, without a doubt. And for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:31

I completely forgot that that's a thing that we're gonna be doing. Like this house doing it. I also heard a comment that there's a particular smell and odor in that house. Oh no. Uh on the first night of Halloween horror nights, it was a little too intense. And then they they evened it out for the rest. I have you know, someone that I work with who goes very regularly, but we'll see. Maybe I'll maybe y'all see me puke after all. Bring a salad bowl, Sean.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:00

I will bring you a nice salad bowl just in case.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:06

Well, hey, I like bread. And I'm do I I I I went through many a poor year just eating bread and hot sauce. So, you know, fuck it if I like trash, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:17

But whoa, we're not saying trash.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:22

Yeah, well, I mean, you'll see when I get to my rating. Um Listen, people are shitting on this movie hard, okay?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:31

They are.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:32

Alright. Am I people? I'm people.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:36

We got to that. Oh, sorry, give me one second. My dad's calling. Give me one moment. Okay. Yeah, is the door locked? Okay, I'll be right there.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:45

You're fucked up kids, and he's like, I'm surprised. I don't want them to, you know? I don't want to continue my sentence, but wow, that was a mistake.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:54

Sorry, the door's locked and they're trying to they're trying to get in. I'll be I'll be right back. You guys can continue if you want. Okay, sorry. Are we still recording?

SPEAKER_00 1:49:04

Yeah. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:06

We did not move on from your good. Okay. So I think I know where I was where I was taking that.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:14

I will say my mother did turn to me and was like, of course they have a Latino priest uh Catholic priest is the character. And I was like, Mom, you know, what are we gonna do? Okay. Russell Crowe is an a is a Catholic priest in another exorcist film that just came out recently. Okay, we can't have it all. We gotta they gotta go back to the basics. They gotta go back to the stereotype. So it is what it is.