Why The Exorcist: Believer Failed

This reconciliation is the driving force behind The Exorcist, which sees conflicted priest Damien Karras already struggling with his own crisis of faith when confronted with the possession of Regan MacNeil. It's only in the demise of Father Lankester Merrin, and the looming death of Regan, that Karras finds the strength to reembrace his faith and make a noble sacrifice, tumbling to his death but in essence ascending to Heaven. That element of theological strife and eventual conciliation becomes even more pronounced in "The Version You've Never Seen", which restores a sequence Blatty was desperate for Friedkin to include in the original theatrical release, where Merrin and Karras discuss the purpose of evil. As summarised by Exorcist authority Mark Kermode, "It isn't about the girl - it's about everyone else in the house, it's about the priest."

Blatty would revisit these same themes years later with Legion, a sequel to The Exorcist that he also directed for the screen in 1990. While it has taken some time for The Exorcist III to be reappraised as a truly great horror film, when taken together with Friedkin's seminal original, everything that has needed to be said about this story has been said.

Not that that has stopped others from trying. Two Exorcist prequels were released in 2004 and 2005 respectively - The Exorcist: The Beginning and Dominion: The Prequel to The Exorcist, which were adapted from the same script by William Wisher and Caleb Carr and expanded the origins of Merrin's character many years before the events of the 1973 movie. Neither fared well with critics and were commercial bombs, continuing a trend set by John Boorman's misjudged 1977 effort Exorcist II: The Heretic, which is widely regarded as the worst sequel ever made.

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