Ellen Burstyn has Georgetown demons on her mind. 50 years after The Exorcist terrified audiences, the Oscar winner reprises her iconic role as Chris MacNeil in the hotly-anticipated sequel The Exorcist: Believer, hitting theaters Oct. 6. From horror veterans Blumhouse Productions (Get Out, Insidious) and director David Gordon Green (The Righteous Gemstones), the R-rated installment also stars Emmy winner Ann Dowd (The Handmaid's Tale) and Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles. But in the all-new The Exorcist: Believer trailer and featurette, Burstyn's return takes center stage.
The Exorcist: Believer is set 50 years after the events of The Exorcist, which scored 10 Oscar nods and was the first horror film ever nominated for Best Picture. The sequel film follows single father Victor Fielding (Tony winner Leslie Odom, Jr., Hamilton) as he calls upon Chris MacNeil's expertise to save his daughter and her friend from demonic possession. Here's the official synopsis:
"Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, Victor Fielding (Odom, Jr.) has raised their daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett, Good Girls) on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine (newcomer Olivia Marcum) disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil."
Ann Dowd co-stars as Victor's neighbor, with Grammy winner Jennifer Nettles and two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz (Justified: City Primeval) playing Katherine's parents.
"Playing a character that I created 50 years ago, I thought, 'She's had 50 years of living. Who has she become?'" Burstyn says in a new featurette for the film.
From the looks of the bone-chilling new The Exorcist: Believer trailer, Burstyn's Chris MacNeil has written a book about her daughter Regan's possession. And, this time around, MacNeil may be acting as the titular exorcist. In one particularly ghastly scene, MacNeil enters Katherine's bedroom and tells the demon possessing the girl, "We've met before" — to which the demon replies, "Are you looking for Regan?" Director Gordon Green has clarified that The Exorcist: Believer does not feature Pazuzu, the demon from the original film. What games are these evil spirits playing at?
Gordon Green is best known for reviving the Halloween franchise and helming most episodes of The Righteous Gemstones. He penned the Exorcist: Believer screenplay alongside Peter Sattler (Camp X-Ray) from a story by Scott Teems (Halloween Kills) and funnyman Danny McBride, star and writer of Gemstones and a fellow Halloween scribe. The Exorcist: Believer is the first film in a planned sequel trilogy, with the second, The Exorcist: Deceiver, slated for 2025.
The Exorcist: Believer is in theaters Oct. 6.
