By Iveth Lopez
Copyright: © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Fifty years after the original release of “The Exorcist” gave theatergoers nightmares, a remake is taking the original and adding a twist. But was it worth a remake? “The Exorcist” remake was recently released this following October of 2023. “The Exorcist” was loosely based off a true story. A demon possessed a 14-year-old boy named Roland Doe, that had multiple exorcists in Cottage City, Maryland, an hour away from Frederick. The boy would break into a violent tantrum of screaming, cursing, and voicing of Latin phrases as Jesuit priests allegedly cast the demon out of his body.
The Horror movie shows you the up bring of Angela Fielding, a 14-year-old girl that moms died in a tragic accident, one of the main characters that ends up possessed. In the new movie, there are two girls that get possessed instead of one girl. Angela’s father does not like to mention her mother death which leads the girls to try to talk to her spirt. The girls been found trying to communicate with Angela’s mother with a pendulum. Angela and her friend, Katherine, decided after school they would try to talk to her spirit but conjure a darker entity. The girls were found days later, having no recollection of what had happened. Then after being examined were sent home. When the girls become possessed, it is sporadic. The parents soon realized after a day their children are possessed and begin exorcising. This does not create suspense in the movie. The last 20 minutes were horror scenes and were not that scary compared to the oldest movie. The scariest parts were very brief and so much, so they were the only parts in the trailer. Katherine’s parents fell for the devil’s tricks by saying they would pick her to live with Angela. The plot has more of a storyline about parenthood than jump scares or horror scenes.
In the 1973 original Regan, a 5-year-old girl starts acting odd after playing with the Ouija board with her mother and they did not take it seriously. Her mother becomes worried after her daughter’s bed starts to shake and proceeds to get her medical help. It becomes increasingly worst, and the doctors are not making her daughter better. There are more gore scenes and Reagan ends up killing one of the doctors. These scenes add so much suspension which causes viewers to become scared. The doctors tell her about a priest, and he might be able to help. When the priest come to help, Regan acts insane, throwing up and levitating. At the end of the movie Father Karras sacrifices himself to save Regan from the demon’s possessing her. It is more of a horror movie with the jump scares, and it follows more of her being possessed. The original movie left me uneasiness, with the way the girl looked and the way she acted. She acted more outrageous than the two girls throughout the movie really made viewers think she was possessed. The moments the girls acted strange in the remake were not for that long, I do not think it was worth a remake because you would think it would be scarier with two girls being possessed but it was not. The scariest parts are in the remake trailer so viewers knew it was coming which made it less of a jump scare. If you’re more a thrill seeker, watching the original is the best option.
Credit
“Boy Whose Case Inspired the Exorcist Is Named by US Magazine.” Edited by Betsy Reed, The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 20 Dec. 2021, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/20/the-exorcist-boy-named-magazine.
