An actor, trying to rebuild his career struggles as he films a new horror film, however his daughter begins to wonder if the struggles are caused by his troubled past, or something more sinister….

The co-writer of the film (along with M.A. Fortin) and its director is Joshua John Miller. He as acted in films like Near Dark when younger but over the recent years has worked more behind the scenes, as a writer of such films as The Final Girls. But what may be less known is that his father was Jason Miller. Jason Miller was a noted playwright and an actor. His most famous role was, as horror fans will know, Father Karras in The Exorcist, a role he revisited in 1990’s The Exorcist III.

With that background and certainly in parts of the film, you feel that Joshua John Miller is perhaps exploring his relationship with his father. I accept I may be reading much more into this than was intended, but these parts of the film as Anthony Miller and his daughter Lee are among the best parts of the film, as they try to keep their fractured bond from fully breaking.

And if the film had simply been a study of their relationship and an actor trying to resurrect his career, then I think this could have been an interesting character piece.

But The Exorcism is not that film. It’s a horror film. And it’s in the horror aspect that the film doesn’t work.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have some good jump scares. Indeed, there are some creepy moments in the film that work well. However, from the opening death of an actor on set, to the ending, the reason for the horror never feels explored or explained well.

The original title of the film was The Georgetown Project and along with the film-within-a-film of a Priest brought in to perform an exorcism, the film leaves you in no doubt, which horror film was the big influence on The Exorcism. I say original title, as the film was mostly shot in 2019, before the Pandemic shut the film down. It was restarted and reportedly some reshoots were done before the film was completed for release. I mention this as this may help explain why the film does feel rushed in its final act, as perhaps actors were unavailable or only available for limited time for those reshoots.

The film stars Russell Crowe as Anthony and he is very good in his role as an actor who is struggling both professionally and personally. He’s matched by Ryan Simpkins as his daughter Lee, fearing Anthony (she doesn’t want to call him Dad) is falling back to has bad ways. There are small roles for Adam Goldberg as the film director, Sam Worthington and Chloe Bailey as actors on the film and David Hyde Pierce as a priest brought in on the film as a consultant. They are all not bad at all.

The set built for the film is not too bad and the score from Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans is not bad either, avoiding mimicking, for example, using a theme like Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, used in The Exorcist, which would have been understandable considering that film’s influence on this film.

As a film then, The Exorcism as horror elements that work and the parts of the film dealing with the father/daughter relationship are good too. It’s just a shame the story the film hangs on doesn’t work at all, though the elements were where.

It may be a missed opportunity, but that said, despite it all I enjoyed The Exorcism.

Rating: *** out of 5