'The Exorcist: Believer' review: What the devil were they thinking?

Fifty years ago, “The Exorcist” reportedly caused fainting and vomiting in the aisles. A few years later, “Exorcist II: The Heretic” caused uncontrollable laughter. Arriving in theaters Friday, “The Exorcist: Believer” seems likely to be met with deep, steady snores.

Film No. 6 in this wildly uneven franchise — did you know Paul Schrader directed the last one? — focuses on Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom, Jr.), a photographer whose pregnant wife dies while vacationing in Haiti. Thirteen years later, Victor is a single dad raising Angela (Lidya Jewett) in suburban Georgia. After Angela and a classmate, Katherine (Olivia O’Neill), vanish in the woods only to mysteriously reappear days later, both girls begin exhibiting the telltale signs of demonic possession: foul language, violence, bad breath.

To Katherine’s evangelical parents (Jennifer Nettles and Norbert Leo Butz), it all has something to do with Christ’s post-crucifixion visit to Hell. Victor, a confirmed atheist, thinks they’re nuts. Then again, why is his daughter speaking in tongues? And how does she know secrets about her nurse (Ann Dowd)? Searching for answers, Victor discovers — fan service alert! — Ellen Burstyn reprising her role as Chris MacNeil, the beleaguered single mother from the 1973 classic. Skepticism, she says, “will only get you so far.”

Directed by David Gordon Green, who recently relaunched the “Halloween” franchise, “Believer” is pretty Z-grade stuff, from its cheap jump-scares to its wooden acting. (Misbegotten indeed is the movie that can reduce a charismatic actor like Odom to an expressionless lump.) There’s little here that’s truly horrifying; instead, Green inserts a lot of sudden, loud noises and jumbled shots of ghostly faces — an attempt, perhaps, to replicate the subliminal techniques employed by the first film’s director, William Friedkin. (It’s too bad Friedkin died earlier this year. A blunt critic, he might have had some choice words for this film.)

“Believer” might have been more interesting if the screenplay (by Green and Peter Sattler) had fully explored the notion of disparate faiths — from Haitian voodoo to Catholicism — coming together to fight a common enemy. The idea comes too late in the film, however, to resonate as a theme. Instead, “Believer” relies heavily on its main gimmick of a double-barreled possession, which really just means twice the clichés.

Is there anything worthwhile about this movie? Well, one thing: Burstyn has said the fee she received for her performance will help fund scholarships to The Actors Studio, where she serves as co-president.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com