Posted by The Exorcist is a Fox TV series, a direct sequel to the 1973 film, starring Alfonso Herrera and Ben Daniels as two exorcists and Geena Davis as a mother who turns out to be Regan MacNeil. It ran for two seasons, from 2016 to 2017, and was cancelled in May 2018.
In recent years we have seen a boom in remakes, reboots and old films turned into TV series. One of the latest to air is The Exorcist as a TV series. The pilot aired a few days ago: let’s look together at what it has in common with the old film and how it differs.
The Exorcist TV series
The story is set in the present day, in Chicago. The priest of a mostly Latino parish receives a visit from a woman. The woman, played by Geena Davis, thinks her daughter is possessed by the devil. Since the girl came back from college, in fact, her mother has noticed bizarre behaviour she cannot explain. She also says she hears strange sounds and whispers coming from the walls.
The priest, meanwhile, has a recurring nightmare in which he sees another priest exorcising a boy tied to a bed, and he goes looking for him to ask for help.
Opinions
Those who have seen it say the theme is pretty much the same as the film, a girl possessed by the devil, but that the quality of the series could have been better.
From the trailer, which you will find below, you can feel a dark, heavy atmosphere. You can see some special effects, which seem well done, but also one of those boring and by now ineffective jump scares, the scenes where, after a tense moment with no voices or noise, you hear a very loud sound and the shot changes abruptly. This is one of the flaws viewers complained about most, perhaps because the device is far too overused in horror.
As a series based on one of the highest-grossing horror films ever, audiences expected more. You can judge for yourselves by watching the trailer below. What do you think?
Update: how it ended
The series, created by Jeremy Slater for the American network Fox, is a direct sequel to the 1973 film and ignores all the other sequels and prequels. The two exorcists at its centre are Father Tomas Ortega (Alfonso Herrera), the young Chicago priest, and Father Marcus Keane (Ben Daniels), the priest from his nightmares.
The biggest surprise of the first season is Geena Davis’s character, Angela Rance: in the end she turns out to be Regan MacNeil, the possessed girl from the original film, grown up and living under a new name. Chris MacNeil, Regan’s mother, also appears, played by Sharon Gless.
The first season aired from 23 September 2016 and the second, with a new possession case and John Cho among the leads, from 29 September 2017, both with 10 episodes. In May 2018 Fox cancelled the series after two seasons.
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