The Exorcism

There is a specific kind of ghost that haunts every frame of The Exorcism, and it isn't the one rattling the floorboards or twisting limbs into geometric nightmares. It’s the specter of 1973. Specifically, it’s the shadow of Jason Miller, the man who played Father Karras in the original Exorcist. In a move that feels like the ultimate meta-therapy session, his son, Joshua John Miller, stepped behind the camera to direct this 2024 release. It’s a film about the trauma of making a horror movie, directed by a man whose family legacy is inseparable from the most famous horror movie ever made.

I watched this while trying to peel a stubborn, half-shredded price sticker off a new notebook with my thumbnail, and that tactile frustration—the sense of something being stuck and refusing to come clean—is exactly how this movie feels. It’s a project that sat on a shelf for years, filmed back in 2019 but delayed by the pandemic and a shifting cinematic landscape, finally emerging into a world that had already seen Russell Crowe fight demons on a Vespa just a year prior.

The Weight of the Collar

Let’s address the elephant in the cathedral: this is Russell Crowe’s second "priest vs. demon" outing in two years. But if The Pope’s Exorcist was a hammy, swashbuckling joyride, The Exorcism is its brooding, alcoholic cousin who cries at the dinner table. Crowe plays Anthony Miller, a washed-up actor and recovering addict who gets a "second chance" playing a priest in a high-budget remake of an Exorcist-style film.

Crowe is doing heavy lifting here. He’s not just playing a man possessed by a demon; he’s playing a man possessed by his own failures, his grief over a dead wife, and the predatory trauma inflicted on him by the Church when he was a boy. When he’s on screen, the movie feels like a prestige drama that accidentally stumbled onto a horror set. Crowe looks like he’s sweating actual holy water, his face a map of burst capillaries and regret. He brings a level of gravitas that the script doesn’t always know what to do with, especially when the third act decides it needs to stop being an actor-study and start being a "greatest hits" reel of levitation and growling.

A Family Business of Trauma

The meta-layers are where my interest really piqued. The film-within-the-film is being helmed by a director played by Adam Goldberg, who is essentially playing a caricature of every "visionary" jerk who thinks psychological abuse is a valid directing technique. He mocks Anthony’s trauma to get a better performance, and you can feel Joshua John Miller’s sharp critique of the industry bleeding through.

The relationship between Anthony and his estranged daughter Lee, played with a grounded, weary intelligence by Ryan Simpkins, provides the actual emotional stakes. Lee is the one watching her father unravel, unsure if he’s hitting the bottle again or if the "cursed" set is actually doing him in. Simpkins is excellent here, acting as our tether to reality when the lighting gets moody and the shadows start creeping. It’s a shame the movie eventually sidelines their relationship for more conventional scares. Chloe Bailey also pops up as a co-star on the film-set, but she’s given frustratingly little to do other than look concerned in expensive costumes.

The Mechanics of the Macro-Dread

Visually, Simon Duggan’s cinematography is far more sophisticated than your average jump-scare factory. The set—a massive, multi-story recreation of a house inside a soundstage—is a brilliant location. It allows for a literal "behind the scenes" look at horror, where we see the wires, the fake blood, and the cold artifice of filmmaking contrasted against the very real psychological collapse of the lead actor.

However, as a horror fan, I found the "fear mechanics" a bit confused. The film excels at atmosphere and dread—that slow-burn realization that Anthony is losing his grip—but then it pivots to loud, digital-heavy shocks that feel like they belong in a different movie. The demon eventually turns into a generic CGI CrossFit enthusiast, and the tension that was so carefully built in the first hour begins to dissipate. It’s a contemporary trend I’m exhausted by: the need to over-explain the monster rather than letting the ambiguity of madness do the work. In an era of "elevated horror" and A24-style mood pieces, The Exorcism feels caught between two worlds—wanting to be a deep dive into the psyche and wanting to be a box-office-friendly scream-fest.

The production history of this one—the long delay, the reshoots, the awkward timing alongside Crowe’s other exorcism movie—suggests a film that struggled to find its identity. There is a much better, leaner psychological thriller buried under the supernatural tropes here. I appreciated the attempt to reckon with the legacy of the genre, and Crowe’s performance is genuinely affecting, but the film ultimately fumbles its own exorcism. It’s worth a look for the meta-commentary alone, but don’t expect it to haunt your dreams. It’s a fascinating, messy look at how we use movies to process our demons, even if those demons eventually look a bit too much like pixels.