Review
Culture
Film & TV
Weirdness
5 min read

When horror is horrifyingly bad

A classic horror film’s sequel deeply disappoints priest Yaroslav Walker, missing opportunities to address psychological and spiritual power.
A man and a women stand looking in the same direction with concerned faces.
Ellen Burstyn and Leslie Odom Jr are concerned about the reviews.
Universal Pictures.

That’s it. I have nothing more to say about the film in this review - The Exorcist: Believer. If you want a proper, knowledgeable, definitive derogatory diatribe against this dreadful waste of celluloid, may I suggest you watch this review by Mark Kermode. The good Doctor loves the original Exorcist more than any other reviewer I’m aware of and is the expert witness you need if you want to understand the absolute abomination this ‘film’ is (and, more importantly, is not!). I don’t have the energy. However, I do have the Church’s authority to speak on matters of faith and doctrine, so instead of my usual theology-smuggle at the end of a review, can we just dive right into it? 

SPOILERS AHEAD – trust me, it doesn’t matter… 

You can’t comment on an exorcism film without reference to the original – The Exorcist. Believer is David Gordon Green making a something of a sequel to the original; this went well with his first Halloween film, and then turned horrifyingly, stupidly bad with the second and third outings (and such treatment is promised for the Exorcist franchise). The Exorcist is a club sandwich of thematic wonder. William Peter Blatty was both a tremendously talented writer and also a thoughtful, intelligent, and committed Roman Catholic. When he wrote the novel of The Exorcist, he created a popular (slightly bloated) theological masterpiece. Adapting the script for William Friedkin to direct, he took the core themes and trimmed all the fat. The result is gorgeously lean, muscular, agile film that moves at a clip and doesn’t allow you a moment to forget the searing questions of faith, and doubt, and family, and failure, and sin. 

Believer raises no such questions. If it has any sort of theme or message it seems to be this. The demonic is there not to sow random chaos, horror, pain and destruction (a good understanding of ‘evil’ as ‘nothing’, very much in keeping with a conception of evil formalised in Western theology by St Augustine almost a few millennia ago, which Blatty presents with perfection). It is there to offer people an ironic monkey’s-paw-esque bargain to reveal their own weakness and hypocrisy…yeh? Believer isn’t just terrible film, and not just a terrible sequel to a remarkable film; it is the lazy desecration of a cinematic theological legacy. 

The original gave a gorgeous visual commentary on the human spirit remaining resilient in the face of evil as the absolute negation of ‘what is’.

To name the overarching source of my incandescence, it is this question: What is the demonic doing in this film? What is it achieving? The original Exorcist is clear – Fr Merrin (the eponymous exorcist) explains that the possession of a child is intended as random, purely nihilistic, awful chaos that grinds down the resolve of righteous. It has no point, no substance – it is genuine ‘evil’, nothingness collapsing in on itself. In Believer the demon seems to be wanting to make a social commentary on parenting…maybe? At the start of the film the voodoo-blessed mother is caught in a building collapse after a Haitian earthquake, and as she lies dying in a makeshift hospital the father is presented with a terrible choice: the surgeon can only save one or the other, mother or baby. SPOILER – he may have a daughter, but he didn’t choose her. There’s another girl who is something of a free spirit with parents who are very light touch. One father didn’t want his daughter, the other doesn’t seem to be too bothered about his daughter having structure…you know? Parents, children, the sins of the father…you know? 

The great climax has the demon(s) presenting the assembled non-exorcists with a choice. Fathers – choose your daughter and she’ll live, first come, first served. One father recognises the immorality, the pointless and annihilating ‘evil’, of letting a girl die, the other doesn’t. He’s been pretty much a non-entity throughout the film, has no real understanding of what is going on, is about as psychologically traumatised as it is possible to be, and is presented with the opportunity to save his daughter…of course he makes the wrong choice…because this is a ‘clever film’…The demon reveals the girl who was chosen will die. TWIST. Didn’t see that coming – admittedly this film is so stupid I didn’t see anything coming. Why? Why let one girl live? Why is this demon – this figure of total and destructive evil – teaching the people a lesson about self-sacrifice and never being willing to sacrifice an innocent? Is the demon making an important point? WHAT IS GOING ON!? Well, the mistakes of Heretic are being repeated, but this is a point for the cognoscenti… 

The original gave a gorgeous visual commentary on the human spirit remaining resilient in the face of evil as the absolute negation of ‘what is’; it ends with a broken man finding his faith and his redemption in a Christ-like act of self-sacrifice (Fr Karras – the junior exorcist – takes the demon into himself and commits suicide). There is, in this final act, a moving and absolute statement on the indomitability of creation (and humanity as the pinnacle of creation) as that which God has willed into being and continues to will ‘to be’. We are here! We are loved! We are to be redeemed! We cannot be seduced by the lie that decay and dissolution and destruction and nothingness is our ultimate destiny. Believer has people stumbling by accident to a conclusion that says nothing about God, or the devil, or heaven, or hell, or faith, or doubt, or family, OR GOOD AND EVIL, or anything serious. 

I despise this film. I pray to God the other two films in the proposed trilogy do not get made. They probably will…maybe that’s not the end of the world. Maybe the inevitable sequels will, in the very fact of their being filmed and released, be a better exposition of the reality of banal and destructive evil, which seeks to find the beauty of ‘what is’ and tarnish it, than their actual stories. Maybe… 

Star rating? At the sight of this film the stars themselves hid… 

Article
Comment
Economics
Politics
Trust
5 min read

Tariffs destroy trust so where do we go next?

Blunt weapons cause a mess in markets and lives.

Paul Valler is an executive coach and mentor. He is a former chair of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

A gold coin with the DOGE dog on it, lies over the face on a $50 bill.
So doge-y.
Kanchanara on Unsplash

‘When America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold’ quipped economists almost a century ago after the Wall Street crash.  A comment that might equally apply to the more than 10 per cent drop in stock markets caused by President Trump’s sudden raised tariffs on imports to the USA.  The impact of the American economy on the world is inescapable.  It represents almost a quarter of global GDP and the dollar is the leading reserve currency, accounting for around 60 per cent of international foreign exchange reserves.  Size is what enables America to bully the rest of the world. 

For decades the American trade deficit has been an elephant in the room and Trump is to be applauded for recognising it and addressing the problem. Unfortunately, the way he has gone about it has caused another, bigger problem. Changing the direction of the global economy is like turning a tanker, it cannot be done easily or quickly, but Trump’s style is to attack, like hammering at a nail.  Every issue in geopolitics looks like another nail, waiting for him to hammer out a negotiated deal.  Full marks for courage, but not for wisdom. The blunt weapon of trade tariffs is designed to bring wealth and power back towards the USA, but blunt weapons often cause a mess, and sure enough a global mess is what we now have.  A US/China trade war with higher prices that could end up stoking inflation and a government own goal.   

Panic selling of government bonds signalling a loss of confidence following Trump’s dramatic tariff boost is reminiscent of the impact of Liz Truss’ sudden and radical UK tax cuts, which were also driven by an ideology, but ended up as a wrecking ball.  Even some of Trump’s backers have warned of an economic nuclear winter.  In the long run, Trump has done the world a favour by highlighting a structural issue that needed correction, but his economically violent methods of addressing it look increasingly unwise.  If a global depression does happen on the back of all this, then coupled with the rise of autocratic and belligerent leadership, we would face a worrying parallel to what happened in the 1930s when the world eventually slid into war.   

Tariffs are like walls, barriers to cooperation and the epitome of economic selfishness.  Make America Great Again is selfishness writ large - a society pursuing wealth and power without the cohesive framework of values that are so essential to cooperation and community wellbeing.  A psychology of self-centredness that damages relationships at the national level.  This is what I find most concerning about Trump’s approach; not just the economics but the long-term legacy of relational damage that could last well beyond his Presidential term. 

Our fears reveal just how much we trust in wealth above everything else, and how much the fear of scarcity affects our mental health.

Michael Schluter in his book The Relational Lens defines five principles, or measures, of relational health.  They are directness, parity, common purpose, continuity and breadth.  Applying those five measures helps us see why Trump’s tariffs are the polar opposite of relational.  He introduced these escalating penalties remotely and not in face-to-face negotiations.  Exploiting the power of America instead of showing respect for the status and needs of other nations.  Tariffs have no common purpose with other countries, only a selfish agenda.  There is no continuity with previous trading protocols.  And it is all purely financial, with no reference to the broader holistic impact.  All in all, a relational disaster.   

Despite living in the ‘first world’ we remain gripped with fear of loss.  Our fears reveal just how much we trust in wealth above everything else, and how much the fear of scarcity affects our mental health. Markets are not entirely rational; they are driven by algorithms that stem from this psychology of greed and fear.  Emotions and trading swing wildly with a herd instinct that often drives behaviour.  As Rabbi Jonathan Sachs said:  

‘Markets have no moral compass; we have outsourced morality to legislation by the State.’   

But the worry now is that the current US administration shows signs of ignoring morality and even riding roughshod over the courts.  No wonder people feel afraid. 

Where can we find hope in all this turmoil?  Is there a better response than gritted teeth and the mantra: ‘this too shall pass’?  I think so.  There is life beyond the market.  Jesus said: ‘life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’  We can choose to step back and look at all this with the true perspective that money isn’t everything.  We can cultivate gratitude for what we do have.  We can learn contentment.  Yet I feel for those who have experienced financial loss, and don’t want to minimise the reality of hardship.  In fact, something important and practical all of us who are privileged can and should do is to be vigilant in watching out for those who are poor and disadvantaged.  To look after those with a real need for the basics of life and help them through this tough time when economic disruption could make life even harder.  For those with a faith this is part of working out how our faith makes a positive difference where we are. 

Perhaps the supreme irony of this crisis is President Trump’s insistence that Americans must trust him.  Ironic, because the one thing that his tariff actions seem to have undermined more than anything else is trust.  The trust that is essential to the functioning of both markets and civilisation as a whole.  Face to face discussions must be the way forward now, to rebuild trust and find more nuanced, mutual approaches to solving America’s trade deficit.   

There is one person we can always trust though, and his name is written clearly on the American One Dollar bill. In God we trust. Let’s pray that Trump and his America returns to that imperative and turns back to a more Christ centred philosophy of loving our neighbour as ourselves, reflected in a more bilateral approach to diplomacy and agreement.

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