'The Exorcist: Believer' review: Don't be lured into this unholy mess

You're meant to scream bloody hell. The devil is back in business in "The Exorcist: Believer," now only in theaters where it picks up on the 1973 horror classic by pretending that two previous sequels, two prequels and one failed TV series never existed. If only.

Now for the bad news: The first "Exorcist" was thrillingly too much. This sequel is boringly too little. Despite the R rating, the film is full of secondhand scares and fear of the still unnerving shadows cast by the original, directed by certified wild man William Friedkin, who died in August, and based on the bestseller by William Peter Blatty, who also won an Oscar for his screenplay.

Academy gold is not in the cards for this safe and sorry imitation, though you'll cheer the return of the great Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil, the movie star mom who had an exorcism performed on her 13-year daughter Regan (Linda Blair), a process that near killed both of them.

Burstyn, now 90, had wisely resisted all invitations to reprise the role that made her a best actress Oscar nominee -- and a household name -- in 1974. Her price? The offer of a generous scholarship program for young actors at Pace University understandably lured her in.

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Still, there's no excuse but cowardice for moving up the release of this sequel by a week, except the dread of taking on the Taylor Swift concert film from her Eras Tour. Demons may be hell on the little girls they possess, but Swifties run away from nothing.

Director and co-writer David Gordon Green, who already betrayed his once exceptional indie roots ("All the Real Girls," "George Washington") with a "Halloween" trilogy of diminishing returns, now tries to do the same thing with "The Exorcist." The blatant cash grab is depressing, especially since "Believer" is such a clumsy patchwork that traps good actors in its web.

Leslie Odom, Jr., who won a Tony as Aaron Burr in "Hamilton," does his level best as Victor Fielding, a widower photographer who desperately reaches out to Chris since she's written a bestseller on her daughter's demonic possession.

Victor needs Chris to help him deal with the newly horrifying behavior of his daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett), who has not been the same since she took a walk in the Georgia woods with her bestie, Katherine (Olivia O'Neill).

Missing for three days, the girls think they've only been gone for a few hours. Then they start behaving like they're copycatting Linda Blair, doing her levitating, potty-mouth, projectile vomiting thing from the first "Exorcist." When Katherine starts chanting "the body and the blood," her Catholic mom (Jennifer Nettles) and dad (Norbert Leo Butz) freak out big time.

"She knows who I am," says Burstyn's Chris, indicating that the demon Pazuzu has transitioned from he to she between films. Why? Don't ask. Burstyn is suddenly sidelined by Ann Dowd, the sinister Aunt Lydia from "Handmaid's Tale," as Paula, Katherine's neighbor, a former nun who brings in Father Maddox (E.J. Bonilla) to perform an exorcism.

There's also a demon-banisher (Okwui Okpokwasili) from Haiti, where Victor's wife was killed in an earthquake and caused him to lose his faith. We meet representatives from various religions and beliefs to indicate that it takes a village to vanquish evil.

Oh brother. In terms of big ideas, this pitch is swung at and missed. Too many subplots swerve the movie off course, losing any momentum that the actors have tried valiantly to build. The next sequel in a planned trilogy is titled "The Exorcist: Deceiver." Don't you be deceived and let the marketing devils lure you into this one. It's an unholy mess.