Horror movie legend John Carpenter is confused as to how The Exorcist sequel has ended up being such a miss with the critics.
Reviews for the anticipated sequel to William Friedkin’s 1973 classic came savaged the film last week, earning it a 23% score on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.
The new film – titled The Exorcist: Believer – was directed by David Gordon Green, with whom Carpenter previously worked with on the reboot of the Halloween trilogy.
Carpenter had his say on the reception to The Exorcist: Believer in a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, admitting he’s not sure “how you can screw that up”.
He said: “I like what David did when he made the three ‘Halloweens’,” Carpenter said. “I loved number two [Halloween Kills]. Thought that was fabulous.
“I heard The Exorcist really didn’t cut it. That could be a kick-ass movie. I don’t understand how you can screw that up.”
The 2018 reboot of Halloween was largely well-received and maintains a 79% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Initially planned as the first of two films, Green later opted for a trilogy. Halloween Kills (2020) sits at 39%, while Ends (2022) — the most divisive — is at 40%.
While some fans went as far as suggesting that Green must have never even watched the original Exorcist — which retains an 87% score from more than 250,000 ratings on Rotten Tomatoes — the native Texan had espoused his deep love for it in multiple recent interviews.
“I had seen many horror movies, but this felt almost like a documentary,” he told Gizmodo. “It felt really authentic…So bringing a clinical authenticity to that, I thought, was important. We took that idea and translated it into our movie.”
Poor reviews for The Exorcist: Believer has not stopped its success at the box office, however, with the film debuting at number one in the UK and Ireland, with £1.6 million ($2 million), according to numbers released by Comscore.
The Exorcist: Believer is in cinemas now.