Flanagan's Exorcist only works if it stops copying Friedkin

Is there any horror property harder to touch than The Exorcist? Every attempt to revive it carries the same dare: scare us like it's 1973, or don't bother. Now Mike Flanagan has taken the dare, and we think the only honest way to answer it is to stop trying to answer it.

Here is what we know. The Exorcist: Martyrs is written and directed by Flanagan and is the seventh installment in the franchise, with Jason Blum producing through Blumhouse–Atomic Monster. MovieWeb reports that Scarlett Johansson plays Julie Miller, an NYPD detective investigating ritualistic murders that seem tied to a deceased serial killer she helped jail. The film opens in theaters on March 12, 2027.

A cop thriller is the smartest way into this franchise

The first trailer has fans noticing something. SlashFilm says it looks more inspired by the maligned but excellent The Exorcist III than by the 1973 original. MovieWeb points out the serial-killer plot and even a nameplate reading Kinderman, which is fan speculation about a link to that film, not a confirmed one.

We find that encouraging. The usual legacy-sequel move is to bring back the famous face, replay the famous scenes and call it homage. Exorcist III is the opposite: a procedural with a creeping, adult kind of fear. Building on the least obvious entry says Flanagan has read the room. Pea-soup pastiche was never going to beat Friedkin.

A detective is also a better lens than a priest. A cop doesn't arrive believing; she arrives with a case file. Dread that comes from a rational person being cornered by evidence is a different, colder sensation than a ritual we've watched a dozen times.

Johansson is the real gamble, and a good one

Flanagan told Screen Rant that Johansson doesn't tend to watch or do horror, and that she was "terrified daily" on set. He called her performance "raw" and "intense." Take that with salt: a director promoting his film will say it. Still, an actor outside the genre can avoid the scream-queen shorthand that years of possession movies have hardened into cliché.

The trailer reportedly puts her own child at the center of the possession, which is the franchise's oldest nerve. Familiar, yes. But the question is whether the film treats it as a reset button or as a wound. Flanagan's reputation, per SlashFilm, is for adaptations that do more than repaint what we've already seen. That is exactly the standard Martyrs has to meet.

The warning label is Believer

MovieWeb calls The Exorcist: Believer lackluster, and we'd say it set the template for what not to do: lean on nostalgia and hope the brand does the scaring. The cautionary tale on the other side is the 2016 Fox series, which SlashFilm praises for honoring the original while building its own mythology. It still became the network's lowest-rated show in its second year and was canceled. Quality doesn't guarantee an audience for this brand.

That cuts both ways. Flanagan told the BlumFest crowd, per Dread Central via findthismovie, that he set out to make the scariest film of his career. That's a big promise, and a big promise is a trap on a franchise this reverent.

Our verdict: be cautiously optimistic, and judge it on one thing. If Martyrs feels like an Exorcist movie because of its Easter eggs, it will fail. If it feels like one because it makes us afraid in a way the series hasn't before, Flanagan will have earned the revival. The trailer suggests he knows the difference. March will tell us whether he can deliver it.