The Exorcist TV Series

A few days before it’s UK air date I was lucky enough to be given the chance to watch the first two episodes of the new Exorcist series which has aired around four episodes in America already. Like a lot of people remakes or retelling of famous horror films will always raise skepticism, so the question is how does this come across? With Outcast having recently finished it’s first season is there room for more possession based TV shows? Here’s my take on the first couple of episodes……..

As I mentioned there’s a bit of a preconception of horror remakes that immediately put some people off but most are willing to give things like this a go and they won’t regret it when it comes to The Exorcist TV show. Horror fans are quite lucky at the moment, there seems to be a fair few horror based series on TV at the moment and recently. With Outcast the closest to The Exorcist but there’s also shows such as Slasher, American Horror Story, Scream, Penny Dreadful and recently Hemlock Grove on Netflix chuck in Stranger Things and the TV world of horror is as strong as it’s ever been and The Exorcist is it’s latest offering.

The film is right up there as one of the most famous horror films of all time, in it’s day it was gory, shocking, unique, controversial and disgusting. It has frightened a lot of people over the years and disgusted many more with it possession scenes. It’s a tough act to follow and the TV series is only inspired by the book, this is key as it’s not a remake or a show that will drag out the story covered in the original film. It’ll stand on it’s own merit and hopefully give us something that keep us hooked for a few seasons with a bigger story than someone who needs exorcising.

The plot of the show is reasonably simple so far with Alfonso Herrera playing an up and coming priest Father Tomas Ortega, he has some skeletons in his closest that really don’t cross with his life with the church. He is plagued by dreams of Father Marcus Keane played by Ben Daniels who is fantastic performing an exorcist in Mexico on a young boy.

Geena Davis features as Angela Rance who’s family is very troubled, her husband is recovering from some sort of brain injury, one daughter refuses to leave her room after a traumatic event. Angela hears something in the walls of her home and tells Father Tomas that she believes there’s a presence in her home. He doesn’t really believe her to start with but after witnessing some weird events in their home he becomes convinced something is happening.

Father Tomas is for some reason we’re not aware of yet led to the location of Father Marcus who the church believe is “broken” they come together to investigate what’s happening to the Rance family. There’s a big over arcing story about the demons that possess people and they obviously have an end game especially for Father Marcus.

Taken on it’s own merit this is a very positive start to the series, there’s the famous Exorcist music and even a man in a hat in the shadows on the street light. The only problem is this would have been a good enough story to stand on it’s own feet. If you liked Outcast then based on the first episodes you’ll enjoy this. It has some decent gory scenes, really great cinematography and as I mentioned the over arcing storyline gives plenty of reason to carry on watching.

Overall Score – 80/100