SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains massive spoilers for The Exorcist: Believer. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
When watching a legacyquel, there is a sense that classic characters are relatively safe from harm (given that they provide the important link between past and present), but The Exorcist: Believer doesn’t play by that rule. Though Ellen Burstyn’s Chris MacNeil is still alive at the end of the film, she is taken out of the action before the big finale and left forever scarred – having been blinded during her personal encounter with the demon Lamashtu. The scene where Katherine stabs her eyes out with a cross is one of the most shocking in the film, and I spoke about it with David Gordon Green during an interview with the writer/director earlier this month.
What happens to Chris MacNeil in The Exorcist: Believer is particularly surprising in contrast to what happens with Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode in the recent Halloween trilogy – as Laurie gets seriously injured during her final battles with Michael Myers, but she walks away whole. I brought up this comparison to Gordon Green when I spoke with the filmmaker earlier this month, and he explained his appreciation for Chris MacNeil as a character:
It is such a different type of character [than Laurie Strode]. For Chris, who I feel like is such a soft spoken, spiritual entity that communicates on a whole different level – I’m speaking about Chris, not Ellen – in that character, I think I wanted her… she’s a character that I adore because her intentions are always so pure and valid, whether it’s writing a book, hopeful that parents dealing with the unexplained, she can help them. But then somehow it fractures her against her daughter Regan and their relationship.
In The Exorcist: Believer, Leslie Odom Jr.’s Victor Fielding learns about Chris MacNeil when he is struggling to figure out what’s going on with his daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett) and he is given a copy of Chris’ book about demonic possession and exorcism. When Victor goes to see Chris, he learns that what she has written about her past has driven a wedge between her and her child – and this action/consequence is ultimately mirrored in Chris’ fate: she wants to do good and help, but her efforts are met with horrible results.
Continuing, David Gordon Green said that there is a parallel meant to be observed in what happens during Chris’ encounter with the Lamashtu-possessed Katherine:
In the scene where that you’re speaking to, she’s there to bring what she’s learned over the years, over the 50 years since the events of Georgetown, and she’s there to help this family cleanse their young daughter of this ailment – and then she gets it handed to her. So her intentions are always pure, and she’s greeted with conflict and obstacles all the way.
In the writing of the screenplay with co-writer Peter Sattler, David Gordon Green says that he knew they were going to create a “happy” ending with the story of Victor and Angela, and what happens to Chris MacNeil was his way of making sure things didn’t feel too clean and shiny. The filmmaker added,
In terms of where that story came from, I had the ending in mind, and I wanted a warmth to the ending, but I wanted to make sure that the devil got a few checks on the scoreboard. And it couldn’t be a nice tidy, wrapped up everybody’s happily ever after. I could bring warmth and closure, but also feel like we didn’t get out unscathed.
It’s not entirely clear at the end of The Exorcist: Believer where things are heading with the planned trilogy, but David Gordon Green has said that there is a “roadmap,” and it won’t be long before we get some answers. The Exorcist: Deceiver will be coming out in April 2025, and that means that production will likely begin in the first half of next year.