It’s been fifty years since the release of the late, great William Friedkin’s horror masterpiece “The Exorcist” and we’re getting two really big, and anticipated sequels that follow after the original film. “Believer” is setting high expectations and has a high bar to hit. “The Exorcist” has yet to be topped by its follow ups, or its bevy of imitators. Here’s my list of films from “The Exorcist” series from Best to Worst. Fingers crossed “Believer” ends up wowing fans and audiences alike.
Yearly Archives: 2023
The Exorcists (2023)
When all is said and done, “The Exorcists” could have been so much worse. And that’s about as good as it gets with Jose Prendes’ horror thriller. As is typical of “The Asylum” studios, “The Exorcists” arrives right around the time of the big reboot of the classic William Friedkin film (I’ll see your two priests and raise you five!). This new film isn’t bashful in hiding its intentions, even styling the title fonts to look similar to “The Exorcist.” Even with all the reservations, “The Exorcists” has a decent concept, but what hinders it is that the script feels painfully under developed.
The Jester (2023)
The Jester originally began life like a lot of contemporary horror icons: debuting mainly through short horror films. The Jester was a character that appeared in a series of short horror films until finally garnering his own feature film. Like many modern horror characters, the Jester is a monster that’s all dressed up with nowhere to go. That’s not to say that Colin Krawchuk’s horror film is a bad movie, it just wastes what could be an interesting supernatural monster (if the cards are played right).
The Pumpkin Man: Demon of Fall (2021)
There’s nothing really more Halloween than a villain with a pumpkin for a head, and “The Pumpkin Man” introduces what should and could be a fun horror villain. “Demon of Fall” watches a lot like a mix of “The Ring” if penned by RL Stine for “Goosebumps,” and I mean that as a compliment. It’s a short film with a small budget, but it has a neat concept I’d love to see translated in to a feature someday.
Ranking the Ghostface Killers from Favorite to Least
The first rule of Ghostface in “Scream,” is that it’s always someone you know. No matter what’s happening to the main characters, the killer or killers are always someone within close vicinity that have a personal connection with you. To date there have been multiple people that have taken up the mantle of Ghostface, especially since the “Scream” movie series is six movies in, and on the way to the seventh. So now that “Scream 6” made a big hit at theaters in 2023, I thought I’d break down the Ghost Face killers from favorite from least favorite.
The list does exclude the killers from the MTV “Scream” series, of course, as I’m sticking mainly to the movie series continuity.
Feel free to let me know what your ranking would be in the comments.
Be sure to check out Felix Vasquez’s newest book “Super Schlock”!
Now Available on Paperback and Kindle, in the 1990’s the concept of superhero entertainment was still considered a big gamble for major studios like Sony and Warner Bros. Superheroes and their live action counterparts were confined to television series, and low budget productions, giving way to a slew of colorful, odd, and obscure crime fighters. “Super Schlock” takes a tongue in cheek but loving look back to a decade where Blank Man and the Planet Patrol walked so that blockbusters like “The Avengers” and “Black Panther” could run.
Binge and Purgatory (2022)
I can’t say that I responded too much to director Becca Kozak’s short dark comedy, too much. While I dug the inherent creativity behind the premise, the movie really doesn’t offer much of a narrative. There’s a lot of gore and grue, and two characters that spend their time one upping each other in grotesque ways.