First, there’s the inspiration behind the new movie “The Exorcism” — the idea that the filming of the acclaimed 1973 film was cursed, which is . Then there’s the appealing horror movie-within-a-horror movie structure, the flick built around an exorcism movie with, yes, a possessed girl and a haunted priest. And, finally, there’s the fact that its director and co-writer, John Miller, is the son of Jason Miller, who portrayed the ill-fated Father Karras in “The Exorcist,” and who told a story about a priest stopping him on the street while the movie was being made and saying, “When we dare to unmask the devil, the devil retaliates.
” All of it is much more interesting than “The Exorcism” itself, which, like so many horror endeavors that have come before it devolves from a promising start to too silly to be scared by or even taken vaguely seriously. Co-penned by John Miller’s life partner, M.A.
Fortin, the two having previously collaborated on the screenplay for the reasonably well-received 2015 comedy slasher “The Final Girls,” “The Exorcism” does hold your interest for a while. It opens with a fairly well-executed sequence in which the actor who will play the priest in the fictitious movie works on his movements through a three-tiered house set constructed on a soundstage while reading his lines. That is until he’s killed, quickly but gruesomely.
Next, “The Exorcism” benefits from the presence of its star, Russell Crowe. Once the star of .
