Let me be upfront. I don’t think The Exorcist: Believer is all that bad of a film, nor do I think it’s deserving of the 20 percent rating it currently has on RT or the fierce hate it’s facing on social media. The issue with the film is its relationship to William Friedkin’s masterpiece and the whole issue of legacy in general. If everything regarding The Exorcist universe was stripped out of the film, you would actually have a pretty unique possession movie that takes a few big swings.

No matter what, David Gordon Green had a monumental feat before him. Universal paid $400 million for the rights to The Exorcist and ordered a new trilogy. Green was already a polarizing figure to write/direct the new project after the rebooted Halloween movies. The last two entries, for various reasons, divided audiences after the massive success of the first entry, Halloween 2018. Green had a far bigger task before him when taking on the legacy of The Exorcist. Simply put, Friedkin’s film is a product of its time. Seeing Linda Blair’s Regan spew curses and pea soup at priests shocked audiences in 1973. If you want an idea of just how stunned audiences were by his film, I suggest this 20-minute documentary on YouTube, which features countless interviews with audience members at the time. You simply can’t pull that off a second time, which is why all of the sequels failed and never touched the box office success of the OG. You just can’t shock audiences in a similar fashion anymore. Most possession films feel like a retread of what Friedkin already did 50 years ago.

Cue The Exorcist: Believer. There’s actually a decent film here, but it’s pulled down by the issue of legacy. The feature follows two best friends, Angela (Lidya Jewett) and Katherine (Olivia O’Neill). They venture into the woods to perform a seance of sorts so Angela can connect to her deceased mother, who died after suffering serious injuries during an earthquake in Haiti. Angela and her father, Victor (Leslie Odom Jr), have the most compelling storyline in the film, dealing with grief and trauma. The seance doesn’t go as planned, however, and the girls go missing. Three days later, they turn up not quite right. We all know what happens next.

As a whole, the movie has some frightful scenes, but far too many quick cuts and jump scares. It also has some heavy sequences about the very nature of religion, and unlike typical possession films, Green’s feature explores other religions outside of Catholicism. This is its most interesting element that’s too undercooked and over simplified. It needed more of this aspect to make it stand out more from similar films. Again, if Green didn’t have to grapple with Friedkin’s film, he would have had more breathing room to play with his film’s more unique concepts.

The film fumbles terribly when it grapples with Friedkin’s masterpiece. To be blunt, Ellen Burstyn’s inclusion is totally and wholly unnecessary. The film adds nothing by including Chris MacNeil. The fate of the two girls is what drives the film, along with the underdeveloped exploration of the very nature of religion. Everything dealing with the first film just weighs down the new story. All callbacks and legacy characters feel shoehorned in and divert attention from the main narrative.

What’s especially frustrating about The Exorcist: Believer is that this could have been a good movie, if Green didn’t have to grapple with what just might be the best American horror film of all time. It’s never going to be topped, so why try? I truly wish that this movie did not have The Exorcist in its title or had to deal with that world. It would have been far more compelling if Green could have focused solely on the stories of two girls and their families forced to come together, despite their religious differences, to save their souls.

While Universal paid big bucks for the franchise rights, The Exorcist: Believer only earned about $27 million at the box office, an underwhelming figure considering the heavy marketing and huge money Universal spent. Will the next two movies be released in theaters? Will Green direct them? It’s too early to tell, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re dumped on Peacock. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to leave this world alone and instead greenlit scripts that aren’t so tied up in classic franchises.