The trailer for the movie looked terribly underwhelming. They wanted to market this as a straight-up horror film, but if you think about it, the original Exorcist was more of a psychological drama for most of the movie. This movie goes for that approach too, meaning that its trailer isn't showing you the movie you end up getting.

What you get is actually a pretty simple story. Two young girls go missing, and their respective families experience some bizarre shenanigans. It takes the legacy sequel approach by bringing back a familiar face or two, but the main idea is pretty concise. I wouldn't say it's very scary, but it is well made. That's what I say about the original, too. It has a few decent creepy moments, and I think it was trying to channel Hereditary a bit, especially by casting Hereditary actress Ann Dowd in yet another spiritual horror character role. I also liked the ending. It's a bit of a twist, both bittersweet and still quite bleak.

For anyone wondering about continuity, nothing in the movie negates the events of Exorcist 2 and 3, and the director confirms that. So none of that garbage where it's a sequel only to the first film, though the first film of course will be the only film they reference, because even I don't remember part 2, and modern audiences shouldn't have to relieve that mess either.

Not a bad flick like I was expecting, but poor box office and reviews tell us we probably wont be getting this turned into a trilogy like they planned. I wasn't terribly attached to that idea anyway. As a stand alone legacy sequel, it works just fine.