Is The Exorcist Believer Based on a True Story?

Helmed by David Gordon Green, ‘The Exorcist: Believer’ is a horror film that revolves around Victor Fielding, a photographer and a single father who has raised his daughter Angela on his own after the tragic death of his pregnant wife. However, when Angela and her friend Katherine vanish into the woods, he stays worried for three days, before the two girls emerge without any memory of what happened to them. The strange disappearance sets off a chain of evil events that forces Victor to seek help from Chris MacNeil, the only person who has been in the same situation as he is at the moment.

The movie features Leslie Odom Jr., Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Lidya Jewett, and Olivia Marcum, who elevate the supernatural tale to a whole different level of scary. It is only natural that one might be curious to know whether such horrifying events took place in real and whether the film is based on real incidents or not. Here is everything we know!

The Story Behind The Exorcist: Believer

No, The Exorcist: Believer is not based on a true story. The film written by Green and Peter Sattler, from a story by Scott Teems, and Danny McBride, is in fact a sequel to the iconic 1973 film ‘The Exorcist,’ and is the sixth installment in the Exorcist franchise. Now one would want to know if ‘The Exorcist’ is based on a true story or not. The answer to that would be that it is partially based on a true story, as the film is based on the 1971 William Peter Blatty novel of the same name. The book was first published in 1971 and was a big commercial success. The success of the book led to the first adaption to the screen in 1973, when the feature film ‘The Exorcist,’ written by Blaty himself and directed by William Friedkin, was released.

The novel was inspired by a 1949 case, wherein priests of the Roman Catholic Church performed a series of exorcisms on a 14-year-old anonymous boy, who was given the pseudonym “Roland Doe” or “Robbie Mannheim”. Blatty took inspiration from the event, which became a major talking amongst the public, and drafted his story which serves as the source for the 1973 film. The plot for the 1973 film revolves around Regan, a 12-year-old girl who gets possessed by a demonic entity. When the possession endangers the lives of Regan and those around her, her mother Chris, (played by Ann Dowd who also appears in ‘The Exorcist: Believer’), frantically approaches two Catholic priests to conduct a grueling exorcism to save her. Thus, Father Damien Karras and Father Lankester Merrin find their faith being tested as they try to get the powerful demon out of Regan’s body.

The movie had a profound impact not just on the industry but society as well, offering a portrayal of demonic possession and the struggle to exorcise the evil spirit that was entirely unprecedented. The film generated quite a bit of controversy, but was fairly successful at the box office, which led to a whole franchise of films and TV shows, with the latest being ‘The Exorcist: Believer’. The director, David Gordon Green in an interview highlighted the challenge he faced with taking on the project, “It could be said it’s daunting to follow in those footsteps, but I also think it’s 50 years later, and there’s a new audience, new conversations, and an evolved culture, we don’t live in a world [anymore] where the word ‘exorcist’ has the same foreign feeling as it did back then. Everybody knows what one is, everybody has seen an exorcist movie.”

Green also spoke about his approach to the film in another interview, “I had seen many horror movies, but this felt almost like a documentary. It felt really authentic. And I think, you know, knowing more now about the process and how [director William] Friedkin approached that film, it really was, “If this was really going to happen, how would it play out?” So bringing a clinical authenticity to that, I thought, was important.” He further added, “We took that that idea and translated it into our movie where priests play priests—the Haitian priests in the beginning are the Haitian priests—and [actual] doctors are doing examination of the girls. So it’s really fun for me to kind of try to bring some of that authenticity inspired by Friedkin’s approach.”

All in all, ‘The Exorcist: Believer” is not based on any particular real events or true story stories. The movie is a sequel to the 1973 ‘The Exorcist’ and is part of the ‘Exorcist’ franchise. Another installment in the franchise titled, ‘The Exorcist: Decimator’ is scheduled to be released on April 25 in 2025. But as of now, ‘The Exorcist: Believer’ lives up to its prequel and manages to deliver the scares to the viewers.