Critical popcorn

The Exorcist: Martyrs – Watch the intense, inventive trailer from writer/director Mike Flanagan

Stellar first trailer for Mike Flanagan’s The Exorcist: Martyrs! Starring Scarlett Johansson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Laurence Fishburne, Sasha Calle, and many more – this has hints of Se7en entwined with its original intentions – recommended watch!

It might be the seventh film in the possessed world of The Exorcist, but it looks to be the most re-inventive in recent memory, and it makes sense that Mike Flanagan writes and directs, who’s in the form of his life right now.

A man in a purple vestment stands in a church with candles and ornate decor, hands raised in a gesture of prayer or blessing. — (

A police officer standing in a dimly lit prison corridor, facing the camera with a serious expression, flanked by barred jail cells. — (

Aside from the obvious, The Exorcist: Martyrs also feels like it holds the essence of and uncomfortable darkness of Se7en and True Detective [S1], as the story focuses in on “A determined rookie detective (Scarlett Johannson’s Julie Miller) who is eager to establish herself, before confronting a horrifying darkness that challenges her deepest convictions and tests everything she thought she knew about right and wrong…”

[NB: Hang on, isn’t that synopsis also Zootopia?]

Anyway, this trailer is wicked smart, and the film also stars Jacobi Jupe, Diane Lane, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Laurence Fishburne, Sasha Calle, John Leguizamo, Scoot McNairy, Rahul Kohli, Hamish Linklater, Gil Bellows, Carl Lumbly, John Gallagher Jr., Benjamin Pajak, Carla Gugino, Robert Longstreet, Matt Biedel, Samantha Sloyan, and Kate Siegel – this hits cinemas in March 2027: