Exorcist recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 1973 · Film

The Exorcist recap

The Exorcist (1973) follows an actress whose 12-year-old daughter is possessed in their Georgetown home, and the two priests who try to free her. William Friedkin directs from William Peter Blatty's adaptation of his own novel. At a dig in northern Iraq, Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow) unearths an amulet of a winged demon and faces its statue. In Washington, actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) watches her daughter Regan (Linda Blair) change after playing with a Ouija board and talking to "Captain Howdy". Doctors find nothing; Regan's bed shakes, her voice changes, and the director Burke Dennings is found dead below her window with his head turned around. Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller), a psychiatrist losing his faith after his mother's death, doubts it is possession until the words "help me" rise on Regan's skin. The Church sends Merrin to lead the rite. This is the first film, followed by Exorcist II and, separately, by Exorcist III.

How The Exorcist ends

The Exorcist ends with Merrin dying of a heart attack mid-exorcism. Karras beats the demon and dares it to take him; it does, and he throws himself out the window and down the stone steps, dying after Father Dyer gives him last rites. Regan, who remembers nothing, leaves with Chris. A 2000 cut, The Version You've Never Seen, restores the spider-walk scene and a gentler final exchange between Dyer and Kinderman.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Exorcist has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 02 · 1977 · Film

Exorcist II: The Heretic recap

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) finds Regan MacNeil in therapy four years on, as a priest investigates Father Merrin's death and alleged heresy. John Boorman directs, with Linda Blair back as Regan and Richard Burton as Father Philip Lamont. Regan, now 16, lives with her guardian Sharon Spencer (Kitty Winn) and says she remembers nothing, but her psychiatrist Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher) uses a device that links two people's brainwaves to reach her buried memories. Linked to Regan, Lamont sees Merrin's earlier exorcism of an African boy, Kokumo, and learns the demon is named Pazuzu, a spirit that appears as a swarm of locusts and preys on people with healing gifts. Lamont travels to Africa to find the grown Kokumo (James Earl Jones). Regan, meanwhile, shows a gift of her own by helping a girl with autism speak. It follows The Exorcist; Exorcist III ignores it.

How Exorcist II: The Heretic ends

Exorcist II ends at the Georgetown house, where Pazuzu tempts Lamont with a demonic double of Regan. He tears out the double's heart while locusts flood the crumbling house, and Regan sends the swarm away with the same ritual Kokumo once tried. Sharon dies of burns outside, and Regan leaves with Lamont. Blatty's own sequel, Exorcist III, later carried on from the first film instead.

Post-credits scenes

No. Exorcist II: The Heretic has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 03 · 1990 · Film

The Exorcist III recap

The Exorcist III (1990) follows detective William Kinderman as a string of Georgetown murders matches the work of an executed serial killer. William Peter Blatty writes and directs from his novel Legion, with George C. Scott as Kinderman. Fifteen years after Regan's exorcism, a boy is found beheaded, then a priest in the confessional, then Father Joseph Dyer (Ed Flanders) in his hospital bed. Each crime carries the signature of the Gemini Killer, James Venamun (Brad Dourif), who died in the electric chair on the night Father Karras fell. In a locked psychiatric ward Kinderman finds a patient brought in with amnesia fifteen years ago: Damien Karras (Jason Miller). The Gemini's spirit has been placed in Karras's body by the demon from the first film, as revenge, and he sends other elderly patients out to kill. It follows The Exorcist directly and ignores Exorcist II.

How The Exorcist III ends

The Exorcist III ends with Father Paul Morning (Nicol Williamson) attempting an exorcism of Karras and being badly hurt. The demon nearly kills Kinderman, but Karras briefly breaks through and begs him to shoot; Kinderman does, freeing him, and later stands at Karras's grave. The studio forced the exorcism ending onto Blatty's cut, and a 2016 director's cut restores much of his version.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Exorcist III has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 04 · 2004 · Film

Exorcist: The Beginning recap

Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) sends a young Father Lankester Merrin, his faith lost, to a dig in British Kenya where a buried church lies intact. Renny Harlin directs, with Stellan Skarsgård as Merrin. In 1949 Merrin is still haunted by the day a Nazi officer forced him to choose villagers to be shot in occupied Holland. A collector hires him to bring back a demon relic from the church, built 1,500 years earlier far beyond where Christianity had reached. With Father Francis (James D'Arcy) and the doctor Sarah Novak (Izabella Scorupco), he finds angel statues pointing their spears down, an upside-down cross and a pagan temple underneath with a statue of Pazuzu. Hyenas kill a boy, a baby is born dead with maggots, and the lead archaeologist kills himself after speaking in the Nazi's voice. Merrin opens empty graves and learns the church was built to seal in evil. It is set before The Exorcist and replaced Dominion, the first version.

How Exorcist: The Beginning ends

Exorcist: The Beginning ends with Merrin learning that Sarah is the one possessed. She kills Francis, and Merrin performs an exorcism in the temple beneath the church; Sarah dies. Outside, British troops and local tribesmen have wiped each other out. Merrin returns to Rome as a priest again and tells the collector he found no relic. Dominion, Paul Schrader's original cut, tells the story differently.

Post-credits scenes

No. Exorcist: The Beginning has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 05 · 2005 · Film

Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist recap

Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) is Paul Schrader's first version of Father Merrin's time in Kenya, shelved and reshot as Exorcist: The Beginning. Released after The Beginning flopped, it again stars Stellan Skarsgård as Lankester Merrin, a former priest working as an archaeologist on a buried Byzantine church at Derati in 1947, still carrying his guilt from wartime Holland. He arrives with Father Francis (Gabriel Mann) and meets Rachel Lesno (Clara Bellar), the camp doctor. Merrin brings Cheche (Billy Crawford), a disabled young outcast, to Rachel for care, and the boy heals unusually fast. Beneath the church they find a temple used for human sacrifice. Two British soldiers looting the church are found dead, one crucified upside down; the officer in charge shoots a local woman in a rage, then kills himself, and a local warrior slaughters children at the mission school. It covers the same period as The Beginning and stands as an alternative prequel to The Exorcist.

How Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist ends

Dominion ends with Francis dying in the bush and begging Merrin to exorcise Cheche, who is possessed. In the temple the demon offers Merrin the chance to undo the Holland massacre, then mocks him with a vision of it going worse. Merrin completes the exorcism, Cheche returns to his former disabled state, and Merrin leaves for Rome with his faith restored, warned that the demon will follow him.

Post-credits scenes

No. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 06 · 2016 · Series

The Exorcist recap

The Exorcist (2016) brings two priests to a Chicago family whose daughter is being taken by a demon, a case that leads back to the original 1973 possession. Jeremy Slater created it for Fox, which aired two seasons of 10 episodes each from 2016 to 2017. Father Tomas Ortega (Alfonso Herrera), a young parish priest, is visited by Angela Rance (Geena Davis), who believes something is in her house; her husband Henry (Alan Ruck) is recovering from a brain injury and her daughters are Kat (Brianne Howey) and Casey (Hannah Kasulka). Tomas teams with Father Marcus Keane (Ben Daniels), a veteran exorcist at odds with the Church, and they find Casey possessed and a hidden plot inside the Church itself. Angela is revealed to be Regan MacNeil, with Sharon Gless as an older Chris MacNeil. Season two moves the priests to an island off Seattle, where Andy Kim (John Cho) runs a foster home for troubled children. It continues from the 1973 film and ignores the other sequels.

How The Exorcist ends

The Exorcist ends with "Unworthy", the season two finale, in which Andy asks Marcus to shoot him so the demon cannot jump into Tomas, and Marcus does. Rose Cooper adopts the foster children, Tomas leaves with Mouse (Zuleikha Robinson) as his new partner, Father Bennett wakes possessed, and Marcus finally hears God's voice. Fox cancelled the series in May 2018 without resolving those threads.

No. 07 · 2023 · Film

The Exorcist: Believer recap

The Exorcist: Believer (2023) follows a widower in Georgia whose daughter and her best friend vanish in the woods for three days and come back possessed. David Gordon Green directs and co-wrote it as a direct sequel to the 1973 film. Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.), a photographer who lost his wife in the Haiti earthquake 13 years earlier, is raising Angela (Lidya Jewett) alone. Angela and her friend Katherine West (Olivia O'Neill) try a séance to reach Angela's mother, and when they are found in a barn they have burned feet and no memory of the missing days. Both girls turn violent. Their neighbour Ann (Ann Dowd), a nurse who once trained as a nun, puts Victor in touch with Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), who has spent 50 years studying possession and is now estranged from Regan. Katherine stabs Chris in the eyes during a first attempt. Katherine's parents, Miranda (Jennifer Nettles) and Tony (Norbert Leo Butz), join a group of faiths that plans a combined exorcism. It follows The Exorcist and ignores every other sequel.

How The Exorcist: Believer ends

The Exorcist: Believer ends with the demon forcing the parents to choose which girl lives. When Tony cries out that he chooses Katherine, the demon reveals the chosen one dies, and drags her to Hell while Angela recovers. Chris, in hospital, is visited by Regan (Linda Blair). The planned trilogy was scrapped, and the series is being rebooted with Mike Flanagan's The Exorcist: Martyrs.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Exorcist: Believer has no mid- or post-credits scene.