Speaking about his Exorcist movie back in 2024, horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan casually dropped a very exciting declaration: “I really just saw an opportunity to make the scariest movie I’ve ever made.”
Everyone who’s still nursing nightmares over the Bent-Neck Lady in Flanagan’s 2018 Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House should buckle up for The Exorcist: Martyrs. The first trailer has finally arrived, and suffice to say it looks poised to undo the damage from the stink bomb that was 2023’s The Exorcist: Believer. It may even have the power to reassure folks who felt a bit let down by Flanagan’s new Carrie series at Prime Video.
As we learned earlier this week, The Exorcist: Martyrs will follow an NYPD detective played by Scarlett Johansson who nabs Father Sunday, a killer obsessed with Catholic iconography played by John Leguizamo. He’s slated for execution, but the story doesn’t end there, and the story’s police-procedural leanings—very Exorcist III coded!—expand to envelop priests played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Laurence Fishburne.
Sasha Calle (Sugar) plays another detective, and Jacobi Jupe (Hamnet) is Johansson’s tweenage son.
The Exorcist: Martyrs hits theaters March 12, 2027. Does the power of Flanagan compel you to check this one out?
Want more io9 news? Check out the best movies and TV shows to stream this month and all the upcoming sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books that should be on your radar.
