The full trailer for Mike Flanagan’s The Exorcist: Martyrs is here, and this looks like a seriously fucking dark turn […]
The full trailer for Mike Flanagan’sThe Exorcist: Martyrs is here, and this looks like a seriously fucking dark turn for the franchise.
Following the teaser we shared earlier this week, the footage delivers on the promise of a procedural horror movie in the vein of Se7en, The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal. It also feels very much in the spirit of the fan-favorite The Exorcist III, with a serial-killer investigation leading somewhere far more frightening.
Universal Pictures brings the film to theaters March 12, 2027. Watch the trailer below, and then let’s get into some of the images that have me so excited.
Father Sunday awaits his execution
John Leguizamo (Land of the Dead) plays Father Sunday, the serial killer apprehended by NYPD homicide detective Julie Miller, played by Scarlett Johansson (Under the Skin). As Esquire’s first look revealed, she witnesses his execution, but things don’t go according to plan.
Seeing him strapped in for lethal injection gives the trailer a particularly uncomfortable starting point. This is supposed to be the end of the nightmare. Instead, it appears to be the beginning of something much worse.
A murder investigation with something else behind it
There are some incredibly gruesome images flashed throughout the trailer, particularly in the aftermath of the murders. This is where that Se7en feeling really comes through.
But there’s also an idea running underneath the investigation that I find really interesting: what if some of these serial killers were possessed? What if the evil responsible for their crimes was something acting through them?
That’s what the trailer seems to be suggesting, and it gives the procedural angle somewhere horrifying to go. Catching a killer becomes a very different proposition if whatever was inside them can keep going.
The investigation meets the church
Chiwetel Ejiofor (Backrooms) plays Father William, while Laurence Fishburne (Event Horizon) also appears as a priest drawn into the story.
That gorgeous shot of Ejiofor inside the massive church gives us another side of the film, where the investigation runs into questions the detectives may not be equipped to answer. It’s part of what makes this feel like an Exorcist movie even as Flanagan takes it into a different kind of thriller.
And then there are these creepy images
The woman looming at the top of the stairs is still incredibly eerie. It immediately calls to mind the original film, but there’s enough going on elsewhere in this trailer that the familiar imagery doesn’t feel like the entire selling point.
And, yes, that upside-down figure from the teaser is back. It’s a fucking terrifying shot.
Judging by this footage, Martyrs might be the darkest thing Flanagan has done since Ouija: Origin of Evil, the surprisingly good sequel that first made me realize this guy was for real. I have full faith in him as a screenwriter and a director, even if everything doesn’t work for me. Going from the coming-of-age horror of Carrie to something this sadistic and dark is just so fucking impressive.
What I like most is that he doesn’t appear to be trying to top the original Exorcist. This feels like a supplementary piece, much like his Carrie series. He’s doing his own thing within this world, and I love that Universal is allowing him to do it after The Exorcist: Believer felt like such a lame attempt at recapturing the first film.
Let’s be honest, the original Exorcist will never be fucking topped. Going up against it is like trying to beat Mike Tyson or Michael Jordan at their peak. It just won’t happen. So let’s do something else.
Flanagan seems particularly good at finding that other way into a story. We still have to see the movie, obviously, but this trailer gives me plenty of reasons to be really fucking excited.
