There’s a new teaser for Fox’s TV series based on William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, and it’s a fun piece of self-aware retro marketing that had us quoting Edgar Wright’s fake Grindhouse trailer ‘Don’t.’
This new series draws inspiration from Blatty’s novel (and presumably William Friedkin’s movie masterpiece), but tells a new story. Geena Davis stars as the mother of a possessed girl, while the show’s two exorcists are played by Ben Daniels and Alfonso Herrera. Jeremy Slater (The Lazarus Effect) wrote the pilot, which is directed by Rupert Wyatt (Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, The Escapist).
The rather lengthy plot synopsis reveals that the show will follow “two very different priests tackling one family’s case of horrifying demonic possession.
FATHER TOMAS ORTEGA (Alfonso Herrera, Sense8, The Chosen) is the new face of the Catholic Church: progressive, ambitious and compassionate. He runs a small but loyal parish in the suburbs of Chicago. He has no idea that his quiet life is about to change forever.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, another priest finds himself locked in a life-and-death struggle with evil. FATHER MARCUS BRENNAN (Ben Daniels, Flesh and Bone, House of Cards) is a modern-day Templar Knight, an orphan raised since childhood by the Vatican to wage war against its enemies. Father Marcus is everything Father Tomas is not: relentless, abrasive and utterly consumed by his sacred mission.
Caught in the middle is the RANCE family, members of Tomas’ parish. On the surface, they’re a normal, suburban family, but all is not as it seems in this household. The patriarch, HENRY RANCE (guest star Alan Ruck, Spin City, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), is slowly but surely losing his mind. Eldest daughter KATHERINE (Brianne Howey, Scream Queens) has become a recluse who refuses to leave her room. Her younger sister, CASEY (Hannah Kasulka, The Fosters), thinks she’s hearing strange noises coming from inside the walls. And mother ANGELA (Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Geena Davis, Commander in Chief, Thelma & Louise) has been plagued by recurring nightmares, each more frightening than the last.
Angela believes there is something in the house, a demonic presence, growing stronger by the day. Desperate, she begs Father Tomas for help, unwittingly setting the naïve young priest on a collision course with Father Marcus. Separately, each faces an insurmountable task, but together they become the only hope against an evil force that has been mobilising for centuries.”
The Exorcist begins on Syfy on 19 October in the UK, and on 23 September on FOX in the US. Keep up with the latest genre news with the new issue of SciFiNow.
