The Exorcist: Martyrs Full Trailer Takes the Franchise Into Serial Killer Territory
Mike Flanagan isn’t interested in sending another priest into a bedroom to stand beside a possessed child. The first full trailer for The Exorcist: Martyrs has arrived, and it confirms that his new entry in the long-running franchise is heading somewhere considerably different, combining demonic horror with the structure and atmosphere of a serial killer thriller.
Starring Scarlett Johansson as NYPD homicide detective Julie Miller, Martyrs arrives in cinemas on March 12, 2027, with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sasha Calle, John Leguizamo, Diane Lane, Jacobi Jupe and Laurence Fishburne among an impressive ensemble. Rather than remaking William Friedkin’s 1973 classic or directly continuing its story, Flanagan has created new characters and a new mystery within the wider Exorcist universe.
Thirteen years before the main story, Miller captured a satanic serial killer known as Father Sunday, played by Leguizamo. His murders were staged around the martyrdom of Catholic saints, and bringing his reign of terror to an end transformed Miller into a celebrated detective. She subsequently witnessed Sunday’s execution, apparently closing one of the darkest chapters of her career.
Unfortunately, evil isn’t particularly respectful of closed cases.
A new murder brings Miller’s past roaring back when her name is written in an altar boy’s blood inside a church crypt. Working alongside rookie detective Gina Restrepo, played by Calle, and former prison chaplain Father William, played by Ejiofor, Miller begins uncovering something far larger than a copycat killer. The investigation suggests a connection between a lineage of murderers stretching from H.H. Holmes to the Zodiac, with the possibility that the evil behind them isn’t entirely human.
That concept pushes Martyrs towards the territory of films such as Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs, influences Flanagan himself has acknowledged while discussing the project. The director is effectively taking the central theological question that has haunted The Exorcist since 1973 and applying it to another form of horror: when human beings commit acts so terrible that we describe them as inhuman, what if something genuinely inhuman is involved?
The Exorcist Has Been Here Before
Although that might sound like a radical departure, Martyrs actually has a precedent within the franchise. William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III moved away from simply recreating Regan MacNeil’s possession and instead followed Lieutenant Kinderman as he investigated murders apparently connected to the deceased Gemini Killer. Released in 1990 and adapted by Blatty from his novel Legion, the film has subsequently developed a substantial cult following.
Flanagan has praised Legion, and the similarities between Martyrs and The Exorcist III are difficult to miss. Both use police investigations and serial murder to approach supernatural evil from a different direction rather than attempting to duplicate Friedkin’s original film.
That willingness to change course is probably sensible given the franchise’s wildly uneven history. Exorcist II: The Heretic followed in 1977, with John Boorman taking Regan’s story into an altogether stranger metaphysical direction. Blatty eventually delivered The Exorcist III, while the 2000s produced the extraordinary situation of two different prequels from essentially the same project: Renny Harlin’s Exorcist: The Beginning and Paul Schrader’s Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.
The series returned in 2023 with David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer, which brought Ellen Burstyn back as Chris MacNeil and was originally intended to launch a new trilogy. Those plans were abandoned, opening the door for Flanagan to take the property somewhere else entirely.
Flanagan Isn’t Trying to Remake Friedkin
Flanagan has been particularly clear about distancing his film from the idea of recreating the 1973 original. Speaking to Esquire, he explained that audiences shouldn’t expect a retread of Friedkin’s movie, describing Martyrs as a new story within the Exorcist universe that takes the franchise in a very different direction.
There will still be possession. Flanagan has confirmed that much, but the trailer makes clear that it forms part of a much larger mystery rather than simply repeating the familiar structure of a family discovering something demonic has entered their home.
Johansson’s Julie is also a single mother to 12-year-old Max, played by Jacobi Jupe, with Diane Lane portraying Julie’s mother, Mary. As the investigation develops, the supernatural threat begins moving into Julie’s personal life. Ejiofor’s Father William carries his own crisis of faith following Father Sunday’s execution, while Fishburne plays another priest with knowledge of ancient rituals.
It gives Martyrs an intriguing problem to solve. The Exorcist remains one of horror cinema’s most intimidating shadows, and decades of sequels have demonstrated the danger of either moving too far away from it or desperately trying to reproduce it. Flanagan appears to be attempting a third option: keeping the franchise’s obsession with faith, possession and the nature of evil while changing the kind of story surrounding them.
The full trailer suggests we may be getting an Exorcist serial killer movie. After more than 50 years of Pazuzu and troubled priests, that might be exactly the kind of exorcism this franchise needs.
