The Exorcist (2016)

The pilot is better than it has any right to be--tensely paced, sharply directed, and creepy enough to make you look and look away at the same time.

Judging by the first episode, The Exorcist works as both a tribute to the original as well as on its own terms. There is something of a family drama inside the scares, which gives the idea of making a series out of it more staying power.

The pleasant surprise is that this new Exorcist, as conceived by writer Jeremy Slater, is both well-acted and at times quite disturbing.

It doesn’t try to be the movie or outdo it in terms of fright factor, nor does it provide any reasons for mockery. It’s well-made, well-acted television, which is more than can be said for some of the reboots rolling out this fall.

The first installment of the drama does a truly impressive job of establishing a mournful atmosphere, as it sketches out an array of characters worth following on what promises to be a very challenging journey.

Friday’s curtain-raiser makes a better than expected first impression while at the same time putting Herrera’s hunky, soulful and appealing lead priest in play.

The most interesting thing of all about The Exorcist is that it shares the hardball theology of Fox's Lucifer, AMC's Preacher and Cinemax's exorcism show Outcast. One renegade priest in The Exorcist even resolves his doctrinal disputes with Rome not with an encyclical but a .38. It seems television's era of amiable pseudo-Unitarian clergymen of the Touched by an Angel and Highway to Heaven stripe is officially dead.

The expensive-looking pilot episode, with its frequent use of unusual camera angles to suggest a world gone askew, effectively establishes the sinister vibe, with some genuine scares and plenty of gore. Daniels is particularly magnetic as the older, put-out-to-pasture priest haunted in more ways than one.

The TV version can’t quite go that far, at least not on a broadcast channel, but the special effects are convincing, and the script is a labyrinth of mystery and suspicion guaranteed to hold your interest.

No one’s outdone William Friedkin’s 1973 masterful movie adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel about the pernicious demon who sent a man of the cloth tumbling down the Georgetown steps. Fox’s new series based on the movie isn’t intent on outdoing the classic so much as borrowing its frigid style, which it gets essentially correct in the first episode.

Director Rupert Wyatt (“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”) keeps the pilot chilly and drear, not overdoing the shocks and special effects.

The pilot is slow but it builds to a twist that sets up the show’s first season and offers a solid enough foundation that encourages horror fans to come back for more.

Though the first hour dutifully pays homage to the scariest movie of all time--especially in its studiously lit opening moments--and even branches out with key changes meant to elongate the story, the pilot fails to pay off in one major way: It’s not very scary.

We've seen these same tricks used to excess since then, and while they're applied competently here, they feel a bit old and lifeless.

Fans of this genre of horror storytelling will probably hang in there, unless things get too ridiculous.

If you're the kind of person who likes scary shows and mythology, it might be fair to give The Exorcist a chance for a few episodes to see what it has planned. Both Daniels and Herrera are charismatic, and if the writers can make the God vs. the devil face-off grow beyond the Rance household, there might be a show here that's worth a few scares.

Although predictable, it’s a solid piece of entertainment, perfectly enjoyable for an hour-long show.

It’s certainly got the potential, at least visually. But as long as it overcooks some horror elements and undercooks others, the only unsettling feeling it will establish in viewers is confusion.

Rupert Wyatt’s direction is solid, but he’s too beholden to the visual grammar of his inspiration, and the familiarity dilutes the fear factor. It looks frightening, but it doesn’t chill--the images are cliché, the jump scares barely provoke a jitter.

This is all perfectly interesting. It just isn’t... compelling.

It's pretty slow. This is related to the movies, but it's not a remake. It's just ... similar.

The series is appreciably unsettling, but thus far it won’t make your head spin.

Herrera, Davis, and Ruck are all good enough to make me want to see more, but there have been so many decades of demons since the original movie made heads spin, that the evil--or at least its special-effects-assisted manifestation--feels a little tired.

The David Fincher–style neon-dumpster color scheme, multilayered sound design, and crackerjack supporting performances (including Alan Ruck as Davis’s deeply damaged husband) make it worth a look, though whether the power of Christ will compel repeated viewings remains to be seen.

The young skeptical priest and older exorcist priest will team up to do battle with the devil while Davis looks on wide-eyed, apparently, and this will be dragged out on a weekly basis. Heaven help us.

Throughout, the series suggests that it’s been market-tested to a place where originality no longer has a place to bloom.