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.