Movies
Lamashtu Revealed: Meet the Demon You Barely Saw in ‘The Exorcist: Believer’
Despite multiple red herrings, clues, and characters like Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) blaming Pazuzu for the dual possessions haunting The Exorcist: Believer, the entity responsible is actually a very different demonic figure from Mesopotamian lore: Lamashtu.
While the demon can be barely glimpsed in a quick flash on screen, makeup effects co-designers Chris Nelson and Vincent Van Dyke give a closer look at their stellar work via Instagram.
The Exorcist: Believer, now available on Digital, frequently makes callbacks and ties to the original film by writer William Peter Blatty and director William Friedkin. Moreover, it frequently alludes to Pazuzu as the one behind the mysterious disappearance, reappearance, and subsequent possessions of young girls Angela (Lidya Jewett) and Katherine (Olivia O’Neill). It seems reasonable that the demon first encountered by Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) might be back thanks to frequent references and calls for “Mother” and a seemingly intimate familiarity with Chris MacNeil. Director David Gordon Green, who co-wrote the screenplay with Peter Sattler from a story by Scott Teems (Halloween Kills) & Danny McBride (Halloween trilogy), seems to intentionally keep the mythology vague, however, never fully explaining the demon’s presence or intent at all.
Spoilers ahead for the film’s finale: The closest we come to getting a feel for the demon’s presence comes during the climactic exorcism when the parents of both girls are forced to choose in a deceitful misdirect. The impulsive choice of one dooms Katherine to Hell, and a rapidly cut, abstract sequence gives flashes of the demons dragging her down to the pits.
In other words, if you blinked during this moment, you likely missed a glimpse of Lamashtu (Lize Johnston), the actual culprit responsible.
Nelson recently told Polygon in an interview, “You see [Lamashtu] very abstractly in the final exorcism. But we did an entire head-to-toe prosthetic suit, harness, wings, horns, a full realization of Lamashtu, which I’m very, very proud of and was very difficult. It was five and a half hours of makeup in, about an hour and a half makeup out, including a 12-hour shoot day.”
Not only is it a shame to barely see Nelson and Van Dyke’s work on screen, but the mythology behind the entity also feels wasted in The Exorcist: Believer.
In folklore, Lamashtu was a female demon that terrorized women during childbirth. Newborns were counted among her favorite foods. Aside from being a menace to pregnant women, Lamashtu also happened to be Pazuzu’s rival. The Met describes Pazuzu as the protective shield and defense against the vile Lamashtu.
None of that makes it into The Exorcist: Believer. While it remains to be seen if Green was waiting to flesh out (pun intended) Lamashtu in the sequel, at least we can admire the SFX work into bringing the unseen character to life through the images below.
NEON has been absolutely slaying the marketing game for their horror output this year, and they’re kicking the Longlegs campaign into high gear with one more month until release.
A cryptic ad in The Seattle Times today (seen below) has led clever horror fans to discover TheBirthdayMurders.net, the brand new official viral marketing website for Longlegs.
The in-universe website details the victims of the serial killer known as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), described as a “Satan-worshipping psycho” who has terrorized families throughout the Pacific Northwest for nearly three decades.
The website details, “A bloody trail of bodies here in the great state of Oregon attests to the depraved savagery of this one-of-a-kind serial killer. With over three dozen victims that we know of, LONGLEGS is one of the most prolific mass murderers ever to have graced the region, and his gruesome endeavors are the stuff of nightmares. At first, all of the killings appeared to be straightforward murder-suicides: the handiwork of average men who suddenly snapped and slaughtered their wives and children. But a series of eerie coded messages left at the crime scenes indicate that someone – or something – is influencing these horrific crimes. The cryptic letters are signed by someone calling himself LONGLEGS.”
“With thirty-eight kills to his name, LONGLEGS has torn apart the lives of eleven different families throughout the Beaver State. His victims were good people: honest fathers, decent mothers, innocent little children.”
The website is loaded with secrets, clues, and gruesome (faux) crime scene photos, and you might even find a mention of yours truly nestled in there. Poke around. Stay a while.
Longlegs arrives in theaters July 12.
The upcoming serial killer horror movie marks the return of director Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Gretel & Hansel). Nicolas Cage stars alongside Maika Monroe, with Monroe playing an FBI agent and Cage playing a serial killer.
In the film, “FBI Agent Lee Harker (Monroe) is a gifted new recruit assigned to the unsolved case of an elusive serial killer (Cage). As the case takes complex turns, unearthing evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he claims the lives of another innocent family.
The film is rated “R” for “Bloody violence, disturbing images and some language.”
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