After exploring Scarecrow: The Reaping, the first of the four haunted houses at the upcoming Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas, Nevada, it’s time to do a deep dive on the next: a recent horror property in both the film and theme-park worlds, The Exorcist: Believer.

Given its status as one of the most legendary entries in the modern genre, it’s no surprise that The Exorcist, as a franchise, has a founding-day presence at Universal’s new, first-ever permanent attraction; what perhaps is surprising is its suddenly intertwined relationship with multiple divisions of NBCUniversal, ranging from film to streaming to, of course, themed entertainment.

Let’s dive into it all. By the time you emerge on the other side, you’ll not only be fully ready to set foot in the latest incarnation of this hallowed name in terror, you’ll also be fully equipped to judge its execution (and drop some knowledge on your haunted-maze buddies while waiting in line or sipping some drinks at Jack’s Alley Bar).

A quick history of how Universal came to own The Exorcist

Exorcist, of course, started off life as a 1971 novel written by William Peter Blatty, which quickly transformed into a record-breaking, highly successful movie two years later (with a screenplay provided by the author himself). It set the stage for a sporadic, haphazard attempt at turning the title into a bonafide intellectual property, cranking out further films and novels – and, even, a short-lived television series – up through the year 2017, with the installments consisting of both sequels and prequels alike (and, in one remarkably notable case, two different versions of the same prequel movie, 2004’s Exorcist: The Beginning and 2005’s Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. Neither ended up performing well at the box office).

With the possession-fueled franchise having finally heaved its last demonic breath, the licensing rights went up for grabs in 2020, the tumultuous year when covid-19 ravaged the globe and when NBCUniversal launched its own tentative competitor in the just-warming-up streaming wars, Peacock. Both of these factors, which conspired to sketch out a shaky future for theatrical film distribution at the time, helped motivate Universal to become the top contender in the Exorcist bidding war, pledging the astronomical sum of over $400 million; in return, the company hoped it could eke out a brand-new trilogy on the big screen, helmed by producing partner Blumhouse Productions, that would, for the final two chapters, result in simultaneous releases on its brand-new streamer.

(At the beginning of this decade, we should just quickly note, corporations were willing to throw around such huge wads of cash because of the inflationary effect streaming had on Hollywood – with more release channels than ever before, the demand for highly recognizable content, along with the creators who could furnish it, skyrocketed. Compounding this trend was a corollary development: many of the new competitors in town, such as Amazon and Apple, hailed from the tech world, which meant they had the pocketbooks to upturn the traditional distribution playbook – rather than paying the talent and filmmakers smaller fees upfront and sharing more of the profits on the backend, they flipped the script, forcing the more traditional entertainment players to keep pace. This resulted in, say, Netflix dropping $465 million for the two sequels to the 2019 whodunit flick Knives Out; it would also result in some pretty intense ramifications for Universal and its brand-new horror acquisition.)

Blumhouse, actually, helped provide some of the motivation for the Exorcist deal itself. The little production house that quickly conquered the genre was, during the time of Universal’s aggressive negotiations, currently in the midst of putting the finishing touches on one of its grandest achievements, turning out a trio of sequels to Halloween, a fellow terror titan from the ‘70s that likewise featured its own messy jumble of cinematic continuations, remakes, and retcons. This new trilogy (which consisted of Halloween [2018], Halloween Kills [2021], and Halloween Ends [2022]) excised all of the previous entries save for the original, providing a fresh, clean narrative that, for the first time in decades, reunited the original cast – in other words, Universal determined, the perfect template to try and replicate on the Exorcist front. The company, in fact, was so sure of the bet, it doubled down, recruiting most of the Halloween filmmaking team, most especially director/co-writer David Gordon Green, to helm the new project. The first of these franchise-redefining chapters, The Exorcist: Believer, was quickly scheduled for release on October 13, 2023 (though it would get bumped up a week early thanks to the unexpected appearance of the behemoth that is Taylor Swift and her suddenly announced concert movie, The Eras Tour), but even before that day arrived, the name and opening date of its successor – The Exorcist: Deceiver, on April 18, 2025 – was already revealed, along with the fact that its screenplay had already been completed.

Despite all this public surefootedness, however, Jason Blum, the head of Blumhouse, wasn’t quite as certain as his studio partner, even going so far as to say on the record that this was the single riskiest move of his entire career thanks to the astounding price tags involved.

In retrospect, those wound up being portentous words.

A quick history of The Exorcist at Halloween Horror Nights

As The Exorcist heaved forward in fits and starts on both the big and small screens, Universal had been implementing it at Halloween Horror Nights within its theme parks for decades – albeit unofficially at first, as befit the early, “punk rock” years in Orlando (a cease-and-desist letter was sent all the way back during the very first event in 1991, asking for the character of Regan MacNeil, the 12-year-old girl from the original film who was possessed by the demon Pazuzu, to be pulled from the park’s proceedings. Universal complied). This early smattering of appearances or allusions culminated in a pair of connected scare zones, though ones that were separated by several years: both 2009’s Horrorwood Die-In and 2015’s All Nite Die-In: Double Feature brandished a collection of clips from legendary horror films playing out on a drive-in movie screen, while a collection of scareactors decked out as their cinematic counterparts roamed the area. Chief among these both, of course, was The Exorcist.

2016 was finally the year when a full-fledged haunted maze was devoted to the 1973 classic, recreating its mostly-house-bound story in clever, inventive, and repetitive ways, making attendees walk the same room over and over again (and also deploying copious amount of pea-soup scents, which stood in for the infamous vomit Regan issued in the throes of her demonic torture). The official acquisition of the license was such a watershed moment for the company, it decided to share the IP with its other Halloween proceedings at its other theme parks around the world, with both Hollywood and Japan boasting the haunt that same year (and repeating it in subsequent years, as well – the latter in 2017, the former in 2021).

With The Exorcist: Believer materializing on the theatrical (and streaming) horizon, Universal opted to pull out all the stops for HHN 2023, hoping it would represent a grand coming-out party for its newest in-house horror progeny (indeed, the potential theme-park revenue could very well have represented yet another motivator for the corporation’s huge expenditures with the project – this was, after all, the case with the 2016 purchasing of DreamWorks Animation, with a number of those properties now occupying a lot of real estate all throughout Universal Orlando Resort). The main highlight, of course, was another haunted house, despite the fact that it opened over a full month before its filmic sibling could bow in movie theaters, making it the latest instance of what Universal likes to call “living trailers.” But the company also pushed the would-be trilogy-starter to heavily feature at two attached Blumhouse-themed activities in CityWalk, the resort’s dining/shopping/entertainment district: Blumhouse Photo Experience, a series of photo ops devoted to a smattering of the studio’s recent and/or upcoming releases, and BlumFest 2023, a combination of film festival and panel discussions (which, in this particular instance, featured both Horror Nights and Believer creators).

The (new) future of The Exorcist, at Las Vegas and beyond

All these mighty multimedia efforts, however, proved to be for naught.

While theme-park attendees found themselves pleasantly surprised by the quality – and overall scariness – of The Exorcist: Believer in haunt form, the cinematic version of the experience left moviegoers with a mostly bad taste in their mouths. Although the movie wasn’t a clear-cut financial disaster, it didn’t perform anywhere near as strongly as Blumhouse Productions’s first Halloween outing from a few years previously, and the critical and pop-culture responses were lackluster, at best – not at all the foundations that a $400+ million enterprise could comfortably reside upon. (Press at the time quickly looked a few weeks ahead to another Universal/Blumhouse joint venture [and another heavily featured property at the Halloween CityWalk attractions, to boot], Five Nights at Freddy’s, to reap the financial reward that the rejuvenated Exorcist couldn’t realize. Fortunately for the two companies, that one did, indeed, deliver, becoming the production house’s most successful project of all time and most likely starting up a trilogy of its own.)

The fallout in the film world was immediate, with The Exorcist: Deceiver, the proposed second entry, being pulled from the release calendar; very shortly thereafter, it was replaced outright by a brand-new title that would completely reboot the franchise, representing an entirely new (yes, again) attempt at bringing the ‘70s property into the modern age. (Showing just how seriously Universal wants to recoup its mammoth investment, it has now turned to heavyweight horror maestro Mike Flanagan, a surer hand with a firmer wave of popular support behind him thanks to his Netflix body of work, to write and direct this new undertaking. Although not definitively stated, it’s presumed that Flanagan would potentially return for a second salvo, completing the three-picture mandate that the corporation had laid out for itself back in 2020.)

On the theme-park front, however, it’s more of a continuation of the status-quo – at least, for the immediate future. Thanks to Believer being so well received, not to mention already designed, it can provide a quality showing at Horror Unleashed right from day one (and do so at a financial minimum, helping Universal find its way to profitability with the IP). There’s also the fact that the Exorcist name still carries a lot of cachet with the general public, especially with the sort of general tourist who frequents Las Vegas, making it into an anchor for the new Nevada haunt digs. Finally, with the corporation having already come out and confirming that its haunted-house roster will be cycled through at some point in the future, there’s even the very real possibility that Flanagan’s filmic stab could theoretically replace it after it hits theaters on March 13, 2026 – all of which is to say, transporting The Exorcist: Believer to Sin City is something of a no-brainer.

This last vestige of Universal’s first attempt at an Exorcist revival opens alongside Scarecrow: The Reaping at Horror Unleashed on August 14, 2025, just 15 days before Halloween Horror Nights Orlando begins its own run.

Follow Horrors Untold on Instagram and Facebook, and be sure to sign up below for our monthly email newsletter for exclusive content and insights.