The Entire Exorcist Timeline Explained

"The Exorcist" remains one of the most frightening and intense horror films to this day. Even after 50 years, time has done little to diminish its power to shock and terrify audiences. Based on the popular novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty, director William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" was a massive hit among moviegoers who were thrilled by its story of a sweet young girl getting possessed by a demon who forces her to commit all kinds of obscene and horrible acts. 

Despite the positive response from audiences and critics alike, the film also generated considerable controversy for its graphic nature and religious themes, with some even claiming that there was an evil in the celluloid itself. Still, all of the wild stories only added to the movie's legacy, further cementing its place in cinema history.

Because the original 1973 film gets all the attention, it's easy to forget that it's actually part of a larger and surprisingly sprawling franchise. From the lackluster 1977 sequel "Exorcist II: The Heretic" to the more highly regarded "The Exorcist III" to two terrible prequels and more, the series has gradually evolved into something more akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With such an expansive world that has been added to over the course of five decades, it can be hard to figure out how all of the films and TV shows connect with one another. Luckily, this handy guide is here to explain the complicated "Exorcist" timeline.

In "Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist," Father Lankester Merrin is working as an archeologist, having renounced his Catholic faith following his tragic experience in the Netherlands during WWII. His latest assignment takes him to a small village in British Kenya where a Byzantine church has been discovered, constructed well before the earliest known presence of Christianity in the area. Merrin meets a young and enthusiastic missionary named Father Francis (Gabriel Mann), and Major Granville (Julian Wadham), a British military officer in charge of the archeological site. The excavated church is highly unusual, not only because of its pristine condition indicating that it was buried right after being built, but because it covers a hidden passageway that may have housed an ancient evil.

Of course, this is exactly the case, and now that the church's catacomb has been unearthed, all hell breaks loose in the nearby village. First, two British soldiers are found one morning in an appalling, sacrificial manner after trying to steal from the church. This prompts Granville into accusing the locals of committing the murders and remorselessly killing one of them before shooting himself out of guilt. Then, one of the villagers falls into a fit of rage and murders the children of the mission school. After several other grisly and unexplainable events, Merrin is forced to reignite his faith in God and perform an exorcism in the crypt below the church. Despite considerable temptation, Merrin is ultimately successful and returns to his life as a Catholic priest.

As seen in "Exorcist II: The Heretic," years before the events of the first film, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) traveled to Africa to study its holy men. While there, he stumbled upon a young boy named Kokumo (Joey Green as a child, James Earl Jones as an adult) with psychic powers who is called upon by locals to help ward off a swarm of locusts infesting the area. However, Merrin deduces that the locusts are there because of Kokumo, who is actually possessed by the primal demon Pazuzu. With the help of villagers, Merrin conducts an exorcism of the boy, and while it nearly kills him, he drives the demon out of Kokumo. Kokumo eventually grows up to become a scientist who specializes in locusts.

It's unclear whether Merrin's experiences here are supposed to be the same as those depicted in "Exorcist: The Beginning" and "Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist," as they all feature a younger Merrin exorcizing a possessed boy in Africa. Oh well — the series has been around for 50 years, so let's not be too nitpicky about its continuity.

Four years after Regan MacNeil's possession in Georgetown, Catholic priest Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) has been assigned to investigate the peculiar death of Father Lankester Merrin. Regan is living a normal life as a teenager, having no memory of what happened to her. However, she has been undergoing regular examinations by Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher), who believes that her memories of the exorcism still reside deep in the recesses of her mind. 

Lamont meets with Regan and attempts to get her to remember the traumatic events, but to no avail. Tuskin then hooks them both up to a machine called a "synchronizer" which harmonizes the brainwaves of two subjects. During this procedure, Lamont learns of Merrin's previous encounter with Pazuzu during his exploration of people with special healing gifts, which includes Regan.

Lamont takes Regan back to the Georgetown house where the exorcism took place, and is beset by Pazuzu in the form of a young possessed Regan. The priest is nearly seduced by the demon's offer of unlimited power, but is rescued by the real Regan, who helps him kill the demon's new form as the house falls apart around them. The two leave the property, with Lamont vowing to watch over Regan.

Season 1 of the TV series "The Exorcist" follows a seemingly familiar plot: A woman believes that her family may be plagued by something demonic, with her daughter as the focal point, and reaches out to an inexperienced priest for help. However, it doesn't take long before the plot reveals far more going on beneath the surface. 

The show follows two completely different priests — the young and idealistic Father Tomas Ortega (Alfonso Herrera), and the older and more militant Father Marcus Keane (Ben Daniels) — as they investigate the strange goings-on in the Rance family household. Meanwhile, a series of bizarre and ghastly murders in surrounding Chicago point to a larger menace, orchestrated by a secretive elite society.

As expected, it's revealed that the matriarch of the Rance family, Angela (Geena Davis), changed her identity years earlier following a traumatic episode in her youth that she has since largely forgotten. In case it wasn't obvious, Angela is Regan MacNeil, the young victim plagued by the demon Pazuzu in the first "Exorcist" film. After her daughter Casey (Hannah Kasulka) is possessed by Pazuzu, Angela gives herself to the demon to take her instead and leave Casey alone. Ortega and Keane are ultimately able to exorcize the re-possessed Angela/Regan, but she is left paralyzed from the ordeal. Keane then agrees to take Ortega under his wing and train him to become an exorcist.

"The Exorcist" television show ended on a cliffhanger after only two seasons, with its continuity erased to make way for "The Exorcist: Believer," which serves as a direct sequel to the original 1973 film. It is the first of a new trilogy, which will be followed by "The Exorcist: Deceiver" in 2025, and an as-of-yet unnamed third installment. The creative team behind the film includes writer-director David Gordon Green and writer-producer Danny McBride, who similarly revived John Carpenter's "Halloween" series with a new trilogy in recent years.

While we'll have to wait for the film to come out to all of its plot details, what we do know is that it tells the story of single father Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.), whose daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) and her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum) go missing in the woods for several days. They're found, but they have brought a powerful and malevolent force with them and exhibit increasingly monstrous behaviors. Determined to discover what happened to Angela and Katherine, Fielding requests the help of Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn reprising her role after five decades), whose daughter Regan was the victim of a demonic possession 50 years earlier.