The Exorcist Gets Its Best Unofficial Sequel Of All Time In This 2024 Horror Masterpiece

Published Oct 13, 2026, 9:30 PM EDT

Mark has been a comic book journalist for over 15 years and has interviewed comic book creators like Gail Simone and Caspar Wijngaard. And when he's not writing, he's working on beating his record of 1,200 comics read in a year.

Horror has been a popular genre of media for decades. Some of this is thanks to old-school classics from the Universal Monsters, like Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Another movie that still terrifies people to this day is 1973’s The Exorcist. A franchise that has spawned six movies and a TV show.

The Exorcist scares people without needing today’s technology because it is used subtly rather than a bunch of jump scares. Most importantly, the story kept people invested. Without a reason to care about the characters and what’s going on, the spinning head and backwards stair-crawling would have meant nothing, nor would it have become a classic.

Creating a horror comic book is a difficult task. It can't be easy to scare someone while they’re flipping the pages. However, IDW Dark has done a masterful job at it. Among their amazing stories are The Exorcism at 1600 Penn and The Exorcism at Buckingham Palace. Both were written by Hannah Rose May, and she puts on a masterclass in horror storytelling by adding a relatable reason to be possessed.

The Exorcism Terrifies With Real Problems

Possession is a supernatural occurrence that usually means that a person has a demon inside of them. In some movies and shows, it starts because something negative or traumatic happened in someone’s life. This leaves them vulnerable to evil spirits that may have access to an area or a specific object. In both of IDW’s Exorcism miniseries, the reasons both characters are possessed are ones that many can understand.

In Exorcism at 1600 Penn, Mara, the daughter of the President of the United States, was in a no-win situation. First, there was the pressure of having a mother who was the first American woman president. Second, she and her brother Kevin were in a new high school and trying to fit in or reinvent themselves. Because of the situation, Mara spends a lot of time on social media looking at the negative things the world is saying about her mother.

During The Exorcism at Buckingham Palace, the Prince and Princess of the Royal family were mysteriously lost at sea. This left the King’s grandson, Prince Theo Belmont, next in line after his grandfather. Sadly, the Belmont family is cursed. Plus, Theo has a drinking problem, and there was a lot of pressure thrown on him out of nowhere.

Both alcoholism and social media can drive people to a dark place, so it makes sense that powerful demons would work their way into a teenage girl and a recovering alcoholic’s bodies. Since many people can identify with them, it's understandable that people would relate to the victims and the people who love them.

The Art Of The Exorcism Miniseries

As fantastic as the writing is, the art brings it all together. The Exorcism at 1600 Penn had artist Vanesa R. Del Rey and colors by Jordie Bellaire. The Exorcism at Buckingham Palace had Kelsey Ramsay, with colors by Heather Breckel. They had the difficult task of making the story creepy with still photos, and they did it masterfully.

Throughout the series, there were dark, creepy images within the shadows of the White House and Buckingham Palace. They were placed so well that a reader would catch the outline of the demon as they were going through the speech and thought bubbles. The times they weren’t subtle were when it was time for the big reveal. All of this added to the drama and terror of the story.

The art and the story are why Blumhouse greenlit The Exorcism at Buckingham Palace for a movie. The studio saw the potential in IDW's series and knew this was a project they should back. More importantly, writer Hannah Rose May gets an amazing project out to a bigger audience, saying, "Getting to work with Blumhouse to bring The Exorcism at 1600 Penn to the big screen feels like a dream come true."