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justforbooks · 9 months

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The film director William Friedkin, who has died aged 87, was slightly older than the “movie brats” group (Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and so on) credited with revolutionising US cinema in the late 1960s and early 70s.

Like Robert Altman and Sidney Lumet, Friedkin had come to cinema through TV and documentary, but made a vital contribution to the American new wave. His double-whammy in the first half of the 1970s, The French Connection (1971) and The Exorcist (1973), met with critical acclaim and a level of box-office success that elevated them into pop-culture phenomena. They also managed to overshadow everything else he did.

Nevertheless it would be wrong to characterise his career as a rise and fall. His finest hour was arguably the 1985 cop-and-counterfeiters thriller To Live and Die in LA, while he scored a modest triumph late in the day with his 2011 adaptation of Tracy Letts’s southern-fried noir play Killer Joe. But his steady hand, his timing and his commercial savvy were evident in those early hits. The French Connection, with its preference for hand-held, vérité-style camerawork and on-the-hoof sound recording, sometimes at the expense of intelligibility, took the American policier to a level of authenticity and grittiness to which the genre still aspires today.

Friedkin was never shy of owning up to his mistakes; his 2013 memoir, The Friedkin Connection, opens with an account of various regrettable errors, including passing up the chance to buy an ownership stake in Mike Tyson and throwing away some sketches by the then-unknown artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. To these can be added his reluctance to cast Gene Hackman as The French Connection’s dishevelled antihero, “Popeye” Doyle.

Actor and director fought regularly. “His outbursts [onscreen] were aimed directly at me … more than the drug smugglers.” Among the film’s five Academy Awards was a best actor prize for Hackman’s snarling performance, and one for Friedkin as best director.

The Exorcist followed Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) in bestowing upon the modern horror movie a new sheen of class and respectability. Friedkin integrated serious themes with extreme gore and intense terror, but rejected the idea that The Exorcist belonged to the horror genre. “I think it deals with issues far more profound than what you find in the average horror film. To be frank with you, Bill [the writer William Peter Blatty] and I never set out to make a horror film. The idea never crossed our minds. To me, The Exorcist was a story about the mystery of faith, and I tried to depict that as realistically as possible.”

His parents and grandparents had fled Kiev (Kyiv) in the early 1900s, making the passage to the US by hiding on freighter ships. William was born and raised in Chicago, the son of Rachel (nee Green), who gave up her job as an operating-room nurse when he was born, and Louis, a former semi-professional softball player turned cigar maker and men’s clothing salesman. Friedkin characterised his own adolescence as one of frustration and thwarted dreams: “From an early age, my ambitions overwhelmed my abilities,” he wrote. “It’s a miracle I didn’t end up in jail or on the streets.”

He graduated from Senn high school in 1953 and got a job in the post-room of a local Chicago television station, WGN-TV. He worked his way up through various positions, acting as floor manager on several hundred shows before a vacancy opened for a director of live drama.

But it was a cinematic experience around the same time that proved formative. One afternoon in the early 60s, Friedkin went to see Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane for the first time, entering the cinema at noon and not leaving until late that evening, having watched the movie five times back-to-back: “No film I’ve seen before or since meant so much to me. I thought, ‘Whatever that is, that’s what I want to do…’ On that Saturday, just three years younger than Welles when he created Kane, I resolved to become a film-maker.”

In 1962, he made The People vs Paul Crump, an award-winning documentary about a man on death row, and also directed an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, before knocking out four features: Good Times (1965), a vehicle for the musical duo Sonny & Cher; the comedy The Night They Raided Minsky’s and an intermittently electrifying screen version of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party (both 1968); and another theatre adaptation, The Boys in the Band (1970), about a group of gay friends.

In his 1998 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, the film historian Peter Biskind wrote that on the basis of those last two films, Friedkin had acquired a “reputation for being an art film director, the kiss of death. He was depressed, afraid he would never work again.”

Salvation came in the shape of a screenplay adapted from a factual bestseller about the NYPD’s campaign to smash a drug ring. Friedkin brought an unprecedented level of realism to The French Connection. A key sequence, thrillingly executed by Friedkin, features a seven-minute chase through Brooklyn, with Popeye (in a stolen car) trying to outrun and intercept his quarry, who has hijacked the train speeding along the elevated track above him.

Friedkin was not bashful about his Oscar win: Biskind reported that the director had his chair on the set of The Exorcist emblazoned with the words “An Oscar for The French Connection”. His behaviour had also become harsher and unrulier, even if there was usually a method to his madness (such as slapping a real priest, who had been hired to play an absolution scene, in order to produce the required nervous energy).

The Exorcist was a calculating combination of the portentous and the shrill, mixing highfalutin religious inquiry with brazenly shocking scenes showing Regan (played by the 13-year-old Linda Blair) masturbating with a crucifix, growling obscenities and projectile vomiting. Friedkin’s grasp of tone was sure, though the movie sometimes seemed to be in denial about its own carnivalesque tactics.

These two defining peaks of Friedkin’s career were followed in 1977 by his most conspicuous commercial flop: Sorcerer, a thriller about four men driving a combustible cargo of dynamite through the rainforest. It was based on the same source material as Henri-Georges Clouzot’s masterpiece The Wages of Fear, and while not in the same league it was nonetheless undeserving of its box-office fate.

Various factors were blamed, ranging from Friedkin’s hubris to a release date adjacent to Star Wars. It would not be until a remastered print of Sorcerer was screened at the Venice film festival in 2013 that it would begin to lose its unwarranted taint of failure. He insisted it was the work of his which remained closest to his original vision: “The way I saw the film in my mind’s eye, that is the one that’s pretty much there.”

His usual bluster was absent from his next film, the low-key comedy-thriller The Brink’s Job (1978), a dramatisation of the $3m Brink’s robbery in Boston, which Friedkin made when his proposed film of Born on the Fourth of July (later shot by Oliver Stone) fell through.

The mixture of sensational subject matter and po-faced tone that had served him so well on The Exorcist did not prove so successful with Cruising (1980), a lurid and occasionally objectionable thriller starring Al Pacino as a cop who goes undercover in the gay S&M subculture to catch a murderer.

An early draft of the script had been leaked, prompting an onslaught of objections from the gay press, and by the time the film emerged heavily trimmed by the censor’s scissors, it was something of a tarnished cause célèbre. Though Cruising is more complex and conflicted than some of its detractors would allow, it looks unlikely to undergo the same critical rehabilitation as Sorcerer.

To Live and Die in LA showed that not only had Friedkin’s French Connection-era knack for dynamic action sequences not deserted him, but he could combine it with a slicker, stylised aesthetic. The rest of the 80s, however, was not a fertile time for him. He made Deal of the Century (1983), a listless comedy about the arms race, the TV movie C.A.T. Squad (1986) and the thriller Rampage (1987), which he adapted himself from William P Wood’s book.

The Guardian (1990) returned him to the horror genre. Blue Chips (1994), a drama about the politics of college basketball, was subtle and powerful, with an uncompromising lead performance by Nick Nolte, but it foundered commercially (it went straight to video in the UK). The thriller Jade (1995) earned some notoriety when its extravagantly paid screenwriter Joe Eszterhas complained of the changes made to his script; Friedkin, who was responsible for the rewrites, later named it as his favourite of his own movies.

Rules of Engagement (2000) was a mediocre drama with reactionary overtones, about a court-martial following the massacre of civilians in Yemen. The star of that film, Tommy Lee Jones, was reunited with the director in another thriller, The Hunted (2003). But Friedkin found new momentum of sorts in two adaptations of claustrophobic thrillers by Letts – Bug (2006) and Killer Joe.

In 2013, he returned to Pinter’s The Birthday Party, directing the play for the stage in Los Angeles, with Tim Roth and Steven Berkoff among the cast. However, this was postponed at the 11th hour when Friedkin decided to replace Berkoff in the part of the intimidating inquisitor Goldberg (though Berkoff claimed to have resigned). The production did not find a replacement and was never staged.

In 2018, he was the subject of Friedkin Uncut, which combed through his career and featured interviews with collaborators, celebrity fans and the director himself, who is heard confirming that he only ever asks for one or two takes: “I’m not looking for perfection,” he says.

His final films were The Devil and Father Amorth (2017), a documentary about a real-life exorcist, and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023), an updated adaptation of the Herman Wouk novel first filmed in 1954, starring Kiefer Sutherland. It will premiere next month at the Venice film festival, where the director was honoured in 2013 with a lifetime achievement award.

Friedkin’s reputation as bullish extended to all areas of his life and work. As an interviewee he was comically blunt. Responding to an Independent journalist who complained that the prologue to The Exorcist was baffling, he said: “I don’t have to explain it. You’re free to think of it, or to dismiss it, in any way that you want. It’s called mystery … Jackie Collins writes crisp narrative. I suggest you read all of her books. You will never be in doubt about where the story is going.”

And he rebuffed a Guardian reporter’s suggestion that he subscribed to the auteur theory, which prizes the director as the ultimate author of a film: “Didn’t you hear what I said? Am I talking to deaf ears? No! No! ... The auteur theory is a load of bollocks!”

His first three marriages ended in divorce: that to the actor Jeanne Moreau lasted from 1977 to 1979; that to another actor, Lesley-Anne Down, from 1982 to 1985; and that to the journalist Kelly Lange from 1987 to 1990. The following year he married the former chief executive of Paramount, Sherry Lansing.

She survives him, along with a son, Cedric, from a relationship with Jennifer Nairn-Smith, and a son, Jack (Jackson), from his second marriage.

🔔 William Friedkin, film director, producer and screenwriter, born 29 August 1935; died 7 August 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#JUST FOR BOOKS #William Friedkin #in memoriam

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teach463146 · 9 months

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And the Predicted Nominees Are:

“Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures)

Dan Friedkin, Martin Scorsese, Bradley Thomas, Daniel Lupi

“Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures)

Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, Christopher Nolan

“Saltburn” (Amazon Studios)

Emerald Fennell, Josey McNamara, Tom Ackerley, Margot Robbie

“Ferrari” (Neon)

Monika Bacardi, Thomas Hayslip, Andrea Iervolino, John Lesher, Michael Mann, Laura Rister, Thorsten Schumacher, Lars Sylvest, P.J. van Sandwijk, Gareth West

“Past Lives” (A24)

David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon

“May December” (Netflix)

Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell, Grant S. Johnson, Pamela Koffler, Tyler W. Konney, Sophie Mas, Natalie Portman, Christine Vachon

“Barbie” (Warner Bros.)

David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Robbie Brenner

“The Holdovers” (Focus Features)

Mark Johnson, Bill Block, David Hemingson

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (Sony Pictures)

Avi Arad, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Amy Pascal, Christina Steinberg

“The Color Purple” (Warner Bros.)

Quincy Jones, Scott Sanders, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey

Next in Line

“The Zone of Interest” (A24)

“The Bikeriders” (20th Century Studios)

“Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures)

“Dumb Money” (Sony Pictures)

“Maestro” (Netflix)

“Air” (Amazon Studios)

“Anatomy of a Fall” (Neon)

“Freud’s Last Session” (Sony Pictures Classics) **

“Fair Play” (Netflix)

“BlackBerry” (IFC Film

#matthew goode #freud's last session

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mourningmaybells · 2 months

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forgot to put my favorite quote from ellen burstyn asking friedkin not to cast jason miller for the exorcist 1973. And the trainwreck that followed. The website it old and unreadable, so I'll just copy the text:

WF: So [Jason Miller] does it and Ellen Burstyn comes to me after the shoot’s down and I go to her dressing room. She says, “You’re not going to hire this guy are you?” I said, “Well, no.” She said, “Well, why are you wasting my time, because he can’t do this part.” She said, “First of all,” she said, “I need a big guy that I can melt in his arms when I tell him my daughter’s possessed.” Bill Blatty [William Peter Blatty, the author] was there, watched this going on.

I introduced them. Blatty wants to play the part himself.

That night, he lived on the Malibu Beach and my Agent at the time lived down the beach from him, and Blatty went over to my Agent’s house at 9, 10 o’clock and knocked on the door and said, “You know I have total faith in Bill Friedkin, but this is wrong. Tell him don’t even think about hiring this guy. He’s just wrong,” so the next morning we look at the rushes and the guy looks incredible, which I didn’t see live, I didn’t see what the camera does to him. I look at his close-up; I look at him with--his voice, which had a very interesting quality. I look at it and I say to myself, “That’s Father Karras. That’s the guy.” So now, I’ve got to go and be my--by myself for a while and think this out, and the movie god says to me, “That’s the guy,” so I go to Blatty and Warner Bros. and everybody else and I said, “I want to get out of the Stacy Keach deal and hire this guy.” [INT: They must have thought you were nuts.] Oh yeah, Ted Ashley called me himself, he said, “You are crazy. What is wrong with you? We’re not going to do it.” And I tell Burstyn. She says, “You’re nuts.” Then I--this went on for days with everybody saying--[INT: Did you have any ally at all?] No, no, except the movie god. [INT: Yeah, but they don’t always have a parking space at Warner Bros.] [LAUGHS] That’s wonderful. I just fought for it because I believed it, and we paid off Stacy Keach, who will not speak to me to this day. It was a terrible thing to do.

#^ this is what i meant when i said there was karras kinning wars. the author wanted to play him and it was really affecting the chances #of another actor (roy schneider). and miller only went after the role because he said that karras had lived his life and that was him. and #of course the author resonated strongly with karras and based his own life on his background and still wanted to play him.#man. i want to know how much keach was paid. pleaseee. i love drama.#the exorcist 1973

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 1 year

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New IN THIS MOMENT Song 'I Would Die For You' Featured On 'John Wick: Chapter 4 - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack'

Lakeshore Records is set to release "John Wick: Chapter 4 - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" digitally March 24 with an original score by Tyler Bates ("John Wick", "Guardians Of The Galaxy"),and Joel J. Richard ("John Wick", "The Andromeda Strain"). Bates and Richard, their scores an integral part of the success of the first three installments of "John Wick", return with another masterclass in high-intensity compositions that feature an array of instruments — including treated piano, mandolin, acoustic and electric guitar, bass, harmonica orchestra, synths, and found object percussion. Bates also produced songs performed by Lola Colette with Nick and Sam Wilkerson of the punk band WHITE REAPER on drums and bass respectively, as well as tracks with IN THIS MOMENT and Manon Hollander. In addition, the track co-written and produced by Bates with vocals by avant pop phenomenon and cast member Rina Sawayama, "Eye For An Eye", is available digitally. The Lionsgate film directed by Chad Stahelski and starring Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Lance Reddick, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins and Ian McShane is in theaters and IMAX on March 24.

Bates told Entertainment Weekly about his collaboration with IN THIS MOMENT: "'I Would Die For You' is a song that I wrote with Maria Brink and Chris Howorth of IN THIS MOMENT and [also] produced. Chad, literally, out of the blue, called me up, and he's like, 'Yo, Tyler, do you know this singer, I love her, Maria-something, she's in this band, IN THIS…?' I'm like, 'IN THIS MOMENT?' He said, 'Yeah, that's it!' I said, 'I'm actually working on their new record right now. [Laughs] They are real fans of 'John Wick', which is really cool."

"John Wick: Chapter 4 - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" track listing:

01. Big Wick Energy 02. Nowhere To Run (Lola Colette) 03. Sand Wick 04. Change Your Nature 05. Continental Breakfast 06. Wick In Osaka 07. High Table In Osaka 08. A Grave Accusation 09. Grief On A Train 10. I Would Die For You (IN THIS MOMENT) 11. Of Mincing & Men 12. A Grave Situation 13. To Get Back In 14. Killa's Teeth 15. Ambition And Worth 16. Dog Lover 17. JW, Loving Husband 18. Stairs Arrival 19. Marie Douceur, Marie Colère (Manon Hollander) 20. John Wick Rises 21. Paris Radio Intro 22. Chess Club 23. Urban Cowgirl 24. Quite The Mess You've Made 25. The Ex Ex 26. The Ex Ex Chapter 3 27. Arc De Triomphe 28. Wrong Train 29. Sacré-Coeur Sunrise 30. Pistol Procession 31. Ten Paces 32. Twenty Paces 33. Helen A Handbasket 34. Eye For An Eye (Rina Sawayama) 35. Cry Mia River

Bates regularly transitions from scoring some of the world’s biggest film and television franchises, such as "Guardians Of The Galaxy" and "John Wick", to rocking massive audiences in the world of rock music, and back to the studio again writing and producing records with artists like HEALTH, BUSH, IN THIS MOMENT and STARCRAWLER, to name a few. In 2004, he created the menacing audio backdrop for the popular Zack Snyder reboot of "Dawn Of The Dead", beginning a string of nearly a dozen box office number ones that have contributed to well over five billion dollars cumulative worldwide box office gross for his projects. Bates then teamed up with Snyder again for the films "300", "Watchmen" and "Sucker Punch". His oeuvre expanded to include films like "Atomic Blonde", "The Devil's Rejects", "The Day The Earth Stood Still", "William Friedkin's Killer Joe", and TV shows like "Californication", "Punisher", "The Purge", "Kingdom", "Salem", "The Exorcist" and more. More recently, Bates scored the blockbuster "Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs And Shaw", "Deadpool 2", "Jamie Foxx's Dayshift", Ti West's 2022 releases "X" and "Pearl", "The Spy Who Dumped Me", plus Genndy Tartakovsky's acclaimed animated series "Samurai Jack" and "Primal" on Adult Swim. After scoring Cirque Du Soleil's "R.U.N.", Bates embarked on the 2022 world tour in support of Jerry Cantrell's latest album "Brighten", which he also co-produced. With more new projects on the horizon including "Agent Elvis", Tyler Bates will undoubtedly continue to redefine what a composer is as a shapeshifting artist who's architected one of the most kaleidoscopic resumes in music.

Last October, IN THIS MOMENT released an EP called "Blood 1983". The effort commemorated the tenth anniversary of IN THIS MOMENT's gold-certified album "Blood" (2012) and was made available digitally across all digital service providers as well as CD via BMG.

"Blood 1983" was co-produced by Bates and Dan Haigh, and mixed by Zakk Cervini.

Since coming to life in 2005, IN THIS MOMENT has presided over a diehard fan base under the watch of "mother" figure and frontwoman Brink — joined by co-founder and lead guitarist Howorth, bassist Travis Johnson, guitarist Randy Weitzel and drummer Kent Dimmel. As millions convened upon the group's otherworldly and unforgettable concerts, they quietly emerged as one of the most influential and impactful bands of the 21st century.

To date, in addition to the gold-selling album "Blood", the quintet has garnered two gold singles — "Blood" and "Whore" — followed by Top 25 entries on the Billboard Top 200 with "Black Widow" (2014) and "Ritual" (2017). Bringing their total stream tally well past 200 million as of 2020, "Ritual" elevated them to new creative and critical peaks as well. Between selling out headline tours coast-to-coast, the group performed in arenas everywhere alongside DISTURBED and appeared at countless festivals from Welcome To Rockville to Sonic Temple. Along the way, they assembled their seventh full-length, the aptly titled "Mother" (Roadrunner) with longtime collaborator Kevin Churko (OZZY OSBOURNE, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH).

IN THIS MOMENT is Maria Brink (lead vocals),Chris Howorth (guitars),Travis Johnson (bass),Randy Weitzel (rhythm guitar),Kent Dimmel (drums).

youtube

#maria brink #In This Moment #I Would Die For You #2023 news #John Wick #soundtrack #metal ladies #metal bands #metal music

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vandroid-helsing · 4 months

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Best of 2023

As always: a list of things new to me that I enjoyed this year, regardless of how old they are.

BOOKS & COMICS

Blood Meridian, or, The Evening Redness in the West, Cormac McCarthy

Death in Spring, Mercè Rodoreda

Ducks, Kate Beaton

The Echo Wife, Sarah Gailey

Fugitive Atlas, Khaled Mattawa

Grass, Sheri S. Tepper

The Honourable Schoolboy, John le Carré

Inferno, Dante by way of Daniel Lavery

The Killing Grounds, Joan Tierney

The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar, Indra Das

Leech, Hiron Ennes

The Looking Glass War, John le Carré

The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekhera

Shahnameh, Abolqasem Ferdowsi

The Spear Cuts Through Water, Simon Jimenez

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, John le Carré

Thieves, Lucie Bryon

Time Is A Mother, Ocean Vuong

Un-American, Hafizah Geter

MOVIES/TV

Amadeus, Milos Forman

The Birdcage, Mike Nichols

Blue Velvet, David Lynch

The Exorcist, William Friedkin

Hair, Milos Forman

The Harder They Fall, Jeymes Samuel

Middleditch & Schwartz

Sap, Mae Martin

Bill Cunningham: New York, Richard Press

Trigun

MUSIC

50 Words for Snow, Kate Bush

Alcina, George Frideric Handel

Antar, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Bayti al-Fitr, A-WA

Ben Haana Wa Maana, DAM

Benhayyi al-Baghbaghan, Maurice Louca

Brahms

Heaven to a Tortured Mind, Yves Tumor

Hit Parade and Róisin Machine, Róisín Murphy

In These Times, Makaya McCraven

Javelin, Sufjan Stevens

La Traviata, Verdi

Lekhfa, Maryam Saleh, Maurice Louca & Tamer Abu Ghazaleh

The Loveliest Time, Carly Rae Jepsen

“Nautilus,” Anna Meredith

N3rdistan, N3rdistan

Postcolonialism and Dyslexia, Emsallam

Symphony No. 1, Jean Sibelius

Symphony No. 3, Louise Farrenc

Symphony No. 4, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

That! Feels Good!, Jessie Ware

MISC

Kottu

The Stopgap

Book announcement

Turns out it feels pretty good to announce a book!

The By the Bywater live show

Meeting internet friends irl

Uta Hagen’s acting class

#best of #writing #best of 2023

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byneddiedingo · 9 months

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Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)

Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Warren Clarke, James Marcus, Michael Tarn, Patrick Magee, Adrienne Corri, Aubrey Morris, Miriam Karlin, Anthony Sharp. Screenplay: Stanley Kubrick, based on a novel by Anthony Burgess. Cinematography: John Alcott. Production design: John Barry. Costume design: Milena Canonero. Film editing: Bill Butler.

A Clockwork Orange was panned by Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, and Roger Ebert, but it remains one of Stanley Kubrick's most popular films, with an 8.3 rating on IMDb. It's a tribute to Kubrick that the movie can elicit such widely divergent responses. I can see what Kael, Sarris, and Ebert are complaining about while at the same time admitting that the film is undeniably entertaining in a "horrorshow" way: that being both novelist Anthony Burgess's Nadsat coinage from the Russian word "khorosho," meaning "good," and the English literal sense. For it is a kind of horror movie, with Alex as the monster spawned by modern society -- implacable, controlled only by the most drastic and abhorrent means, in this case a kind of behavioral conditioning. The aversion therapy to which Alex is subjected reminds me of the attempts to convert gay people to heterosexuality. Which is not to say that Kubrick's film isn't exploitative in the extreme, relying on images of violence and sexuality that almost justify Kael's suggestion that Kubrick is a kind of failed pornographer. It is not the kind of movie that should go without what today are called "trigger warnings." What's good about A Clockwork Orange is certainly Malcolm McDowell's performance as Alex, one of the few really complex human beings in Kubrick's caricature-infested films. Some of his most memorable scenes in the movie were partly improvised, as when he sings "Singin' in the Rain" during his attack on the Alexanders, and when he opens his mouth like a bird when the minister of the interior is feeding him. Kubrick received three Oscar nominations, as producer, director, and screenwriter, and film editor Bill Butler was also nominated, but the movie won none, losing in all four categories to The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971). It deserved nominations not only for McDowell, but also for John Alcott's cinematography and John Barry's production design.

#A Clockwork Orange #Stanley Kubrick #Malcolm McDowell

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leam1983 · 2 years

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Halloween for Adults

So, you're like me. You don't want Spooky Month to end just yet. Here's a few suggestions.

Full text below.

First, try digging out all those movies you keep telling yourself you'll watch, but never get around to doing so. Sprinkle them throughout November. My personal favourites are still Ryuhei Kitamura's adaptation of Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train, along with Stuart Gordon's recent return to horror, in the form of 2021's The Color Out of Space. I'm a sucker for the golden oldies - put James Whale in the director's seat and I've watched it. Same goes with anything Ed Wood-related. I love my self-conscious schlock. An added mention goes to Tarantino and Rodriguez' Grindhouse collab, which has some fantastic gore.

You can also find yourself schlocky and pulpy books. I'd strongly recommend Andrew Pyper's Oracle, to put you in the mood. If you're into your classics, William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist is a hard one to beat. All respects to Bill Friedkin's work, but the novel is eons above it in terms of atmosphere. Note to the wise and to atheists out there, however - themes of guilt and of spiritual affects associated with said guilt are rampant in Blatty's post-Exorcist work in the same universe. If you're impatient in the face of someone waxing fire-and-brimstone as an excuse for their own moral failings, you might want to tune this one out. Barker features here, again, with his Books of Blood anthology being a favourite of mine. If you're looking for something that's hilariously campy and has the subtlety of a battering ram, just pick up one of Del Rey's H.P. Lovecraft compilations; they're far cheaper than academic editions, Miskatonic Press reprints or the Library of America omnibus.

For a more serious take on Cosmic Horror, I'll point you to Jeff Van Der Meer, whose Southern Reach series actually does wax existential, in opposition to Lovecraft's sometimes smarmy self-reflections. Van Der Meer does a great job at distilling Cosmic Horror down to its fundaments, and then builds his own Mythos, of a sort, on top of it. If the Master of Providence were still alive, I'd tell him to take notes - seriously.

As you'd expect, comics can also feature. Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead deserve no introduction, but his tone is so focused on the interpersonal that any fun gets quickly sapped out of the experience. If you want some drama to extend your Halloween, you can't go wrong with Rick Grimes' adventures. If, however, you're here for the Pulpy goodness of it all, I'd suggest Mike Mignola and Pat McEown's Champion of the Worms. It serves as the opening salvo for an abortive project titled ZombieWorld - basically The Walking Dead with more squick and less pathos - but what is there is absolutely striking.

Simply put, Champion of the Worms is what you get when an American illustrator overdoses on the works of European pencillers like Morris or Hergé, and pens a gruesomely clean Clear Line-esque aesthetic that flatters the withered features of a Hyperborean death priest-turned-mummy called Azzul Gotha, who seems hell-bent on bringing about the Terrestrial reign of his worm gods and the spreading of a plague of undeath. There's something amusing to the sight of a stylistic cousin to Tintin's Rascar Capac (see The 7 Crystal Balls) pacing about in a museum he's overrun with zombies, reanimated mummies and other shambling corpses, muttering as he obsesses over a means to bring his chosen bride back to him. Man's got the face of the Cryptkeeper and probably a close proxy for John Kassir's cackles, and McEown still draws little pink hearts around his dessicated head when he finally manages to land what's probably the grossest French kiss imaginable.

It's horror in the way haunted house attractions typically present it - it's actually quite colorful and vibrant, and it's hard to find zombies that both manage to fit the bill while also seemingly disturbingly, even cartoonishly alive. It's funny and hammy and tragic in equal parts - and a real shame that Mignola and Dark Horse found the Sales figures disappointing.

Speaking of the Cryptkeeper, both the main Tales from the Crypt series and Nelvana's Tales from the Cryptkeeper are both worthy tools to extend Spooky Month by a week or two. If you're familiar with William Gaines and his weird forays from Christian comics to twisted morality plays featuring lurid gore, the adaptations hardly need any introduction. Of note is the fact that HBO more or less used TftC as a free and open workshop for many actors who felt like trying their hand in the director's chair, and also featured many top-bill talents from the eighties and nineties. One episode in particular features an unreal Michael J. Fox cameo, and one storyline in the penultimate season was directed by Arnold Schwarzennegger. They even got him to reference Pumping Iron while lambasting the show's cadaverous host for having, well, the biceps of a half-dried mummy! Like Champion of the Worms, this is Halloween at its most campy, fun, unrestrained, and cheerfully graven.

A quick round-up of the honorable mentions that were skipped over precisely because of their ubiquity would have to include Henry Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Disney's Hocus Pocus and its recently-released sequel, along with Michael Dougherty's Trick R' Treat. Audiophiles see Midnight Syndicate's discography added to the pile.

For video games, I'll preface this by mentioning that a few of these picks suppose you're familiar with the handling of emulators, and that you can either work a Torrent tracker or source the needed files on your own.

If we're focusing on the fun side of things, Midway's CarnEvil is a favourite of mine, which runs easily on MAME with a few tweaks enabling you to use your mouse as a light gun analog. If you don't have the patience to get this fixed and money burning a hole in your pocket, you can snag a refurbed PSVR kit and give Until Dawn: Rush of Blood a whirl for the same basic effect. I'd also recommend an emulated cabinet of anything related to House of the Dead's arcade run. The Wii had its own off-kilter entry in the form of House of the Dead: Overkill, which ran hot off the tails of the then-recently-released Grindhouse duology. Creative Assembly's Alien Isolation deserves a special mention, along with EA Redwood Shores' Dead Space - particularly the first game in the series. Side note - the original 2009 release is a perfectly valid and cheaper alternative to the upcoming reboot.

Honestly, video games are the one area where I'm tempted to simply gesture broadly in the vague direction of your own, personal games collection and to just say Play the heck 'outta those you know. There's far too many to name, from anything that has Resident Evil's name or pedigree attached to it to super-niche titles like New Blood's Faith: The Unholy Trinity or Gloomwood. Indie horror games are extremely fertile, and not a week goes by where some other quirky goodie doesn't find its way to itch.io. Of them all, I'd particularly recommend Kitty Horrorshow's Anatomy, which is a moving - and gruesome - portrait of the Haunted House as a trope.

For other tone-setters, setting a good table always helps. These are the dying days of Summer, effectively, and nothing soothes more during the cold, damp days of November than a good bowl of soup. Onion soup layered with an au gratin biscotti is a House Gremlin staple from late September to shortly before Christmas, along with bog-standard non-perishables like pea soup. I also always keep a measure of crepe batter on hand, or at least have the essentials to whip one together on short notice. Once hailstorms become frequent, warm crepes with sausages, melted cheese or an abundance of maple syrup turn out to be useful and easy fixings to prepare.

Finally, keep a few spooky tidbits around. It's your house, your flat, your condo, whatever, so nobody gives a shit. Keep a few tiny pumpkin plushies, orange fairy lights or other reminders of the season that could more easily blend in with other décor elements. Seeing as you're prolonging Halloween, don't forget to sensibly stock up on either stock-clearance Halloween candy boxes, or on a handful of full-size options.

The fun honestly doesn't have to end just because everything media-based around you moved on to Christmas on the button, and for people like me who particularly resonate with certain holidays, it's prudent enough to give ourselves a week or two to safely come down from our favourite weeks in all the year...

#halloween #prolonging the fun #books #movies #video games #music #suggestions #long post

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talkaboutmovies · 2 years

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“The Exorcist” remake is coming in October 2023. Actually being billed as a sequel. Not sure how I feel about this. I’d really l’d really like to know what Friedkin thinks about it. William Peter Blatty passed away in 2017. The original “Exorcist” IMHO is still the scariest movie ever made. Ellen Burstyn will be back. Andersen’s still makes pea soup.

#The Exorcist 2023 #The Exorcist #2023 movies #horror sequel

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greensparty · 1 month

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Talking with Alexandre O. Philippe

Over the last twenty years, Swiss filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe has very quietly become one of the great pop culture documentarians of our time. His zombie culture doc Doc of the Dead was one of my Best Documentaries of 2014. His doc about the shower scene in Psycho 78/52 was so comprehensive it will be shown in film schools for years to come. His doc Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist is the director in his own words telling his experiences on the classic horror film. Last year's Lynch/Oz looked at the influence The Wizard of Oz had on David Lynch's films. Now, one of the great pop culture icons of all time Williams Shatner (who just turned 93 BTW) is telling his story in his own words in Philippe's new doc You Can Call Me Bill, which is opened in limited release last week.

Alexandre O. Philippe

Having gotten to review a number of his films here, this marked my first time connecting with Mr. Philippe over zoom. As someone who addresses pop culture in my films as well as this blog, I feel like Mr. Philippe and I are cut from the same cloth with all of his films diving deep into all different areas of pop culture. We talked for about 15 minutes, but I'm sure I could've talk shop with him for hours.

Me: You have very quietly become one of the move prolific documentarians of the now. I find your films to be a thesis of what it is to be a film geek or pop culture obsessive who is fanatical about a film, filmmaker or genre. That being said, are you very selective of your subjects?

AOP: Of course. I can't make a film unless it's a topic that I'm really passionate about and can really pour myself into completely. But also there has to be the right angle, the right approach. So there's a lot of intangibles, but I'm a very intuitive filmmaker. Usually the angle, the premise, the stylistic approach comes to me very very quickly. Then it become s a question of how do we implement that? And then of course - how do we implement that within the budget we have? [laughs] So there's all the logistical questions that come into the picture that make it always challenging but always interesting.

Me: Let's talk about your new movie You Can Call Me Bill about such an iconic star, William Shatner. How did the project come about?

AOP: It came about very serendipitously. With my company Exhibit A Pictures we had worked with Legion M, which is a fan-owned company, with my film Memory: The Origins of Alien in 2019. They picked it up at Sundance along with the now-defunct Screen Media. Legion M is just an amazing company, powered by fans. So we stayed in touch. Then a couple years ago, I heard William Shatner had become their new spokesperson, so I just called David Baxter, one of the execs there, just to catch up. I very casually dropped the question "has there ever been a documentary about William Shatner" cause I was just curious. It's hard not to be curious about Shatner. He said he's been approached by a lot of documentary filmmakers over the years and he's always said no, but he said to give it a shot. So they pushed and they pushed and finally they set up a lunch and Bill agreed to meet me. I was fully prepared to pitch the project that I envisioned. He was not interested in that, he was just really interested in getting to know me, which I respect a lot. In retrospect, it's like - what a refreshing thing! It wasn't a business meeting, it was a human to human deal. The whole lunch was just talking about life, death, the universe, existential questions and then by the end of lunch it was really just "when do we start?" So it was very organic.

movie poster

Me: You previously directed Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water, which was about Klingons and Star Trek fans. Are you, yourself, a Trekkie?

AOP: You know, I don't consider myself a Trekkie. Let me put it this way - I'm obviously very into pop culture, but I don't consume pop culture to the extent of watching every episode of something or seeking out more. I'm more interested in the aspects of pop culture that have deep resonance. So, of course, I am a Star Trek fan and I am a Star Trek admirer. I have watching most episodes of the original series. I've watched most episodes of The Next Generation. I haven't watched anything beyond that. I'm just too curious about too many things to let any universe take up too much space in my life, but that's a cautious choice. I tend to flock towards movies as opposed to series as a cautious choice, because many of the films I make are about films. So any given series, if I commit to it, I'm going to have to watch the whole thing, especially if there's a narrative arc that goes from beginning to end through several seasons. That's 50, 80, 100 movies I could've watched. Because I don't have time to re-watch movies that I need to, then I have to make those decisions. It's a long way to say, I love Star Trek, I love what Star Trek has done and continues to do to the culture. I don't consider myself to be a Trekkie, but obviously I have a lot of respect for Trekkies.

Philippe and Shatner on a Comic Con panel

Me: In contrast with other documentaries that have been made about other Star Trek cast members like Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols and George Takei, where they had a ton of interviews with co-stars, friends and family, this is really the subject in their own words (similar to how you made the William Friedkin doc). Tell me about your directorial approach.

AOP: With this one, the idea really was to look at William Shatner, the man of a thousand faces and can we actually get him to take off those masks that he's worn over his storied career and reveal the man behind the masks. In order to do that I wanted to get a sort of distillation of who William Shatner is in the sense of what is he about - What are the themes that are most important to him at this point and time. He had sent me some of the lyrics to some of the songs and at the time some were not published yet. So I got a sense from that of some of the things that were really important to him. I read all of his books. So there were certain ideas that very quickly came to the surface. So I decided to shoot this in a 10,000 square foot stage completely bare, completely stripped of artifice, no set design - you're just seeing the lights and the background, the green screen and all of the stuff hanging around. So we were just going to put him alone in that kind of environment. But stylistically I wanted each chapter to invoke that chapter at hand. So it was a very designed kind of approach. We had three days of interviews. Morning session and afternoon session each day. Each session was really dedicated to a chapter. It's a bit of a risky exercise because once you're done with a chapter and you strike the set and set up for the next one, you can't go back, so you have to make sure that you're getting everything that you're going to need to get the mini-arc within that story and make sure it's going to fit within the whole flow of what you're trying to do. So there's a lot of pressure, but thankfully Bill is the ultimate storyteller. It's like driving a Rolls-Royce, you just make those little adjustments and give him what you're hoping he's going to give you and he goes there. He made it really really easy. There was no taboo subjects, he was fully willing to "boldly go anywhere" as it were. So he gave me this extraordinary materials that had to shape into the film we have now.

Me: One of my favorite documentaries of yours is The People vs. George Lucas, about the love/hate relationship that the fans have with the films. In addition to Star Trek and Star Wars, you've also made documentaries about Alien and the zombie genre as a whole. Is there any area of sci-fi or fantasy that you haven't covered yet that you'd like to?

AOP: Well the films kind of naturally come to me in mysterious ways. Right now I'm finishing a film on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The rights holders of the film contacted me about a year ago now, because the 50th anniversary is coming up. They like our films and asked if I'd be interested in making a special 50th anniversary film. I think it's a hugely important film. You can even remove the word 'horror', it is one of THE most important films - period. So it's a very different take - as you can imagine - on Texas Chainsaw. It's one of the most ambitious films we've ever made. I'm very very excited about it. That's what's next. There are other projects that are sort of in the works. There will be more Hitchcock, for sure! I tend to not think too far into the future. It's not about checking boxes, but it's about what makes sense within the context of the body of work, and what is this thing I'm really most curious about, or the approach that I want to take on, and the journey itself is always a little bit surprising.

Me: In 1992, I attended a Star Trek Convention where both William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy recounting stories together onstage. I was a little surprised you didn't cover more of his connection to the fan culture. I was curious if that was cut for time or if that was a directorial choice to not get into the fan culture in this?

AOP: Yes, it was a choice. Again, the film and the premise always dictate to me what is included in the film and what's excluded. There's really a hundred ways that you can make a film about William Shatner. This for me had to be a philosophical film in a way. It's not a film about Star Trek, it's not a film about culture, it's not a film about his legacy and it's not a film about the fans or his relationship with the fans. It's a film about what he has learned on this earthly plane over 93 years and what he wants to share with future generations. In a way, it's communicating with the fans but in a different way. It is about him. What's been really cool, the film premiered at South By Southwest last year and I've had the opportunity to tour around the world with the film and interact with fans and Trekkies and almost universally they're surprised in a positive way. Like "this is not at all the film I was expecting, but I got so much out of it". So for all these fans, now they get a glimpse at the man himself. So it's great that it is resonating with the fans.

For info on You Can Call Me Bill

For info on Alexandre O. Philippe

#alexandre o. philippe #interview #you can call me bill #documentary #william shatner #star trek #the people vs. george lucas #texas chainsaw massacre

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denver-carrington · 6 months

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Sad news: Peter White, who played Bill Rockwell on Dynasty and Arthur Cates on The Colbys passed away on November 1.

#Dynasty #Peter White #The Colbys

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docrotten · 6 months

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THE EXORCIST (1973) – Episode 200 – Decades Of Horror 1970s

“What an excellent day for an exorcism.” You don’t have to say that twice. Join your faithful Grue Crew – Doc Rotten, Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, Jeff Mohr, and guest hosts Daphne Monary-Ernsdorff and Crystal Cleveland – as they finally tackle one of the best and most influential horror movies in history, The Exorcist (1973) from director William Friedkin and writer William Peter Blatty.

Decades of Horror 1970s Episode 200 – The Exorcist (1973)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! And click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

Decades of Horror 1970s is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of the podcast and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.

When a young girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.

Director: William Friedkin

Writer: William Peter Blatty (written for the screen by, from the novel by)

Cinematographer: Owen Roizman; Billy Williams (Mosul sequences)

Editing by: Norman Gay, Evan A. Lottman (as Evan Lottman), Bud S. Smith (Iraq sequence), Jordan Leondopoulos (supervising field editor)

Art Direction-Set Decoration: Bill Malley, Jerry Wunderlich

Sound: Robert Knudson, Christopher Newman

Makeup Department:

Dick Smith (makeup artist)

Robert Laden (special makeup effects artist) (uncredited)

William A. Farley (hair stylist) (as Bill Farley)

Special Effects:

Marcel Vercoutere (special effects)

Rick Baker (special effects assistant) (uncredited)

Composer: Jack Nitzsche (composer: additional music)

Selected Cast:

Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil

Max von Sydow as Father Merrin

Lee J. Cobb as Lt. Kinderman

Kitty Winn as Sharon

Jack MacGowran as Burke Dennings

Jason Miller as Father Karras

Linda Blair as Regan

William O’Malley as Father Dyer (credited as Reverend William O’Malley S.J.)

Barton Heyman as Dr. Klein

Peter Masterson as Dr. Barringer – Clinic Director (as Pete Masterson)

Rudolf Schündler as Karl

Gina Petrushka as Willi

Robert Symonds as Dr. Taney

Arthur Storch as Psychiatrist

Thomas Bermingham as Tom – President of University (as Reverend Thomas Bermingham S.J.)

Vasiliki Maliaros as Karras’ Mother

Titos Vandis as Karras’ Uncle

John Mahon as Language Lab Director

Wallace Rooney as Bishop Michael

Ron Faber as Chuck – Assistant Director / Demonic Voice

Donna Mitchell as Mary Jo Perrin

Roy Cooper as Jesuit Dean

Robert Gerringer as Senator at Party

Dick Callinan as Astronaut (uncredited)

Elinore Blair as Nurse (uncredited)

William Peter Blatty as The Producer (uncredited)

Mercedes McCambridge as Demon (voice)

Eileen Dietz as Demon’s Face (uncredited)

Ann Miles as Spiderwalk (uncredited)

Vincent Russell as Subway Vagrant (uncredited)

It’s finally time to discuss The Exorcist (1973). The 70s Grue Crew have waited 200 episodes to tackle what is arguably the most influential horror film of the decade and beyond. The regular cast of “characters” have invited a few friends to enjoy the extra-long conversation: Daphne Monary-Ernsdorff, co-host of The Classic Era; and, Crystal Cleveland, the Livin6Dead6irl, co-host of the 80s. In other words, the whole damn family of Decades of Horror co-hosts are on hand for this one. Settle in for this in-depth look at director William Friedkin’s ultimate fright-fest and join the Grue Crew to celebrate 200 episodes of Decades of Horror 1970s.

At the time of this writing, The Exorcist is available to stream from MAX. The film is also available on physical media as The Exorcist 50th Anniversary Edition – Theatrical & Extended Director’s Cut (4K Ultra HD + Digital).

Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1970s is part of the Decades of Horror two-week rotation with The Classic Era and the 1980s. In two weeks, the next episode, chosen by Chad, will be The Psychic, aka Sette note in nero, aka Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes, aka Seven Notes in Black, released in Italy in 1977. This one is giallo, Fulci-style!

We want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans: comment on the site or email the Decades of Horror 1970s podcast hosts at [email protected].

Check out this episode!

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gazellefamily · 6 months

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THE EXORCIST (1973) "Revisited the unfuckwithable original shit-your-pants horror classic for first time since high school. Perfectly upsetting on every level. Scared of demons? Scared of hospitals? Scared of being a parent? Scared of being poor? Scared of getting puked on? Scared of Washington DC? Its got you covered in every way. I miss sumptuous celluloid. Whether its an archeological dig in Iraq or just some random urban stairwell, its just gonna look epic on film. New movies aint got it like that. Weird that the Allman Brothers have a song in this. Even weirder to see a priest drinking and smoking while it plays. I like now the power of Jesus." -Sonny Gazelle

"Yes - aged like fine wine, thanks. I have learned that Bill Friedkin (R.I.P.) is incredible - his movies are all about different things but uniformly excellent. What's more frightening than being a single parent!? Literally nothing. Oh I guess being the single parent of a kid with an unexplainable wasting illness. That shit happens and it's much more frightening than demons, which do not exist aside from on reality tv shows and Fox News primetime. In the olden days, if you couldn't handle raising a kid, you just put them in an orphanage. My pépère literally grew up in an orphanage even though his parents were alive. Fast forward to him driving for a brothel at age 13, but that actually sounds pretty cool." -Tommy Gazelle

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agentnico · 7 months

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The Exorcist: Believer (2023) Review

Whenever a year actually has October 13th land on a Friday, I am honestly surprised more studios aren’t dumping more horror film releases on this day. Friday 13th is literally THE horror day, and when it happens in the month of Halloween I feel like it should be a bigger deal, and I’m not even superstitious.

Plot: When his daughter, Angela, and her friend Katherine, show signs of demonic possession, it unleashes a chain of events that forces single father Victor Fielding to confront the nadir of evil. Terrified and desperate, he seeks out Chris MacNeil, the only person alive who's witnessed anything like it before.

I have seen the original Exorcist twice in my life. The first was when I was very young and all I recalled from that experience was seeing a little girl vomiting and being overly creepy. The second was actually recently only a couple of weeks ago, and this time around I managed to actually appreciate how stylistically unsettling director William Friedkin managed to make that original horror release. From the consistent feeling of dread that spreads throughout each moment - it’s truly horrific. Though I myself don’t get scared when watching horror films, which most likely is due to me having analysed that art of film for so many years that I have now lost that magical sense of escapism, which is a tragedy in itself and one that I shall hold upon my shoulders for the rest of my life and I accept that, but with said that, even I can admit that The Exorcist is a masterful piece of demonic horror, and one that feels so wrong to watch. Not in that it is a bad movie, but more so that we are breaking the mould of nature and are bearing witness to something that should not be shown.

There have been multiple sequels that have followed the original, none of which I have the interest in seeing, however the new The Exorcist: Believer comes from director David Gordon-Green who did a solid job rebooting the Halloween franchise (at least with his first entry) and has also previously excelled on the indie market with his small budget thrillers, including Joe where he worked with Nicolas Cage, and look, I’m always willing to give anyone a shot after they worked with the greatness that is the Cage Man! Additionally this new Exorcist comes with a lot at stake, with Universal supposedly cashing out a whopping $400 million on the rights (like what the actual fudge??), with having major plans to spawn multiple sequels and even billing this new one as a direct sequel to the original film with the return of Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil, who if you recall was the mother of the original possessed girl. Honestly, I am scratching my head as to what came through the minds of the producers to spend so much money on the rights - it’s such a massive gamble. Then again, it was only a few years back that Netflix completed a similar purchase with the rights to those Benoit Blanc-centred Knives Out films, and of course we don’t hear much about the success rate of the Netflix algorithm as they profits aren’t reliant upon box office numbers, but seemingly the streaming viewership for Glass Onion paid off. I think. Who knows? Regardless, a triple figure million pay out for movie rights is astonishingly crazy. At the very least one would hope the movie ends up being decent.

Right from the bat I’d say it is not fair to compare Believer to the original Exorcist, as it was never going to replicate the original’s shock value. But due to the connective story beats and the shared title it is hard not to. But judging the film on its own merit - it’s okay. I didn’t find it to be particularly scary nor shocking, and the creepier moments from the trailer in the movie lose that value. It’s visually solid, even though the over reliance on CGI took away from the horror. Again, not wanting to constantly harken back to the original, but that movie excelled by managing to show something so terrifying in such a simplistic way. Probably helped that back then they didn’t have the technology to go bigger, but the simpler effects back then actually benefited in showcasing fear in such a brutal way. With Believer, we’re treading all too familiar ground, with the only new aspect being that instead of one possessed girl there are two. I must add, Lidya Jewett and Olivia O’Neill do really throw themselves into the madness of playing the two possessed girls and should be applauded for that as they did well. Leslie Odom Jr. and Ann Dowd as the ones trying to stop the demons are alright. Both are talented actors, but they are not given enough material to work with. What else….the music is good. The play on the original piano notes and accompanying score was solid, certain cinematography shot were done well. But overall it’s a by-the-numbers supernatural possession flick.

Now in regard to the connection to the original movie - it’s very silly. Ellen Burstyn’s return is a waste. For those excited to see her, she’s only in 3 or 4 scenes total, and the creative choices made with her character are such a disservice to the original movie. Without spoiling, it’s a choice that seems to be inspired by the modern woke culture, with Burstyn’s Chris having being studying the art of exorcism ever since the events that transpired with her daughter, and then when questioned about why she herself did not partake in her daughter’s exorcism she blames the patriarchy. The choice of bringing her into this narrative and then what happens to her…it’s basically taking a classic character and making them dumb. I must say though that the only actual shocking moment in the movie comes in a scene involving her character, and though that moment itself is memorable, the build up towards it is so stupid. Also, with the return of Burstyn it comes as no surprise within the movie when a certain other character pops in for a cameo. Does it add anything to the movie’s story? No, it’s just there for cheap fan service.

Overall The Exorcist: Believer is very disappointing in that it does not offer many frights, the story is as generic as they come, the connections to the original are wasteful and as a whole, this movie doesn’t have much to offer. I’ll give it that, I was never actually bored during the film - it runs at a decent pace with enough going on to keep one’s attention, but let’s be honest, this isn’t a movie that will stick in one’s memory. The power of this one is not that compelling.

Overall score: 3/10

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