The Exorcist (Director’s Cut)
The most chilling horror film of all time celebrates its 50th birthday this year and has lost none of its dark power. Memorial screening in honour of director William Friedkin, who died earlier this year.
Belief in evil. Belief that evil can be cast out. From these two strands of faith, author William Peter Blatty and director William Friedkin wove THE EXORCIST, the frightening and realistic story of an innocent girl inhabited by a malevolent entity. This is the terrifying tale of her mother’s frantic resolve to save her and two priests – one doubt-ridden, the other a rock of faith – joined in battling ultimate evil.
Winner of two Oscars in 1973, THE EXORCIST remains one of the most shocking and gripping movies in the history of cinema and is a regular feature on lists of the scariest movies ever made.
This new digital cinema print was created under the supervision of Friedkin.
A lot has been written about the religious components of THE EXORCIST. Recently Dutch film critic Coen van Zwol wrote an extensive article about the film for the Dutch newspaper NRC. He writes that film critic Pauline Kael hated the film: she called it an advertising poster for the Catholic Church. She had a point: Protestants hated the film. Evangelist Billy Graham argued that visitors to the "spiritual pornography" of THE EXORCIST were opening themselves up to the devil. That aversion seemed motivated less by fear of Satanism than by the cure: the Roman Catholic ritual. Catholic film censors in the U.S. gave the film a mild A-4, or: fine in terms of morality, but potentially offensive or confusing to believers. The Catholic Church, which had embraced science in the 1960s, was inundated with requests for exorcisms after THE EXORCIST reached cinemas, van Zwol writes.