Monday 11 October 2010

DVD & Blu-ray Round Up: The Exorcist

It's a thin week for new movie releases. You might be interested in MacGruber which I mercifully missed at the cinema, or The Losers, which I think everyone missed in the cinema, maybe even Steve Austin's Hunt To Kill, which I'm pretty sure missed the cinema all together.

No really, you might be interested in those. If you aren't mentally deranged however, you would be better off turning to an old gem getting it's first outing on Blu-ray this week, William Friedkin's classic horror The Exorcist. Now remastered in glorious high definition with 5.1 surround sound, the blu-ray presents a Directors Cut which extends the terror for another 12 spine-tingling minutes, plus the option for the purists of watching the original Theatrical Cut.

In case you don't already know the story of The Exorcist (where have you been?) it's the tale of a 12 year-old girl (Linda Blair) who becomes possessed by a devil, or possibly the devil. We follow her degeneration into a demonic state until her terrified mother has no option but to turn to Fathers Karras and Merrin to perform a dangerous and disturbing exorcism.

Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) is ultimately the embodiment of good, the counterpoint to the demon's evil, in a good old fashioned humdinger of a battle between the forces of light and dark. All of the iconic scenes are here, the head-turning, the projectile vomiting, the revelations about what Father Karras' mother gets up to in hell. And the additional 12 minutes brings some striking new images to the party too, not least Linda Blair's body-contorting 'spider-walk' which has to be seen to be understood.

Get it in for halloween at the end of the month, and maybe stock up on The Evil Dead, Halloween 4 and 5, or 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, all released or re-released this week. Maybe even treat yourself to Big Tits Zombie (seriously) while you're at it.

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