Exorcist

Product Information

The Exorcist is released by Warner Bros. in the UK on 4K UHD standard, Ultimate Collectors and Deluxe Editions and are available now. The original ending of "The Exorcist" shows Regan and her mother leaving their house for the last time. "She doesn't remember any of it," her mother tells Father Dyer. Regan greets him politely, focuses on his Roman collar and suddenly hugs him. They get in the car, which begins to pull away, and then stops so that Chris can give the priest Father Merrin's medal, found in Regan's room. His hand closes over it. The car drives away. The priest looks down the fatal stairs below Regan's bedroom window. He turns away. Music and fadeout. In his free time, Shane loves going for runs and playing with his 16-year-old beagle Butterscotch. Butters for short, she has been the greatest love of his and inspires him everyday, both creatively and emtionally. On top of that, he's now a huge collector. He loves Funko Pop, McFarlane Toys, and Neca's huge line of horror figures. In the last two years he has been going to a lot of conversations to buy an unhealthy amount of figures. This has also allowed him to meet some of his favorite filmmakers/actors like Mike Flanagan, Matthew Lillard, John Carpenter, Grace Caroline Curry, Steve Burns and Kathryn Newton. Previous sequels and prequels have failed to win over either audiences or critics and will be ignored in the “direct” sequel. There was also a television sequel in 2016, which ran for two seasons starring Geena Davis. Widely regarded as a supernatural masterpiece, the film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director as well as acting nominations for Burstyn, Miller and Blair. The film won two Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay for Blatty.

The Exorcist Digital release (theatrical version) the following previously released special features: Flanagan’s foreword for the new release from Suntup Editions continues, “I don’t know that there has ever been a haunted house story as downright cinematic as Hell House. It is written by a man who thought visually, who had a flair for cinematic set pieces, audience expectations, and visceral thrills that eluded many of his literary predecessors. That is one of the reasons I Am Legend [also by Richard Matheson] resonates so deeply, and Stephen King is correct when he says: ‘Without his I Am Legend, there would have been no Night of the Living Dead.’ Without Hell House, I’d argue that there would be no Poltergeist, no The Conjuring, no Insidious.” Note: the extras identified above on the Theatrical Cut and Extended Directors Cut are available on ALL UK releases, including the standard edition as far as I’m aware. Bonus Blu-Ray (included in the Ultimate Collector’s Edition - UCE - and Deluxe Edition - DE - releases ONLY): Burstyn recently won acclaim for her role in the grief drama Pieces of a Woman and will next be seen in the Showtime series The First Lady as Sara Delano Roosevelt alongside Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Gillian Anderson and Kiefer Sutherland.In his foreword, Flanagan reveals that had there been a third season of his ‘Haunting’ series for Netflix, it would have been an adaptation of Hell House!

There’s a really good spread of content that looks at origins, production and legacy, with a mix of hearing from the creators and fans, the obvious highlight of the set being Kermode’s superb ‘Fear of God’ look at the film. So while we can bemoan the inclusion of anything new – especially given there are two much newer docs on the film (William Friedkin’s Leap of Faith and Fear & Love in Georgetown) that maybe could have been included for a truly definitive set – this is a gathering of all of the available supplementals previously released and should be more than enough for most fans of the film. For over twenty years, Belasco House has stood empty. Regarded as the Mount Everest of haunted houses, its shadowed walls have witnessed scenes of unimaginable horror and depravity. All previous attempts to probe its mysteries have ended in murder, suicide or insanity. But now, a new investigation has been launched, bringing four strangers to Belasco House in search of the ultimate secrets of life and death. A wealthy publisher, brooding over his impending death, has paid a physicist and two mediums to establish the facts of life after death once and for all. For one night, they will investigate the Belasco House and learn exactly why the townsfolk refer to it as the Hell House. It's presented in anamorphic widescreen, 1.85:1 format, and except for very few minor scratches on the film, it looks fantastic. Understandably, the picture quality on the included theatrical trailers, and particularly the TV spots, is not as good-- there is lots more grain and flaws on the film. But who cares? That they were included at all is cool enough.Interviews with all of the principals are included, as are deleted scenes (including one with Regan walking upside-down on her hands down the steps), storyboards, and the film's original (and wisely cut) ending. One thing that's particularly amusing is the inclusion of several excepts from a joint interview with both Friedkin and Blatty, who to this day continue to disagree on the omission of certain scenes, and the ending of the film. Watching them argue over the film's message and how it should have been conveyed, while trying to be civil (it has been 25 years, after all) is pretty funny. From its haunting Iraq-set prologue - that establishes beautifully, and almost without the need for any dialogue, that the modern world exists alongside older, more ancient parts of the globe, areas that retain so much of the ‘old ways’ that may seem anachronistic to many from the comfort of their own appliance-led relatively luxurious suburban lifestyle – to its generational warfare writ large between parents and their children (from Regan’s cusp of puberty and her mother’s constant surprise at her impending adulthood, to Father Karras’ own guilt at leaving his ailing mother and her frustration with his seeming abandonment of her) and of course, the ultimate battle of the ever-forward marching onslaught of time and progress, science and faith, this is a film about the constant cultural clash of change and its impact on us all. That just so happens to have a demon in it. The author adapted his novel into a screenplay for the 1973 film, The Legend of Hell House, starring Roddy McDowall and Pamela Franklin.

This morning, Suntup Editions has announced a fine press limited edition of the 1971 novel Hell House by Richard Matheson, featuring new exclusive material including an introduction by R.C. Matheson, a foreword by Mike Flanagan and afterword by Nancy A. Collins.One of horror cinemas true masterpieces, The Exorcist has lost none of its power after reaching its fiftieth year and it remains an iconic example of how truly sophisticated genre cinema can be in discussing so many key social and cultural themes whilst telling its own chilling and highly disturbing story. There’s just not enough superlatives… Are these issues worth boycotting this release over? For me, I’d say no – for nearly 90% of the run time, the picture quality is a significant improvement in every area over previous blu-ray editions. But for those of you who are particularly sensitive to image issues, this could very well prove to be a problematic release. It would be useful for WB to come out with a statement to once and for all state that the image issues are 100% director approved at least…but even if they did, we all know what happened with Friedkin’s previous film on blu, The French Connection…

The edition is printed letterpress on Mohawk Via Vellum paper and is signed by R.C. Matheson, Mike Flanagan and Nancy A. Collins. Released in 1973, The Exorcist is the story of a 12-year-old girl who is possessed by a demon, and the efforts of her mother, a psychiatrist/priest, and finally an "exorcist" to purge the demon from her body. It is such a startling, thought-provoking film, and subject to so many different interpretations, that it was a sensation when released and is even banned in the U.K. to this day. All of the performances are very good, but 12-year-old Linda Blair is amazing as Regan, the possessed child. Her facial contortions and body movements are so chillingly evil and beyond the concievable experience of any 12-year-old you really believe that she has become a puppet for another intelligence. But in the same year that a version of this story was attempted by a modern film maker in a much more modern world and single handedly failed to harness any of the depth, the craft or the power of this original, its testament to not just the richly deserved reputation but the quality of the film itself, its craft, its thematic depth and cultural relevance, that The Exorcist remains one of the very pinnacles of cinematic horror. I could go on…but I’ll spare you from covering over ground that many more learned than me have done before. Two years after its publication, The Exorcist was adapted for the screen by Blatty. The film, directed by William Friedkin, who has penned an exclusive introduction for this edition of the novel, would become a wildly successful motion picture, garnering ten Academy Award nominations. Friedkin and Blatty formed a lifelong friendship, with Friedkin often referring to Blatty as “my brother,” and “the most spiritual man I ever met.” To both men, The Exorcist was not a horror story, but one of the great mystery of faith. Friedkin’s new introduction chronicles the moments of inspiration that led Blatty to write the novel.Best of all there's a 75-minute documentary, The Fear of God: The Making of the Exorcist that explains all aspects of the film's production, including how that little girl was able to spew pea soup 20 feet. (As it turns out, this movie was inspired by true events that occurred in 1949, in Silver Spring, Maryland.) Inspired by a 1949 article in The Washington Post in which a Catholic priest recounts his experience performing the ritual of exorcism on a young child, William Peter Blatty’s groundbreaking novel details the demonic possession of eleven-year-old Regan MacNeil. When neither medical professionals nor psychiatrists can come to Regan’s aid, her mother enlists the assistance of two priests. Overwhelmed but determined, they endeavor to rescue Regan from an unspeakable fate. To do so, they must face a series of terrifying moments that will test not only their strength, but the very core of their faith. In the early 1990s I joined Owen Roizman, the film's cinematographer, in a shot-by-shot analysis of the film over four days at the Hawaii Film Festival. As we dissected it, I gained an appreciation of the craft of the film--how it embeds the sensational material in an everyday world of misty nights, boozy parties and housekeeping details, chats in a laundry room and the personal lives of the priests. The movie is more horrifying because it does not seem to want to be. The horror creeps into the lives of characters preoccupied with their lives: Father Karras with his mother and his faith, Father Merrin with his work and health, Chris MacNeil with her career and marriage. The Exorcist Ultra HD Blu-ray disc (theatrical version) contains the following previously released special features: Note: the included 1080p blu-rays appear to be the same as the previous 2011 release – they do not appear to have the new 4K restoration included on them.