Tuesday marked the Blu-Ray release of the Extended Director’s Cut of 1973′s infamous ‘The Exorcist.’ The film, directed by William Friedkin, tells the story of 12-year-old Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), a seemingly-innocent young girl who begins to experience strange and increasingly violent and disturbing behavior. After her mother (Ellen Burstyn) tries every medical intervention to save her, she realizes that Regan may be controlled by an other-worldly and evil power.
It’s my favorite time of the year, with football on tv and Halloween coming up.
Drag Me to Hell, from the director of the Evil Dead trilogy, comes highly recommended. Crazy stunts, fights with supernatural beings, Gypsy curses, it’s all here. The only thing missing is Bruce Campbell, but hey, he can’t be in everything.
Tonight I was proud to take my son to see the new Friday the 13th. I am a fan, so I admit bias in reviewing the movie. Overall it was really pretty great, they made some changes that brought the legend up to date. Jason no longer lumbers around as if he’s half-drunk, in this new version he moves fast and does not toy with his victims. The body count was high, and the nudity was frequent.
I have been watching the Friday the 13th movies since I was about 12 years old, and it was great to be able to take my boy to see this new one. As cheesy as they were, these movies really represented my generation in the slasher genre. This movie closely followed the time-tested formula: A bunch of annoying teenagers trapped in the woods who get picked off one by one, how can you beat that?
I was most impressed by the fact that the movie theater was packed full of teenagers, it gives me hope that America might be on the right track after all. They left the ending wide open for a sequel, of course, and I’ll be the first in line when the next one comes out.





