Brent Northup: Beware noises in the attic: might not be mice

“The Exorcist (1973)”

Streaming Amazon et al.

“The Exorcist: Believer” (2023)

At Cinemark

Grades: 1973: “A” 2023: “C”

I vividly remember the day that Linda Blair weaponized pea soup and scared the popcorn out of me, metaphorically, of course.

The Halloween arrival of “Exorcist: Believer,” the sixth installment in the “Exorcist” franchise, brought back a nightmare.

Brent Northup

I was teaching eighth grade English at Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas, in winter 1973. After school one day, I respectfully declined opportunities for heart-to-heart talks with students full of raging hormones, and drove our Mercury Cougar over to the classic River Oaks theater where “The Exorcist” was playing.

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Even then, at 27, I was already a lifelong movie lover, and quite desensitized to cinema’s attempts to frighten me.

But I was shaken by “The Exorcist.”

And I know why: Because “The Exorcist” is an exceptional film. Period.

I re-watched it this week. Fifty years later, it’s still an expertly spun story. I closed my eyes a few times.

The horror arises from a very carefully constructed theologically subversive script, acted by an

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