CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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I am absolutely partial to Friedkin's original version. Freidkin only did the new version on behalf of Blatty and his original vision. All the new subliminal's don't add anything. To me, they are just hokey gimmicks. The only scene I would have kept is the stairwell scene between Karras and Merrin (a beautiful scene). I hate the ending of the new version as well. To me, the Exorcist will always end with Dyer looking down those steps, remembering and praying for his best friend and then walking away. I don't think the new scene with Kinderman adds anything. But then again, I grew up with the original version all my life. It was a perfect masterpiece and Friedkin should have stood his ground and let it be.
I love this version the best. 🙂 But don’t do what and mistaken it for the soft mild version and watch at 11 at night. Lol
ReganMacNeilfan said:
I love this version the best. 🙂 But don't do what and mistaken it for the soft mild version and watch at 11 at night. Lol
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As long as you like either version …. you should be fine and dandy! BTW, where did you get the Regan MacNeil “spinning head” in your signature line? Love it!
Father B
ReganMacNeilfan said:
I love this version the best. 🙂 But don’t do what and mistaken it for the soft mild version and watch at 11 at night. Lol
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As long as you like either version …. you should be fine and dandy! BTW, where did you get the Regan MacNeil “spinning head” in your signature line? Love it!
Father B
Oh thanks I found it on google and other places. I do want to make some from the examination scene but can’t find that whole scene. 🙁 Others too but one scene at a time. 🙂
I don’t hate TVYNS, but it has too many anachronistic modern elements added. I don’t mind the additional scenes too much (the extra hospital stuff is boring though). I never had an issue with Chris’s remark about the doctor after Regan urinates at her party: I simply assumed she’d called out a doctor after the incident. The spiderwalk fails on every level for me: structurally it’s a double climax to the scene, it’s very cheesy and it takes Regan out of the bedroom. What works far better is seeing Regan strapped to the bed, yet Kinderman seeing her silhouette moving around the room from the street. The stairwell discussion is the only bit that really merits returning to the original release edit.
The additional ‘subliminals’ and overt CGI are what ruin TVYNS for me. The original edit has an almost documentary feel with a strong feeling of realism in the events. That’s why it’s scary. TVYNS is typically modern, in-your-face Hollywood. It’s all so obvious. Pazuzu flashes everywhere. Regan’s face morphing while hypnotised. Horrible!
I have no issues with CGI being used as a cleanup tool for better definition media – the fix on the dirty-looking jump cut as Karrasis possessed seems fair enough. It’s subtle and simply tidies up a problem that couldn’t be sorted at the time. Adding the flash of Karrass’s mother at the window is dumb though.
And for all TVYNS’s CGI excess, they ****still**** can’t paint out the piano wires in the levitation scene???
And the new sound mix with its new elements and various other changes is horrible too.
Sorry, but the TVYNS edit is a mess and not one I’d choose to see again. I’m happy enough with the 25th anniversary version with its sympathetic stereo mix from the original elements and basic clean-up.
I hope the new digital print will be based on the original release cut.
I hope it will see Owen Roizman sort out the colour timing too. In creating a new digital master from the negative, though, there will always be changes to the look. Remember, when you go back to the negative all the colour work and opticals have to be remade.
Also, the cinematographer would have given thought to what film stock the prints would ultimately be made on, meaning how much grain, colour degradation and so on would be introduced in developing that print from the interpositive. In other words, the negative (or what you see through the lens) isn’t necessarily indicative of how the film was intended to look on the cinema screen: the cinematographer would have shot with a film stock, knowing how it would look when it went to interpositive and finally what effect the transfer to a particular stock for the print would have on the look of the film. A digital master directly from the negative removes all those stages, which isn’t always a good thing.
I also hope the new master will include the original mono sound mix. A decent stereo version/5.1upmix from the original elements is fine as long as no extra sounds are added.
Also, just to prove I’m never entirely consistent, with this being such a high level restoration for Blu-ray and 4K TVs, I hope the jump cut in Karras’s death scene is still cleaned up and the piano wires, which will now become extremely obvious, are painted out, as they will become very distracting. Cleanup CGI is a fair enough tool in restoration. Cheesy morphing in a hypnotism scene is an unnecessary addition!
I liked the added footage but the cheesy subliminals needed to go. I wish they would have used the tongue spider walk also.
I don't hate TVYNV. In fact, I admire some of its features, while despising others. That is, I see it as a mixed bag.
Major likes include:
The beginning shot of the neighborhood and of the MacNeil house with Regan's bedroom light being turned off, then the Mary statue in the church … and then the mystical segue into the Iraqi muezzin's chanted blessing and the sun rising over Iraq.
Karras' first visit to the language lab where, after seeing the demonic Regan, he is listening to the real Regan's shy, giggly tape recording to her Dad. Obviously Karras is deeply enmeshed in the difference between the girl on the tape and “that thing upstairs” … AND significantly – this scene seques into Karras saying Mass, where his entire manner has changed. As he says, “This is the cup of the new and everlasting covenant, the Mystery of Faith”, it is clear that Karras has been jarred by the tapes. They have re-opened his sense of at least the possibility of the supernatural, and this realization is reflected in Miller's intense, significant delivery of the Liturgy.
Regan's first Dr. visit where she shoves the thermometer angrily back at Dr. Klein and sullenly tells him “I don't feel anything“. Then, while lying on the exam table, Regan's eyes slightly bulge and we see for the first time from her perspective the horrific visage of “the bad” version of Captain Howdy. This shot is completely appropriate and chilling, because it gives us a clear view of what this poor kid is up against. Then there is Regan's temporary, trance-like humming and wandering around the exam room, followed by her falling to the floor – a resonance with her behavior in the novel that was not referenced in the original version. This first examination scene assures the viewer that Regan is an endangered child, alone with Howdy's unpredictable appearances, and is already losing control of her conscious functons. This scene is followed by a painfully humorous explanation from Klein to Chris about Regan's use of profanity. The interaction between Burstyn and Heyman is some of the very best, naturalistic movie medical dialogue in history, and appropriately for the tone of this film, it ends on an unsettling note: Kilen tells Chris not to worry, and Chris replies with a single word: “How?” Perfect ending to a perfect “first medical exam” segment.
The pre-exorcism “lull before the hurricane” with its shots of Sharon trying to tune out the demon's rants and growls by turning up the volume of her transistor radio. The lovely inviting warmth of the living room where Merrin sits quietly saying his Rosary. Chris offering Merrin coffee with a shot of brandy and Merrin's gentle, slightly rebellious reply, “Well, the doctors say I shouldn't … but, thank God, my will is weak”. Giving Merrin a sense of humor provides a pleasant facet of his personality – humor – that was prevalent in the novel but completely missing in the original version. The scene is in no way a “show stopper” in the negative sense. On the contrary, it achieves two somewhat opposed emotional themes: on the one hand, the thickening atmosphere in the house as the demon summons its strength. and yet on the other hand, a bond is built between Chris and the brave, saintly, self-deprecatng Merrin. This emotional warmth culminates in Merrin asking Chris for Regan's middle name. “Theresa,” Chris tells Merrin, who returns an intensely warm gaze, and putting all his heart into his reply says, “What a lovely name” – the final comfort he can offer Chris before the exorcism begins.
And, of course, the “confessional” seen on the stairs where Merrin and Karras try to put some kind of understandable matrix onto the possession. They're both in the dark – “why this girl?” – but Merrin does make the pithy observation that everyone is the demon's target, and the immediate explanation is that the demon wants to dehumanize us to the point that we believe that we are too repulsive even for God to love. This aspect is assuredly accurate, with all of the vomiting, cursing, bleeding, starvation that flows from the demon. To believe that we are still objects of God's love, even though we are fillthy and unable to “purify” Regan, is one test of faith the demon issues simply by taking possession of a person, never mind the deeper theological and existential issues involved in this kind of extraordinary intervention.
Dyer returning to Chris the medal that had belonged to Damien Karras is very moving. In the original version, Dyer pockets it. In TVYNS, Dyer thinks a moment, puts the medal in Chris's hand and closes her hand around it: “No, you keep it”.
And I did enjoy the Kinderman-Dyer banter at the just-closed-and-locked MacNeil house gate. Kinderman's dialogue is rather odd, BUT recall he's a film buff, and his mention of Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball shoud be understandable to all US viewers who weren't born yesterday. Dyer's reaction is great. And, as they walk away arm in arm, the scene is touchingly shot from the aspect of the broken window from which Karras had so recently leaped. The way the scene is framed, it's highly suggestive of Karras being there is spirit, even as his two friends are remembering him. And, last, but not least, the soundtrack provides the original muezzin's chanted blessing as the two new friends walk away, thus musically framing the film between two blessings. Poignant and gently powerful.
So those are aspects of this version that I love. I can do without the multiple Howdy faces, the Pazuzu imprint on Regan's wall, and the dreadful, pointless, puzzling shot of Mary Karras in the window just before Karras jumps. But, excising these elements, I think TVYNS is superior to the original theatrical cut.
the only saving grace about TVYNS is the addition of the spider walk scene – everything else they added was silly, especially the Pazuzu subliminal. I can see why Freidkin cut those doctors office scenes, they added nothing and needlessly extended the film.
The original cut was a true masterpiece…..I wonder if Freidkin really cut together that version for Blatty, or if it was a money grab.
I thought the Merrin-Karras stairs dialogue was an indispensable element that should never have been omitted in the first place. I'm glad it was re-inserted for TVNS.
Whilst I loved the air of cold desperation the original had with the scene of Merrin and Karras sat silently on the stairs, this is the one addition that adds something of value to the later version.
Still don't know if I prefer it though…
LOL! Well, consider me or call me blasphemous, but I loved pretty much everything about TVYNS. I wanted to see it in theaters, but didn't get the chance to.
Ahh…but to see The Exorcist (either version, I care not) on the big screen one more time, just to take my revenge on it all those years ago when, as a small child who did not know what he was getting into when he dragged his parents to the drive-in, it scared the living hell out of me for 17 years. 🙂
I prefer the shorter additions…
The eerie opening shot of the McNeil residence and the pan across to Prospect street. Merrin's kindly appreciation of a wee bit of booze in his tea, asking Regan's middle name, Sharon with the ear phones, vainly attempting to block out the cacophony.
Never liked the Spiderwalk, neither visually nor narratively. The vaginal mutilation scene is the ultimate tipping point for Chris. Seeing Regan descend the stairs in such an impossible fashion would ring major alarm bells that her daughter needs non-medical/psychiatric assistance STAT, rendering the crucifix stabbing almost moot, which is unforgivable, since it's one of the most powerful, shocking, indelible moments ever committed to film. It should never have been added. Novel to see, but regrettable to include.
Dr. Klein's discussion with Chris about her daughter's emotional problems is okay, though. It does give the audience false hope that we may merely be dealing with a sad, troubled child.
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