[Blizzi]

I’d be curious to see Karras finding his dead mother, or, better, imo, her funeral as in the book.

[granville1]

Those would be poignant scenes.

[colombiancannon]

This is my version on how Burke Dennings is killed. I have him upstairs, watching over Regan as she sleeps. He takes a drink from a flask. He turns towards the window, suddenly they open, he looks outside for a second, glancing at the stairs below. He closes the window, suddenly the room becomes cold and he can see his breathing in the cold air. Burke approaches the bed and stares at Regan who is not moving and he lowers the blanket and notices her body, he suddenly begins to touch her ankles and moves towards her legs. The window opens again. He stops touching Regan and is about to approach the window, but is suddenly grabbed from the back of his hair. We hear growlings and Regan’s face is pale white with demon eyes and she smacks Burke Dennings across the chest that flings him across the room. Then we hear a loud bellowing voice, “The piglet’s mine.” As Burke Dennings is crawling towards the door to escape. He is grabbed by his ankle and thrown to the bed. Regan approaches him and grabs his head, twisting it completely around. We hear the crunching sound of a neck being broken. Regan picks up his lifeless body over her shoulders and moves towards the window. She throws him out the window like a rag doll towards the steep stairs below. Regan watches as Burke falls full force down the stairs. Regan returns to the bed and suddenly collapses on the bed. Thats how I picture what happened to Burke Dennings.

[granville1]

That’s a vivid scene alright, but I would tend to take issue with the “Dennings as pedophile” implication vis a vis touching Regan, for these reasons:

1) Blatty shows Dennings only as a good friend of the MacNeils, including Regan, toward whom he is consistently kind-hearted.

2) Blatty shows Dennings as a considerate person while sober, but rude and aggressive while drunk. Your scene has him drinking, which is consistent with Blatty’s description. However, Blatty’s Dennings is not a sexual predator when drunk. He is merely insulting. So molesting Regan is out of character for Dennings as Blatty has written him.

A likelier scenario – likelier in the sense that it keeps to Blatty’s characterization of Dennings – would be for Regan to wake up and taunt him. This could be Regan-the-sick-kid taunting him, or it could be Regan-the-mouthpiece-of-the-demon who taunts him. Then, already tipsy from sampling his flask, Dennings might start to slap Regan around, while in response she kills him. That’s still a stretch, since I can’t picture Dennings harming a little girl no matter how drunk he is. I just mention this scene as an alternative that at least is somewhat consistent with Blatty’s description of Dennings’ negative side.

3) Your scene, unlike Blatty’s novel, gives both Regan and the demon a _good_ reason to kill Dennings – which is clearly against Blatty’s intention, which is to show a demonic attack “out of the blue” and motivated only by evil. Your scene which has Dennings starting to molest Regan, gives her a good reason to attack him; and it gives the demon a “good” reason to be jealous and kill Dennings.

I hope you don’t think I’m being overly critical, but the “Dennings as molester” theme has been kicked around here recently, and it would seem that this theme is a projection of current social concerns about child abuse onto an original characterization that does not really support it.

[colombiancannon]

Thanks Granville for your insights, I enjoyed reading your post. When I thought of this scene, it was just one of many ideas of what might have happened. I wanted to avoid that Burke was into Regan sexually. I was just thinking of this as if they were doing a remake. Since we all want to see a different exorcist movie and not just the same old thing that we seen many times. It’s just to change certain things, make it different. I don’t know if you remembered the CARRIE remake, they changed many things in the remake. Carrie survives in the remake. I like to see a different kind of Exorcist movie, all the characters would still be there, new scenes would be added, characters’ motives might be different in the remake. After watching the Exorcist so many times, I want to see something different. The scene with Burke touching Regan is due to his drinking, plus this is 2007, where we hear this kind of stuff in the news about child molestation. The Exorcist remake if made now, will be completely different, not just a rehash of the original. I’m aware of that molestation angle from the youtube videos. I didn’t agree about those opinions either. It’s just many angles that could take place in the remake. We can even have a new scene, Kinderman does see Regan, why not, she was fully possessed until after the masterbation scene. She is questioned by him, he looks around the bedroom. Maybe he discovers the flask under the drawer and notices it’s crushed by someone with small hands. I dunno? Kinderman was trying to solve the murder, just like Columbo would’ve done. In the novel, we read how Kinderman’s mind is working on solving Burke’s death.

[granville1]

I hear ya. I didn’t know that Carrie survived in the remake!

Who would you like to see play Kinderman in a new Exorcist?

[GhettoExorcist]

Hey everyone,

I’m not sure if anyone has posted this before but I found it on youtube and think it was worth a look and even more worth discussing.

[Jason Stringer]

Robert DeNiro (with the beard)… but he would never sign on, or Anthony Hopkins – his performance in BOBBY convinced me.

[granville1]

Those are good choices…

[colombiancannon]

I would change it a bit and have Joe Morton as Kinderman, change the ethnicity of the character. Why not? He’s well liked and I can picture him questioning Chris and when he meets up Fr.Karras. Just a twist in casting.

[Themagus01]

the next question is is Willy Wonka a good person or an evil person who punishes and kills bad children???

[Author]

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