CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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Hi Ben, if you don’t have my email address it’s greg@vcisinc.com –Make sure to write To Greg on Exorcist or something in that regard, so I can recognize it in my inbox. Thanks. 😀
That is a very good piece of work, Slasherman. Very well edited, and the music is very complementary and works well with the imagery. I especially like your repetition of imagery with Karras’ ascent and fear of descent, as Friedkin has said, with him traveling up and down stairs. Very touching piece toward a great actor, playwright, and director.
Yes, that teaser is incredibly dumb. I like the “subliminal” shots, but that really doesn’t make it any better. John Boorman had some pretty f*cking weird ideas for this film. The pretentiousness of it is also staggering.
Those are actually some pretty hilarious credits on the bottom there. Directed by David Lean?!!! 😛 The director of such masterpieces as Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago has raised from the dead and done an Exorcist prequel? And with robotic effects by Stan Winston? And produced by C2 Productions who did T3? Hilarious. David Lean is still absolutely a laugh riot. 😛 😛
Sorry Jenny, my dear. I don’t buy it. I was in the hospital myself lying down for a very long time (12 hours) as well. Staying mostly awake at the time and trying to be still in an attempt to sleep, it was impossible because I was in a very uncomfortable gurney and my body started to spasm. I was fasting too and my stomach would gurgle loudly every now and then. People could hear even when there was a fair amount of noise because a gurgle is very distinctive next to talking and yelling. Of course, the person has to be near you and he was. Doctors always notice that because they’re trained to not care about themselves and only others in need. His cellmate was just in need as him and that’s why he was always paying attention to what was happening across the room. Therefore, movement and stomach gurgling would still be caught in the peripheral and by ear when they got tired screaming.
Saw next to Exorcist? I have to totally disagree with you there, Mike (first time for everything 😉 of course). I hated the original film. If you want a film that has a jape (giant plot twist that becomes more important than the rest of the film) that is enough to destroy the credibility of the whole film, it’s Saw. I just didn’t see how a man could lie there the whole time pretending to be dead. There are a couple of things that are inevitable to happen while lying there long enough. Your stomach inevitably grumbles when you’ve haven’t eaten despite how much you may have eaten before fasting. The second thing is that if you lay still long enough without sleeping your body automatically starts to spasm its muscles to prevent from going numb. Considering a doctor was also in the room (and despite the fact how dead he looked, doctors would notice these things– like lack of riga mortis), makes it even less legitimate. Yes, films are supposed to suspend disbelief, but this was too unlikely. Cary Elwes was also his usual over-the-top self.
Torture pictures are just the next fad after the Slasher fad finally lost its steam. I would have thought it to be more likely that Exorcist fans would crave more psychological horror, and the Saw films are not really that at all– just pure gory showmanship without any real messages or subtext involved. I would be more inclined to agree more with Justin on Romero’s films although his last two don’t have anything as provocative to say as his original two films. Of course, I never saw Exorcist as a “saga.” And if a saga of good consistent installments doesn’t exist, then there is no best saga.
I agree about the original, but not about II. The original film plays a lot like a very dark, Hitchcock-inspired horror about a real possibility that could have happened. Donald Pleasence is brillant as Sam Loomis (that name obviously taken from the character who saves the day in Psycho) and John Carpenter’s direction speaks for itself and doesn’t need many words to explain itself either. One of Halloween’s greatest virtues is its utter simplicity. You don’t need to know any other extraneous information to understand what’s going on. What you see is what you get and anymore is a waste of space. It is not the kill that is ultimately scary; it is the anticipation.
Halloween II, on the other hand, trades its suspense and anticipation of the scare for pure gory gimmicks and cheap showmanship. The film has the unfortunate duty of having to extend a story from a film that needn’t a sequel (the original had a great ending– Myers is gone and no longer physical. He is now everywhere…) and to justify why Myers can’t die, which in the original was just done to add to the Boogeyman metaphor. In II, Myers is now some damned being that somehow knows what Samhain is and is after his sister instead of the idea of picking Laurie Strode at random. Ambiguity and less explanation to a killer’s motives are a lot scarier than knowing everything. Of course, horror like comedy is subjective, but this is an issue about cinematic technicality here. I agree with Debra Hill that Laurie is no longer a proactive character because she spends the whole film practically comatosed in bed while Loomis spends the whole film running around aimlessly whereas in the original he is just inches away to capturing his “fugitive.” Carpenter also said that the main thing that got him through writing this script was Budweiser. And finally, Rick Rosenthal (as seen again in Resurrection) only cares about vulgarities. He retroactively makes Myers’ killings more interesting than having sympathy for the victims. Guys slipping on blood drained from entire bodies and knocking themselves out, faces being burnt in hot water beyond recognition, and siringes stuck into people’s heads does not match the simple subtlety of the original’s acts of violence, which are emphasized more by the subtext into how sexual they are (more interesting to know that since that’s a common fantasy amongst serial killers). And if you were to watch I and II back to back, you would get a very structurally uneven story where suddenly Laurie does nothing in the second half and where we are stuck meeting people we don’t know, nor care about getting killed at a crappy looking hospital. I would conclude that the original started the Slasher trend, but II started the trend of recycling gore tactics.
I would rather watch III because at least Carpenter attempted to try something new (he didn’t want any more Myers considering he was written to be dead at the end of II) and worked with fame English writer Nigel Kneale of the classic 50’s Quatermass series to try to make a Twilight Zone like series with every next installment about a totally diferent story all relating to the lore and celebration of Halloween. Alas, pigeon-holing is still a common thing with audiences as well with H’wood execs. A series like that could have changed how the horror genre went. Missed potential.
Does this fanedit site have a mailing address to send your version to, Hatter? Did you look into that?
Hey Cap’n,
That sounds great! It’ll probably take a good long time though since that is pretty much how it all occurred for the Jaws petition. Time is needed for as many names to get on there as possible. And Uni only relented after they got the list with 5,000 names, then got a new one with double that some time later, and lastly a couple years later with the latest amount.
Yeah, it is weird how Dominion because it has the subtitle ‘Prequel to the Exorcist’ makes it sound like it directly preceeds Exorcist whilst The Beginning is truly the Beginning in the series. People I know who usually bring the prequels up (and usually only talk about Dominion) often are confused.
Hey Hatter,
It’s a fine addition. It does take a bit of getting used to considering the editing style of ETB is way more modern than Dominion, which is one of the main reasons I like the latter because it is rightfully inspired by the classic styles of the old and like Schrader said– a film set in the 40’s should look a film that was directed in the 40’s whereas Harlin didn’t quite agree. However, the fact that Merrin is reminsicing there justifies the quick cutting. I do think the imagery there of the John Milton-style hellish flames is a nice touch. Harlin did have good visuals which is all I’ll give him on ETB. The rest I’ll look for in Die Hard 2. 😛
The 25th Anniversary of Jaws had the same problem where the 2 hour documentary that originally was on the 20th Anniversary Laserdisc was edited down to only an hour. That really upsetted us Jaws fans, so we started a petition and got near to 12,000 names or so. Universal relented and gave us a new 30th Anniversary edition with the entire 2 hour documentary. I don’t think we can do the same thing for The Exorcist since I think this forum is the only place that is complaining. 🙁
Hey Hatter,
Very nice work. I love how you did the old day to night trick. It’s also good that you made flashes apparent since that would be true in a darker light. It is a bit dark when I view it on my computer and my screen is at maximum brightness, so you need to be aware that sometimes it looks brighter on your computer or TV than others. A little brighter should be ok.
I like the added original Exorcist sound effect when the SS officer says, “God isn’t here today.” It’s a very nice addition. The dark WB/Morgan Creek logos are a nice touch too. Where is that music there from by the way? It’s very good and very effective indeed. One another suggestion: I do like it better when it does say “Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist” it just feels appropriate. 🙂
Thanks for showing this to us, Hatter!
Sounds good. I thought the gunshots were also emphasized. And boy, do those new sound effects sound like foley from the original film. About the title I see what you mean, maybe you can try and move ‘Dominion’ a little lower in the frame to center it. That might be what’s bothering me more since it looks like something is supposed to show up beneath it. Yes, editing is tiring and tedious, but it’s also about “careful care.”
Have you heard any bad press about the film already? I’ve been curious to see it myself.
I really enjoyed Friedkin’s last film, The Hunted. I thought it worked very well and was full of Friedkin’s exposes on extremes.
The film I do know is not a remake of Jeannot Szwarc’s 1975 film, Bug. That was indeed a horror film and a decent one as well. That film was definitely about insects on the attack, and strangely enough very ‘science vs. spirituality (demonic like bugs)’ in a coincidental way. Friedkin’s Bug sounds more like an encore to his Extremes in Military films as of late like Rules of Engagement and The Hunted.
Hopefully, we won’t have a repeat of Jade, which was truly a big mess. 🙁
