Flick Pick

The Exorcist

Comments (0) By Bill Gallo Thursday, Oct 30 2003

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That crazy little girl hidden away behind a cold, white bedroom door in Georgetown, with her mouthful of pea soup and her patented 360-degree head-swivel trick, still has the power to scare the hell out of us, and she will do it again Friday, October 31, in Boulder. The Exorcist, which is both a classic and a cult hit, is now thirty years old (if you can believe it), and it remains one of the most powerful horror movies ever made. The studio left it to director William Friedkin, who'd already knocked the wind out of us with his great car-and-subway chase in The French Connection, to make cheap thrills and high art of William Peter Blatty's bestseller about a twelve-year-old who's possessed by the Devil, and that's just what he did. Your skin still crawls, doesn't it, when you think about Satan tormenting Jason Miller's troubled priest, poor little Regan's terrified mother -- even the exorcist himself, Max von Sydow? Who would have thought a thing so effectively brutal would have spawned two terrible sequels, two dozen lousy imitations and, in the collective memory of movie-goers everywhere, the indelible vision of a kid in a filthy nightgown levitating from her bed, demented eyes full of yellow fire? That, and more, awaits you at 7 p.m. Friday in Muenzinger Auditorium on the University of Colorado campus. This revival of sheer fright is part of CU's beloved International Film Series, and on this night, it's free. For more information, call 303-492-1531 or log on to www.internationalfilmseries.com.