Double Feature
Thursday, July 5 | 7 pm
Loosely based on the last documented exorcism in the United States, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist became the highest grossing movie of its time, and the first horror film to be nominated for Best Picture. When an adolescent girl named Regan (Linda Blair) begins to act in a bizarre manner—levitating and speaking in strange tongues—her mother (Ellen Burstyn) seeks medical assistance, without success. Enter a local priest who believes that Regan is possessed by the Devil, and soon the Church sends expert exorcist Father Merrin (The Seventh Seal‘s Max von Sydow). Still one of the scariest films ever made, the extended director’s cut of The Exorcist will be presented alongside Friedkin’s latest, non-fiction treatment of the controversial topic, The Devil and Father Amorth. Given unprecedented access to film a real-life exorcism—something he had not seen in person prior to directing The Exorcist—Friedkin is on site for the most current in a series of exorcisms performed on a middle-aged Italian woman. A believer in what he witnesses, Friedkin shows his incredible documentary footage to a few more and less skeptical members of the scientific community in this astonishing companion to the Hollywood classic.
The Devil and Father Amorth
Director William Friedkin | 2018 | In English and Italian with English subtitles | 68 minutes | NR | DCP
The Exorcist (Extended Director’s Cut)
Director William Friedkin | 1973 | In English | 132 minutes | R (for strong language and disturbing images) | DCP
