2014-10-30 House Arrest / the Horror

2014-10-30          House Arrest / the Horror 

                Course Cin can no longer make it through Halloween / the week without videeing William Friedkin's take on William Peter Blattey's The Exorcist than could Christmas season go by without Bing Crosby crooning 'White Christmas', for the opposite reasons, innit Electrified JC, and sorry / in advance, with Regan McNeil it was / a  draw.

                'Do you know what she did' the now fully-possessed Regan McNeil askes it better of her mother Chris - roles played respectively by Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn in the movie - 'your cunting / daughter ?'  It's an adjective that's gone out / of favour - if it ever was in favor at all, even in England, where the murdered character allegedly being channelled by Regan as she utters these blasphemies called home, the recently-deceased director of the movie within the movie, Burt Dennings, perfidious Albion, where profanities go to be born / and to die -  as have undoubtedly many of the acts in the scenes depicted in the film : the crucifix to the crotch business in the aforementioned scene, the 180-degree neck rotation in the same, the pea-soup vomit, and, in this version of the DVD, the upside-down spider crawl down the stairs on all fours performed by Regan McNeil, punctuated as it is by Regan spewing blood / out her word-hole, 'you're all' Blair's Regan says it better in an earlier scene to the soon-to-be orbiting astronaut, at the cocktail party being held at her and her mother's Georgetown rental, Regan standing in her own urine even as she's pissing herself and her nightie and the priceless Persian rug in the lounge where everone at the party is drinking / like astronauts, 'going to die / up there.'

                'And Merrinn knows what it is,' the actual film's director, William Friedkin says it better in this 'audio commentary' extra bit of this DVD - referring to the scene where the novice runs up the hill to give Max Von Syndow's Father Merrinn the envelope with news of his new assignment, namely exorcising Regan McNeil - 'without / opening it'.  Friedkin's right - course it's his movie - and his audio commentary throughout the movie is perhaps the most appropriate to the film itself, of all of the DVDs 'Extras' what Cin has videed and audeed over the course of House Arrest / the Horror.

                And unlike some DVDs with their splash-screens (a term borrowed from the computer world, it's what Windows / Big Mac / Tosh monitors default to videe, when you're after doing / fuck-all on the machines) - John Carpenter's Halloween splash-screen for example from earlier this week practically begs to be left on unaccompanied, made up as it is simply by a pumpkin burning and the spooky soundtrack music to keep it company, along with the occasional sound effects of a cook knife / slashing, innit monsieur debonaire kill kill kill kill slash slash slash slash - this one from  The Exorcist asks cinstead that you either press the 'play' button or turn it off altogether, pressing the 'play' button or turning it off altogether is all / we gots. 

                Splash-screen from this anniversary edition is a screen shot of Ellen Burstyn's Chris McNeil with her head on a pillow, her eyes hiding none of the anguish of a parent whose kid is in trouble, to say the least - 'like saying' as Miller's Father Karis tries to explain it better to Chris McNeil in the movie, of daughter Regan's audacious claims to be the Devil / himself, comparing it to lines delivered by other delusional-types that he's met, 'that you're Napoleon / himself' - it's a line that works, but one that Cin has yet to decipher, twenty-five (fifty -id.?) anniversary years / and counting.  Does people with akas claim to be a demon, but not a specific demon?  Is ©in / Napoleon?

                Good times, like closed-caption TV, and / or the channels you can videe where a narrator describes the action on the telee and only the audio / is audible - perhaps these two things are their own opposites, either way they are for blind and / or deaf people, respectively (that's enough -id.) - Freidkin not only describes the action on the screen as it plays out, but also repeats the lines verbatim, often even as they're being spoken, 'the power of Christ' he sings along with von Syndow's Father Merrin in this famous penultimate scene, innit Electrified JC (that's enough -id.) 'compels you'.

                And like any proud parent, Friedkin is not above admiring his own work even as he videes it again for the sake of this version of his movie, 'this scene' he says of the aforementioned final bedroom battle scene between Father Merik, his kohei Father Caris, and, well, the other side - 'the Demon' Friedkin calls their / our opponent - 'is the best battle scene that any of us will / ever / see.'  Course Friedkin hasn't seen Mel Gibson’s Braveheart from the sounds of this boasting, or the last ten minutes of 'The Empire Strikes Back', but hopefully you get / the idea, unlike a good deal of the actors in these films, who swear up and down that they never videe themselves in the movies / they've made, there never seems to be much of a shortage when it comes to finding directors to help us viewers to understand each and every damned – sorry, pardon / the pun  - thing that (s)he has already filmed once / already.

                'Is she going' Friedkin lipsynches aloud now along with Burstyn's Chris McNeil as Chris akses Jason Miller's Father Karis the million-dollar question better, 'to die?', to which of course Miller replies in the negative before heading upstairs and - spoiler alert for anyone who has not watched this movie and truly must have been living in a cave for the last forty years - tag-teaming with Regan to have the demon ©aptain Howdy jump off of her and into him before flinging himself with his last bit of humanity out the open window and onto the very steps below that earlier in the film claimed the life of Burt Dennings, who - before Regan started throwing chests of drawers through the very same windows and gave up hiding in plain sight as the number one suspect - was of course believed to have thrown his own self out the window somehow or wtf, because Burt Dennins was, you see - and this is the sort of prejudice, people, that drives this horroreviewer / (more -id.) ©insane  - a drinker, 'were you in PR for the Gestapo' the Denning character akses the McNeil's German butler better earlier in the movie, drink in hand and slurring / his stereotypes, 'or was it / the SS?'

                'I'm not going to tell you' Friedkin graciously allows at the very end, after doing just the opposite for the last hour / and a half during the audio commentary, 'what to think of this final scene', before doing just that, confessing that at the end, when all is vomited and done, Good conquers / Evil.

                Good times, 'for a long time', Friedkin says it better and to be fair very insightfully, of the scene at the end of the film where the McNeil's one-time 'assistant' and babysitter - who got much more than the astronaut cocktail parties and White House dinners that she signed up for when she first showed up to take care of the McNeils - decides to stay on in Georgetown, rather than  join Chris and Regan McNeil on their next series of (b) / (s) / (m) / (mis) / (gl) and just plain / adventures, 'she will live with this / alone.' 

                It's a good line from the adequate audio commentary of a great movie, it's what people who have seen / done unspeakable Things need to do in order / to survive themselves, namely 'live with this / alone', it certainly explains the lion's share of the horroraison d'etre of this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and House Arrest / the ho®®o®, “to me,” Galway Kinnell, RIP yesterday said it better, “poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment”. 

                Now with the film's end credits, here Come / the Bells, the sophistimicated soundtrack cousin of John Carpenter's 'Halloween' music - 'written' if that's the word for playing two chords again and again and again and again, by the director Carpenter himself for that film, and Cin better hope so, hulk-smashing away at this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and house arrest / the horror, 'written' if that's the word for playing two chords again and again and again and again is all / we gots - where Mike Oldfield from the group 'Genesis' provided The Exorcist jingles, titles ‘Bells’, both movies and both movie's music both both scary - sorry, had to - as Hell.

                Thanks for reading this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and House Arrest / the ho®®o®.