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They're still looking for the original cut of this -before Morgan Creek studio interference- but so far it's fruitless. The version we have now has many moments of brilliance in the way Blatty's previous film the Ninth Configuration has but the Nicol Williamson and crucifixion additions don't really work.

Morgan Creek claims to have "lost the footage"- or so they said back in 2007. There are, apparently, rumours the French cinema cut used some bits not in the US/UK print (notably the beheading of the priest, who ends up holding his head on a bench), but the bits Blatty wants no longer seem to exist. These are the alternative beginning, where Kinderman visits Karras's body on the slab, and however it was supposed to end, before Nicol Williamson was crowbarred in. You could also claim that there's a lot of Brad Dourif that remains to be seen- as he shot all the Gemini Killer scenes, and it was only later that Morgan Creek demanded the inclusion of Jason Miller as well.

Despite all that, it hangs together really well, I think. Would it have been a better film if it more closely followed Blatty's novel? I dunno- I read that back in about 1988, so it's too long ago for me to judge. Would like to have the opportunity to find out though.

SBT

The Exorcist III

Havent seen this in a few years, and we had a craving tonight. Gorgeous film, that even with the infamous studio-fiddling (reshoots shoving Nicol Williamson in it, as studio heads were alarmed a movie with 'exorcist' in the title didnt actually have an exorcism in it) manages to appear perfectly-pitched.

It's very clever, magnificently intense, has a powerhouse central turn from George C Scott (who shines whenever he opens his mouth, but especially in scenes with Ed Flanders and Jason Miller) and a couple of sequences that stay with you long after the end credits.

21 years ago, at the UK premier (Splatterfest 90, at the much-missed Scala) i sat with 300 or so other hardcore horror fans and watched a mexican wave of sheer horror go through the audience at the infamous corridor sequence. It's lost none of its power two decades on, and later when nursey pulls the enormous shiny head-cutter-offers out of her bag, i once again very nearly shit myself.

Ive never liked the original particularly- Mark Kermode (he'd, thankfully, be on The Gemini Killer's list, due to his second initial. That's karma, that is) may call it 'the best horror film ever made', but to me it's always been a mildly fascinating sub-hammer infrequently unsettling experience. But then, i grew up with no religious beliefs- so satan, or pazuzu, or whatever you like to call him here, is just another horror monster like Dracula or Jason Voorhees. Exorcist III somehow manages to overcome this and be extremely frightening for its entire length.

Based on the novel 'Legion' by Blatty (who wrote and directed this), the trailer reveals it came very close to having that subtitle in the final cut- and reminds me that, when announced, one uk paper reported it would feature 'a legion of exorcists fighting the devil'. Presumably as some kind of brilliant tag team.

Anyway, Exorcist III: bloody genius.

SBT

Where was that SBT?

Hastings. It was the end of the Hastings Week celebrations, you see. 1066 and all that!

SBT

Haha! yes, thanks, but it was- quite literally- merely a jog over to some Rescue Men who were standing around chatting next to their van, a pointed finger and "man. fall. cliff. hurt." deal.

Still, youve got to get praise where you can, and i fully expect Esther Rantzen to turn up and reunite me with whoever it was any minute. It does occur to me that i should have phoned the paper and insisted i go down to check he was okay. That way i couldve got a nice front page photo of me with my Dredd badge shining in the searchlights, and be a shoo-in for the KTT.

Alas, no.

SBT

Where we sitting, watching the fireworks last night is called the Ladies Parlour. Local myth has it that its haunted by 'the white lady', who wanders around it at night, searching for her baby- whom she carelessly bunged off the cliff. Brilliantly, if you see her you 'go mad'.

Every year when we go up for fireworks my eldest gets scared in case she's standing on the green as we get over the top.

At Berry Pomeroy castle, in Devon, i did an all night 'vigil' with 'clairvoyants' and 'scientists' as part of the work towards my dissertation. There are many stories of the supernatural shizzle that goes down after dark there, and we did indeed experience a lot of 'weird' and 'unexplainable' things. Well, i say 'unexplainable', but the 'clairvoyant' we had with us spent much of the time acting like we were in the middle of The Exorcist, claiming we were 'under constant attack from dark forces', so that did add to the atmosphere a bit.

That said, lots of strange things happened- but nothing that in retrospect couldnt be explained away by weather, animals, and the excitable minds of some twenty-something year old students and middle aged mentalists.

SBT

If it cannot be turned, then it will be destroyed.

SBT

Not sure what you mean there- which i'll admit is becoming the norm! ;-) but no, it didnt spoil the evening thanks- and the boys got to take a very small part in a heroic cliff rescue, (with winches, and police, and ambulance and everything). Down side is that despite there being a couple of hundred people up there with us, no one bothered to do anything about it when the distraught man started shouting that his mate had fallen off the cliff. Not one. And it was left to me to heroically, er, run over to the rescue van and let them know.
Even my littlest noticed and commented that 'the teenagers were just laughing about it and you were the only one who did anything'.
Instant hero daddy, that's me.
But im glad he was okay, whoever he was.
SBT

New Godzilla: http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/film/rebooted-godzilla.html

SBT

Minor head injury, apparently. A lucky escape i reckon.

Fireworks were great!

SBT

Except- spoke to soon. Someone just fell off the cliff, and as usual its up to muggins here to get the rescue people. Hope he/she's okay!

SBT

Because im sitting at the top of an umpteen billion year old cliff face, overlooked by a nine hundred year old castle and gazing down over a beach crammed with thousands of people, some of whom are fighting with lightsabers. Im here with my two children, having just seen hundreds of people parading with flaming torches and dressed as skeletons and buxom wenches, waiting for a £100,000 firework display celebrating nearly a thousand years of history in my home town. It's a balmy night, we dont need hats and the stars are out. Weve talked about whats on the dark side of the moon, the pole star and the plough. In ten minutes the sky will explode with light and colour.

Perhaps this should have been in the 'drokking fantastic' thread after all.

SBT

With the final episode of series one repeated beforehand at nine, so you can play catch-up.

The first tie-in novel, 'Rise of the Governor', is in shops now, priced £7.99.

SBT

Oh, and its a western in the sense that it takes place on an island off the coast of Delaware, where two families control the industry and agriculture. The muldoons are farmers, the o'flynns are fishermen, and both are at odds with the other over their approach to dealing with the zombie problem (now a month or so old). There are no cars on the island, and the iconography and themes are right out of The Big Country.

Into this come the national guardsmen who held up the winnebago in Diary, encouraged by old man o'flynn's promises of a 'safe' eden on the island. Lots of cowboy hats, revolvers and rifles, and horse-chases ensue. And zombie carnage.

SBT

Island... was the rumoured working title for Survival. They shot the whole movie under the title '? of the Dead', and apparently no one can remember where the final title came from, or who suggested it. Romero's favoured title was 'Enough of the Dead!', though he also liked the pun inherent in 'Isle of the Dead' (I Love the Dead).

So you havent missed one, youre just looking for it under the wrong name. It's the sixth Romero Dead film (Night, Dawn, Day, Land, Diary, Survival)

SBT

Yeah, glad to hear it. I think like each and every Romero zombie flick since Day, initial audience-disappointment will eventually become acceptance then love as the years go past. I, too, love Diary. Romero's Dead movies are all so different, and NONE of them are in any way like Dawn- you either appreciate that, and embrace what he does each time... or you dont, and mourn the fact he's not interested in making another one like that. Personally, ive learned to trust him and the thought of two more has me more excited than any number of other movies.

And the dvd has a brilliant 'turny two ways to make the picture move' cover (whatever that's called, i forget) that features a hand bursting out of the ground and a close up of the featured zom from the back of the uk box- only here, he's got bad, chipped, teeth.

I got mine off ebay for about nine quid. Best purchase in ages.

SBT