Capital Celluloid - Day 299: Friday Oct 28

The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973): The Round Chapel, Powerscroft Road, Hackney, London E5 0PU

Those clever people at the Rooftop Film Club are showing classic horror movies in a church setting over three nights on Halloween weekend starting with a film which has lost none of its power to shock. More details here.  

Chicago Reader review:

'Doubtless this tale of spirit possession in Georgetown packs a punch, but so does wood alcohol,” wrote Reader critic Don Druker in an earlier review of this. I wouldn't be quite so dismissive: as a key visual source for Mel Gibson's depiction of evil in The Passion of the Christ, as well as an early indication of how seriously pulp can be taken when religious faith is involved, this 1973 horror thriller is highly instructive as well as unnerving. William Friedkin, directing William Peter Blatty's adaptation of his own novel, aims for the jugular, privileging sensation over sense and such showbiz standbys as vomit and obscenity over plodding exposition.' Jonathan Rosenbaum 

The trailer is frightening enough.

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