Hey folks, Harry here... You know, I received this letter from Dr. Kilgore, which is basically a letter that expresses his outrage at little children being taken to see THE EXORCIST.
Ya know what? Don't be a friggin prig dude. By the age of 5 I was a major horror aficionado. My parents took me to everything. When I saw something particularly violent, I never once thought... Hmmmm, I'll go kill my fellow students... I wanted to do what I saw on screen to my best friend... and then talk with him afterwards... Meaning... when I saw someone getting their head blown clean off, I wanted to know how to do that to my friend and myself, and live to tell about it. So I read Fangoria, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Cinefex, etc. My parents always bought me make up, mortician's wax... all sorts of stuff. I remember saving the chicken bones from supper.... washing them... breaking them in half... and making it look like my finger had a compound fracture. I remember discovering the secret formula to create blood...
I was psychologically tortured with the undead ghastly ghoulies on cinema screens... My parents' biggest threat to me growing up was threatening to take me to a graveyard... which, from my Romero films, I knew was from whence came Zombies. Tis better to fear latex and caro syrup with red dye number five, than the hand of your father or mother.
Dr. Kilgore.... you raise your child, and let the family with the well behaved non-crying child that sat next to you... RAISE THEIR CHILD. From the description... she knows how to behave in a theater. And what was going through her head? Well probably the same things that went through my sister's head when I showed her EXORCIST which was... according to her.... was great concern for the poor girl that was possessed with the devil. Hmmmmm, imagine that... sympathy.... god forbid our children develop that.
Folks, Right now in this country we have a lot of politicians attempting to get elected into office by pulling a big ol Joseph McCarthy... These ramrod idiots are pointing at Hollywood and blaming R-rated films for Columbine, instead of pointing at the fact that those two kids were able to get GUNS and EXPLOSIVES.... That those kids were able in their rooms to construct pipe bombs without their parents ever caring.... That the kids had a website that detailed what they were planning... and the parents never visited it to see what their kids were up to. MAYBE IF THEIR PARENTS TOOK THEM TO MOVIES, SAT WITH THEM, and TALKED TO THEM..... MAYBE IF A GUN TAX CAME IN THAT RAISED THE COST TO... LET'S SAY A MINIMUM OF $1000 per gun.... THESE KIDS WOULD NOT OF HAD THE FUNDS TO ACQUIRE THEIR GUNS... Sigh... Yes, I'm sure modern violent cinema is responsible for LEOPOLD AND LOEB... I'm positive about it. UH HUH... Riiiiiiight. BONNIE AND CLYDE (19 and 22) were cinema inspired murders... right? Folks... young idiots have been killing and murdering since the dawn of time. They have bodies that can inflict violent death, they have fragile egos, social dysfunction.... and so long as they can't get their hands on GUNS and EXPLOSIVES they generally only end up in knife fights and brawls. BUT NO AMOUNT OF CINEMA CONTROLS will change this.
I'm willing to bet more people have been inspired to be priest by the Exorcist than have been inspired to masturbate violently with a crucifix while shoving their mother's face to their crotch while screaming out LICK ME. Not to mention all the young impressionable children that have died attempting to spin their heads in circles.
The issue in politics today is Hollywood, because they don't quite have the pull of... say the Gun Control lobby... or the Insurance Lobby... God forbid they talk about Health Care, Tax Reform, Media Education for their children... Nah... they'd rather kneejerk approve hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to retrofit bathrooms on Naval vessels for unisex capabilities so female military folks don't stare at Urinals.... sigh.... But ya know, THE MATRIX is what's wrong with society. Yup.... It must be.... I mean, haven't you seen a gigantic flurry of hundreds of kids all through the country trying to blast away police officers to free their friends picked up for having a fake driver's license?
Sorry... You see folks, to me... this problem is absolutely ludicrous... What I'd like to see is Gore or Bush step up to the plate and offer a proposal of placing an education reform bill, where we raise education funding... and initiating a Media Education series of classes that teach students to analyze media (music, tv, film) with an eye to messages, underlying themes, creation, etc. I mean, if today's children are listening to more music, watching more tv, and seeing more films... than they are reading books... Perhaps a series of classes beginning in Elementary Schools on those exact subjects... maybe that's kinda important... maybe... Here's the gripey letter...
Hey Harry-
Call me Dr. Kilgore. I had a bad experience today with this new version....please read on:
I thought I'd check out this new version.........curious about what had been added, and not expecting anyone else to be at the theatre. I mean, who would go see a dated horror film thats 27 years old????
Apparently the sold out audience I saw it with this afternoon, 75% of which had obviously never seen it before (mostly teenagers and idiots with their children, whom I presumed recognized the word "exorcist" (as in evil) in the film ads, assumed it was a horror film, and probably thought it was brand new..)
In my neck of the woods, parents take their 4 and 5 year olds to every movie, regardless of what it is about, how much violence is in it, how many people are having sex, and how many unpleasant words are shouted. So I was more than dismayed when I had to sit next to a 5 year old little black girl throughout the course of the entire film, only because her parents had dragged her to it because they wanted to see it. (She sat stone faced through the whole thing, a deer in headlights.....in a state of shock..........how a parent could be so careless is beyond me. Granted, she did not cry, but she was probably afraid to do so.) [I cannot imagine having seen this movie when I was five] So this is not really a review of the new version (there are a couple new scenes that are effective:
1) We see an early physical and psychological exam of Reagan that is not in the original that is very good and strange.
2) The "Spider walk", which I had never seen, but heard alot about, is bizarre....to say the least. Although I do not think it really makes a difference.
3) The original ending, which may be the worst ending to any film I have ever seen in my life. Why they decided to reinstate this footage is a question only god can answer.
.....but what is most upsetting was watching it with the psychotic freaks who dragged their helpless kids to it.........I swear, a little kid.....no more than three or four in front of me, asked his Mom during the scene where Reagan (the girl) is masturbating with a crucifix why she is doing that....it sounded like he was about to cry ....and his mother said to him..."shut up and watch."
Welcome to the 21rst century-
