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Prosecution rebuts allegations of misconduct in Strong case

First Posted: 10/18/2013 Hardly a Halloween goes by without another re-release of &#8220;The Exorcist&#8221; but the newly issued Blu-ray set (Warner, R, $50) is easily the best of the bunch because it includes pristine, hi-def versions of both the original theatrical edition and the 10-minutes-longer director&#8217;s cut.
Forty years after it was first released, the saga of a 12-year-old&#8217;s (Linda Blair) possession still grips you like a vice because director William Friedkin is as interested in the mystery of faith as he is in scaring you silly. And the head-spinning, pea-soup-spewing effects are pretty cool too.
Playing the title role is the Scranton-reared Jason Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who, in 1982, returned to NEPA to become the artistic director at the Scranton Public Theatre, which he co-founded.
Even though &#8220;The Exorcist&#8221; was Miller&#8217;s screen debut, he delivers a powerhouse turn as Father Damian Karras. While Regan (Blair) is in the early stages of possession, Karras is undergoing his own crisis of faith.
Karras&#8217; guilt over not being with his mother when she died seems to make him more vulnerable to the demon during the climactic exorcism scene.
The latest Blu-ray edition proves that thanks to Friedkin&#8217;s eye for chilling details and Miller&#8217;s tortured performance, the granddaddy of all possession flicks has stood the test of time. &#8220;The Exorcist&#8221; is still the kind of movie you need to watch with the lights on.

MOVIE AMY ‘The Exorcist’ still chills after all these years