And yet another pop culture anniversary...

It started on this date in 1973. The TV commercial was excellent! It's a simple still shot of a mist covered pile of a home in Georgetown. A single figure stands etched in what little light emanates from the house. He's looking at it, as we are, wondering what the hell comes next.There's a voiceover, the announcer is calm and pretty subdued, but there's a hint of fear and trepidation in his voice. He says: "Something beyond comprehension is happening to a little girl on this street, in this house. A man has been called for as a last resort to try and save her. That man is The Exorcist." It was a great commercial, a great horror movie, and one of the most influential films of all time. Brilliantly marketed, masterfully hyped. For those of you too young to remember, lines snaked around the nation's theatres for weeks after its release. Thousands of people converted to Catholicism overnight. Loser parents with out of control kids suddenly just KNEW that it was actually His Satanic Majesty giving them lip and staying out all night smoking pot. Priests were beseiged by oldsters demanding their kids be beaten with crucifixes and boiled in Holy Water. Georgetown gained a new cachet as portions of it had been filmed there, and the house and steps on Prospect Street became a local landmark for the damned. (I actually got see a small scene filmed at the time - it's towards the beginning of the flick, as Ellen Burstyn is walking home along the Georgetown Canal). January '74 was just a very freaky month, (in a very freaky year).
The movie is impressive, and almost always makes everyone's Ten Best List for horror films. The book is even better, in my opinion. It's supposedly based on a real story, which is pretty much bullshit, the case has been adequately disproved as ignorant people building up their own self importance. If you haven't done so, check The Exorcist out, a great horror movie, (then check out the Saturday Night Live satire starring Richard Pryor...)