demons – Mysterium Coniunctionis

It was just over a year ago that I read Rosson’s Fever House. I really enjoyed that novel and the way it reformatted the familiar zombie apocalypse trope.

I’m sad to report however that volume 2 of the duology is less satisfying. The Devil by Name mostly moves characters around in order to get them in the right place at the right time for the climax. And the climax is sort of Clive Barker rewriting The Stand. Lots of gothic horror and special effects, but a bit rote and too tidy a means of tying up multiple loose ends.

If you read the Game of Thrones novels, you may recall that the fifth novel felt as though Mr. Martin had lost the plot, and was sort of moving an enormous cast of characters around aimlessly as he tried to figure out how to resolve the enormous series of events he’d unfolded, while introducing new characters, cultures, and armies along the way. I think a lack of resolution is in some cases better, and Fever House could have stood alone.

That said, I will read more of Keith Rosson. He’s got skills, and won the Shirley Jackson award for a short fiction collection which sounds right up my alley.

Recently I saw that Amazon in France was selling The Exorcist for 2.99 euros. I’d not seen it for decades, and wanted to see how it held up. Also, the numerous times I’d watched it previously were on US television, heavily edited and pan-and scanned to fit the square TV screens at that time. I thought it would be fun to revisit.

I was absolutely horrified and disgusted and terrified! What a searing, potent film. Yes, some of the effects are a bit wobbly in our age of perfect CGI, but oh my god this is highly effective horror. I literally could not bear it.

On broadcast television I used to be bored by all the medical scenes and the initial consultations with the priest, etc. But re-watching now as an adult in a pristine high-quality stream on a large television I was totally absorbed.

I’d say that it’s in my top three horror films of all time, easily. I’ve read the novel and know the “true” case upon which the story is based, had seen edited versions likely a dozen times–but still I found the tension and the tragedy of the film difficult to endure. I love the hard-drinking, cigarette-smoking priests, and of course Max von Sydow was a force of nature in everything he ever did.

Interesting to notice how much influence The Exorcist had on other movies–particularly there are several scenes or shots completely ripped off by Spielburg/Lucas in Raiders of the Lost Ark. That initial sequence introducing Father Merrin in the desert is re-used substantially to build Indiana Jones’s character.

Funny a couple days after watching The Exorcist to receive in the mail the current issue of Harper’s Magazine. The cover story is about a surge in exorcisms performed in the USA of late. Old Scratch is busy as ever possessing the economically dispossessed in Appalachia.

I should also note that the previous owner of our building in France had an exorcism performed to clear away a malevolent female spirit he encountered several times, including one instance where he was physically attacked. I asked him what the ceremony entailed, and he said “love and forgiveness and total acceptance of the entity.”