There’s not a lot to be added to the last review I wrote of this movie, except to say, it remains a firm favourite. I noticed more than ever how clunky it might appear to some – it’s clearly a movie that suffered in post-production (there have been many, many different versions of it through the years: get the latest and greatest DVD made with the supervision of William Peter Blatty and Mark Kermode) – but somehow it adds so much of the film’s character.

One thing I found fascinating on this viewing was something I read on the ‘net and I hope it’s true, if anyone can send me the source it’d make me really happy. Apparently William Peter Blatty has stated that Cutshaw is meant to be the astronaut who Regan tells, “You’re gonna die up there…” in The Exorcist. It seems a lot of people require major connections in Blatty’s “Trilogy of Faith” (The Exorcist, The Ninth Configuration, and Legion (Exorcist III)). I never had a problem with the tenuous link between The Ninth and the other two: the message is so abundantly in keeping with the Trilogy that I never gave the astronaut link any thought, but it would be pretty cool if Blatty did say this.

Below is the old review.

“Cutshaw, why won’t you go to the moon?”

“I tried, Sir, see the stars….. so cold… so far… and so very lonely. Oh so lonely. All that space. Just empty… space. And so far from home. I’ve circled round and round this house… orbit… after orbit. Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like, never to stop. And circle lone up there, forever. And what if I got there. Got to the moon. And couldn’t get back. Sure… everyone dies… but I’m afraid to die alone, so far from home. And if there’s no god, then that’s really... really… alone.”

”... I’ll show you… I’ll show you... God … exists…”

I don’t believe in God. I am not religious. I believe in a higher power and I’m definitely a spiritual being, I just don’t believe in religion because of the strange human reasoning it brings out in people. But this movie, despite the language it uses, Blatty is a catholic, still enforces my own beliefs, and I’m sure it will do so, obviously specifically if you’re catholic. It is so powerful, even miraculous. Yet it’s also sidesplittingly funny and I rarely use that phrase. Blatty is really funny when he gets going, and what it does is add real warmth to his characters, so when he piles on the religious babble it really impacts. I can’t say enough about this movie, for one ‘cos it affects me too much personally and for two ‘cos I don’t want to give it all away. It’s beautiful. Freeze frame ending – the best.

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