greatest blog ever!?!? Exploring all things horror and horrific. Books! Comics! Video games! TV! Movies! High school! From the gooey gory midnight show cheese to the highfalutin art-house highbrow. Beware of spoilers. I WILL SPOIL YOU!!!!!
BIO: Karen Brissette
Tuesday, November, 15, 20 _ _
The Possession , Fifteen Years Later: Episode 1 (Part 2)
All right, all right, let’s dig into the first episode, shall we? WE SHALL!!!
First, a quick addendum/important follow-up point to the previous blog post about the show’s opening. Besides serving as the patriarchal-breakdown theme of the show (as I already discussed in GREAT detail), the show’s opening explains (without having to spell it out for everyone) how a family would possibly consider allowing a network to broadcast their living nightmare: a teenage daughter going through a particularly nasty, devastating psychotic break, while believing (or pretending, yeah?) she was possessed by a demon, and a stereotypical demon at that. Let me say it simply: The Barretts were about to default on their mortgage and lose the house. They needed cash, and quick! The show’s producers paid them that quick cash for their televised pounds of flesh.
(aside 1: Sixth Finger Productions was a new company headed by Randy Francis, who was a twentysomething venture capitalist [ um, thanks for the money, Dad, gimme more ] and who has since carved out a niche producing direct-to-video fantasy flicks that rip off J. K. Rowling, George R. R. Martin, J. R. R. Tolkien, and other fantasy writers with initials in their names. How Sixth Finger heard of the Barretts’ story, how they knew to swoop in and offer financial salvation, and exactly where all the money came from before the Discovery Channel became involved is still a bit of a mystery. Father David Wanderly, the priest who befriended John Barrett, is the clear go-between for the Barretts and the production company. However, rumors of Wanderly’s involvement with conservative PACs, their monies being rerouted to the production, backroom deals with the archdiocese to keep his parish’s church from closing, and rich and powerful and mustache-twisting Opus Dei members ominously being involved are all iffy hearsay at best, as far as little old me can tell. I’ve found both unauthorized accounts of the show [ To Hell and Back: The Real Story Behind The Possession and Possession, Lies, and Videotape: The Dark Angels Behind the Possession ] lacking in the how-the-show-came-to-bedepartment, and frankly, poorly written overall. Yes, I said that.)
Okay. Enough of that. For realsies this time. Let’s get to it. To the it ! To the fictional possession of poor Marjorie Barrett, age fourteen.
After the intro, the bulk of the pilot is a string of reenactments, and sets of interviews with the parents and Father Wanderly. If the intro was the opening argument about what was at stake for the soul of family values and patriarchy in America, the meat of the pilot was the show laying out their evidence of Marjorie’s possession by an evil spirit, entity, sprite, demon, impish ne’er-do-well.
The story they present sounds a tad familiar, yeah? That’s because it should.
The Exorcist (the movie directed by William Friedkin based on the novel by William Peter Blatty) is a 1970s cultural touchtone and phenomenon. Admittedly, it has lost some of its punch, its visceral impact. To wit, aside 2.
(aside 2: I asked the neighbor’s twelve-year-old kid what his favorite movie was and he surprised me by saying The Exorcist . I asked him why. He said that, “It was really funny.” I know, the kid is a total psychopath!!!! And put three locks on my doors now!!!! But you get my point. Kids these days, ain’t a’scared by that movie no more.)
But, sheeeeet, when that movie originally came out, it messed people up big-time. Many a critic/academic/smart lady has written about how The Exorcist combined the Hollywood budget and art-house street cred with
BIO: Karen Brissette
Tuesday, November, 15, 20 _ _
The Possession , Fifteen Years Later: Episode 1 (Part 2)
All right, all right, let’s dig into the first episode, shall we? WE SHALL!!!
First, a quick addendum/important follow-up point to the previous blog post about the show’s opening. Besides serving as the patriarchal-breakdown theme of the show (as I already discussed in GREAT detail), the show’s opening explains (without having to spell it out for everyone) how a family would possibly consider allowing a network to broadcast their living nightmare: a teenage daughter going through a particularly nasty, devastating psychotic break, while believing (or pretending, yeah?) she was possessed by a demon, and a stereotypical demon at that. Let me say it simply: The Barretts were about to default on their mortgage and lose the house. They needed cash, and quick! The show’s producers paid them that quick cash for their televised pounds of flesh.
(aside 1: Sixth Finger Productions was a new company headed by Randy Francis, who was a twentysomething venture capitalist [ um, thanks for the money, Dad, gimme more ] and who has since carved out a niche producing direct-to-video fantasy flicks that rip off J. K. Rowling, George R. R. Martin, J. R. R. Tolkien, and other fantasy writers with initials in their names. How Sixth Finger heard of the Barretts’ story, how they knew to swoop in and offer financial salvation, and exactly where all the money came from before the Discovery Channel became involved is still a bit of a mystery. Father David Wanderly, the priest who befriended John Barrett, is the clear go-between for the Barretts and the production company. However, rumors of Wanderly’s involvement with conservative PACs, their monies being rerouted to the production, backroom deals with the archdiocese to keep his parish’s church from closing, and rich and powerful and mustache-twisting Opus Dei members ominously being involved are all iffy hearsay at best, as far as little old me can tell. I’ve found both unauthorized accounts of the show [ To Hell and Back: The Real Story Behind The Possession and Possession, Lies, and Videotape: The Dark Angels Behind the Possession ] lacking in the how-the-show-came-to-bedepartment, and frankly, poorly written overall. Yes, I said that.)
Okay. Enough of that. For realsies this time. Let’s get to it. To the it ! To the fictional possession of poor Marjorie Barrett, age fourteen.
After the intro, the bulk of the pilot is a string of reenactments, and sets of interviews with the parents and Father Wanderly. If the intro was the opening argument about what was at stake for the soul of family values and patriarchy in America, the meat of the pilot was the show laying out their evidence of Marjorie’s possession by an evil spirit, entity, sprite, demon, impish ne’er-do-well.
The story they present sounds a tad familiar, yeah? That’s because it should.
The Exorcist (the movie directed by William Friedkin based on the novel by William Peter Blatty) is a 1970s cultural touchtone and phenomenon. Admittedly, it has lost some of its punch, its visceral impact. To wit, aside 2.
(aside 2: I asked the neighbor’s twelve-year-old kid what his favorite movie was and he surprised me by saying The Exorcist . I asked him why. He said that, “It was really funny.” I know, the kid is a total psychopath!!!! And put three locks on my doors now!!!! But you get my point. Kids these days, ain’t a’scared by that movie no more.)
But, sheeeeet, when that movie originally came out, it messed people up big-time. Many a critic/academic/smart lady has written about how The Exorcist combined the Hollywood budget and art-house street cred with
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