(the originals, not the shitty remakes).
—Marjorie’s postpuke, backward crawl out of the living room, away from the family, and up the stairs is the film negative of perhaps the most famous piece of celluloid to be cut from a film: Regan’s contorted “spiderwalk” down the stairs in The Exorcist . The special effects in both the show and the movie aren’t convincing and each “walk” scene suffers because of them.
—We get a medley of Marjorie performing contortions and linguistic horrors in the hospital and in her psychiatrist’s office. The inner demon getting its groove on for the benefit of the men (always men) of reason and science in the white antiseptic hospital room just might be the second most stereotypical scene in a possession movie (with the actual clergy-performed exorcism as number one). The Exorcist, The Rite, The Possession (the 2012 movie by Sam Raimi, featuring a sneaky little Dybbuk hidden in a Jewish wine cabinet box bought at a yard sale . . . SOLD!), season two of the gory and horny TV series American Horror Story , and . . . you get the idea. Marjorie’s psychiatrist, Dr. Hamilton, refused (of course) to be interviewed for the show. Instead we’re treated to creepy witness-protection-type interviews of orderlies, nurses, and office secretaries.
—Marjorie’s midnight screamfest, the jangling camera running down the hallway after Merry, and Marjorie’s wall climb? See The Last Exorcism . But don’t see its dumbass ending.
—Dipping briefly into the second episode, there’s the basement reenactment. Marjorie surprises her sister, Merry, down in the basement. Her cold clammy hand lands on Merry’s shoulder. She whispers more sweet nothings ramblings, clods of dirt spill from her mouth, cue the eyes rolling white, and then she slowly walks after a screaming Merry up the stairs. Marjorie’s long hair hangs down over her face for most of the scene so that she resembles Sadako, the angry spirit of Ringu (or The Ring ) and other J-horror films.
—Okay, yeah, the masturbation reenactment scene. *Deep breath* In The Exorcist , it represents the ultimate blasphemy and proof positive that the girl is possessed by an evil spirit, right? A cute, innocent little girl (wearing a prim nightgown, btw) raving like Tourettic Louis C.K. and jamming Jesus Christ up her vagina so violently she bleeds all over the place. Score one for Pazuzu, and yeah, we’re down that it must be the devil making her do it. So to speak. The Possession ’s masturbation scene is both more problematic and disturbing. It begins with a camera run from Merry’s POV as she opens her parents’ bedroom door. It’s dark, but we can see Liz Jaffe as Marjorie in profile. She’s on the bed wearing only a small black bra. Digital pixilation boxes obscure her buttocks and her hands. The camera switches away from Merry’s POV to a straight-on, close-up, loving view of Marjorie’s face. The camera pulls back and there’s a series of jump cuts that are so fast we feel like we really can’t see much of anything in real time. I’ve watched this scene with countless friends and I’ve asked them what they saw after viewing it in real time and no two answers are the same, until I slow it down. Going frame by frame we see the following: Marjorie biting her lower lip; a shadow on the wall of a bedpost, and can we say phallus?; forearms framing her six-pack abs and navel; open mouth and tongue on her teeth; biceps framing her cleavage; a white inner thigh; blood on white sheets; a wooden cross hanging on the wall; her closed eyes, white forehead, and wooden headboard; a bearded male face covered in blood (hmm, Satan?); a full shot between her legs, dark and pixilated so we can’t see her actual fingers in her actual dirty lady parts vagina; the bedpost again, only its shadow is larger than it was previously; her knees together; the wooden cross again, totally in shadow; her feet with curled toes; then finally three different
—Marjorie’s postpuke, backward crawl out of the living room, away from the family, and up the stairs is the film negative of perhaps the most famous piece of celluloid to be cut from a film: Regan’s contorted “spiderwalk” down the stairs in The Exorcist . The special effects in both the show and the movie aren’t convincing and each “walk” scene suffers because of them.
—We get a medley of Marjorie performing contortions and linguistic horrors in the hospital and in her psychiatrist’s office. The inner demon getting its groove on for the benefit of the men (always men) of reason and science in the white antiseptic hospital room just might be the second most stereotypical scene in a possession movie (with the actual clergy-performed exorcism as number one). The Exorcist, The Rite, The Possession (the 2012 movie by Sam Raimi, featuring a sneaky little Dybbuk hidden in a Jewish wine cabinet box bought at a yard sale . . . SOLD!), season two of the gory and horny TV series American Horror Story , and . . . you get the idea. Marjorie’s psychiatrist, Dr. Hamilton, refused (of course) to be interviewed for the show. Instead we’re treated to creepy witness-protection-type interviews of orderlies, nurses, and office secretaries.
—Marjorie’s midnight screamfest, the jangling camera running down the hallway after Merry, and Marjorie’s wall climb? See The Last Exorcism . But don’t see its dumbass ending.
—Dipping briefly into the second episode, there’s the basement reenactment. Marjorie surprises her sister, Merry, down in the basement. Her cold clammy hand lands on Merry’s shoulder. She whispers more sweet nothings ramblings, clods of dirt spill from her mouth, cue the eyes rolling white, and then she slowly walks after a screaming Merry up the stairs. Marjorie’s long hair hangs down over her face for most of the scene so that she resembles Sadako, the angry spirit of Ringu (or The Ring ) and other J-horror films.
—Okay, yeah, the masturbation reenactment scene. *Deep breath* In The Exorcist , it represents the ultimate blasphemy and proof positive that the girl is possessed by an evil spirit, right? A cute, innocent little girl (wearing a prim nightgown, btw) raving like Tourettic Louis C.K. and jamming Jesus Christ up her vagina so violently she bleeds all over the place. Score one for Pazuzu, and yeah, we’re down that it must be the devil making her do it. So to speak. The Possession ’s masturbation scene is both more problematic and disturbing. It begins with a camera run from Merry’s POV as she opens her parents’ bedroom door. It’s dark, but we can see Liz Jaffe as Marjorie in profile. She’s on the bed wearing only a small black bra. Digital pixilation boxes obscure her buttocks and her hands. The camera switches away from Merry’s POV to a straight-on, close-up, loving view of Marjorie’s face. The camera pulls back and there’s a series of jump cuts that are so fast we feel like we really can’t see much of anything in real time. I’ve watched this scene with countless friends and I’ve asked them what they saw after viewing it in real time and no two answers are the same, until I slow it down. Going frame by frame we see the following: Marjorie biting her lower lip; a shadow on the wall of a bedpost, and can we say phallus?; forearms framing her six-pack abs and navel; open mouth and tongue on her teeth; biceps framing her cleavage; a white inner thigh; blood on white sheets; a wooden cross hanging on the wall; her closed eyes, white forehead, and wooden headboard; a bearded male face covered in blood (hmm, Satan?); a full shot between her legs, dark and pixilated so we can’t see her actual fingers in her actual dirty lady parts vagina; the bedpost again, only its shadow is larger than it was previously; her knees together; the wooden cross again, totally in shadow; her feet with curled toes; then finally three different
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