Just in time for Halloween and Friday the 13th, Warner Bros. is treated horror fans with the new DVD release of The Exorcist - The Complete Anthology. The set collects the 1973 classic The Exorcist (presented in its Original Theatrical Version and the 2000 Version You've Never Seen), the 1977 follow-up Exorcist II: The Heretic, and 1990’s The Exorcist III. The set also includes both versions of the prequel (by two different directors) to The Exorcist story – Dominion and The Beginning. The set also comes with a low suggested retail price of $42.98.
The Exorcist was directed by William Friedkin, and stars Jason Miller, Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Winn and Linda Blair. Based on the 1971 novel by William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist marries three different scenarios into one extraordinary plot. A visiting actress in Washington, D.C., notices dramatic and dangerous changes in the behavior and physical make-up of her 12-year-old daughter.
Meanwhile, a young priest at nearby Georgetown University begins to doubt his faith while dealing with his mother's terminal sickness. And, book-ending the story, a frail, elderly priest recognizes the necessity for a show-down with an old demonic enemy.
Exorcist II: The Heretic was directed by John Boorman, and stars Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Max von Sydow, and Kitty Winn. In the film, the demon is back in this the second film of the three part series as a new priest played by Richard Burton tries to find the demon still living inside Regan (Linda Blair).
The Exorcist III was directed by William Peter Blatty and stars George C. Scott, Ed Flanders, Brad Dourif, Jason Miller, Nicol Williamson. The film ignores Exorcist II: The Heretic, and deals with a serial killer who was executed the same night of the exorcism in the first film with the girl Regan.
The priest who fell down the flight of steps was been taken into the spirit of the killer to claim victim after victim some 20 years later. The killer mutilates priests and doctors and uses old women as a suspect. After the returning police detective Kinderman sees that it is the same serial killings of the Zodiac, he and another priest decide to find and destroy the killer's spirit with using the final exorcism. But this exorcism will be much dangerous...
Exorcist: The Beginning was directed by Renny Harlin and stars Stellan Skarsgård, Izabella Scorupco, James D'Arcy, Remy Sweeney, Julian Wadham. The film follows Father Lankester Merrin who thinks that he has glimpsed the face of Evil. In the years following World War II, Merrin is relentlessly haunted by memories of the unspeakable brutality perpetrated against the innocent people of his parish during the War.
In the wake of all the horror he has seen, both his faith in his fellow man and his faith in the Almighty have deserted him, and he can no longer honestly call himself a man of God. Merrin has traveled far from his native Holland in a desperate attempt to try to forget and escape all the evil that he had witnessed there. While currently in Cairo, Egypt, he is approached by a collector of rare antiquities and asked to participate in a British archeological excavation in the remote Turkana region of Kenya.
They have unearthed something extraordinary and unusual...a Christian Byzantine church dating from the 5th century, long before Christianity arrived in East Africa, and in inexplicably perfect condition--like it had been buried immediately after it was completed. The collector wants Merrin, an Oxford-educated archeologist, to find an ancient relic hidden within the church before the British do.
Interested, Merrin agrees to take the job. But beneath the church, something much older and malevolent sleeps, waiting to be awoken. When the archeologists start excavating, strange things begin occurring, and the local Turkana tribesmen who were hired to work refuse to enter the site. Things only get worse and worse, ultimately resulting in madness and death.
Merrin watches helplessly as the atrocities of war are repeated against another innocent village--atrocities he had hoped and prayed never to see again. The blood of innocents flows freely on the East African plain, but the horror has only just begun. In the place where Evil was born, Merrin will finally see its true face.
Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist was directed by Paul Schrader and stars Stellan Skarsgård, Gabriel Mann, Clara Bellar, Billy Crawford, Ralph Brown. The film follows the same basic plot of Harlin’s take, but has a more psychological slant on the story. Warner Bros. reportedly replaced Schrader after seeing the film and feeling it didn’t have enough scares. Harlin took the director’s chair and cranked up the blood and body count.
The Exorcist - The Complete Anthology is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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