Last night, I had a first look at the pilot for Fox’s upcoming reboot of “The Exorcist.” It’s a decidedly mixed bag.
A full review will follow later on, but what I saw was a theological mess, had a very peculiar idea of what Catholic priests are and do, but was atmospheric and had some suspenseful elements.
But, at least the Church is shown doing what it does best, battle incarnate evil.
That’s not what was happening on the streets of San Diego. From The Hollywood Reporter:
Fox is staging “surprise” exorcisms in downtown San Diego to promote the network’s upcoming reboot of The Exorcist. The Hollywood Reporter witnessed the first exorcism of the weekend outside of the Hard Rock hotel across from the Convention Center on Friday morning.
When the exorcism began, no one near the commotion really knew what was happening. A space was cleared on the sidewalk, and two seemingly random Con attendees, a guy and a girl, walked through it. The guy collapsed onto the ground out of nowhere, and he puked while his body was twitching and contorting in alarming ways. His friend freaked out and didn’t know what to do. Then, two priests stepped in to save the “possessed” guy in the staged flash exorcism. While it was shocking at first, by the end of the stunt everyone knew it was all for fun and the “possessed” person had been in on the ruse from the very start.
Oh, demonic possession, just a barrel of laughs.
Here’s “The Exorcist” trailer:
Image: Courtesy Fox
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