The Exorcist – Director's Cut

A re-release with an impeccable digital soundtrack and ten minutes of extra footage, including the notorious 'spider walk' (which lasts about 3 seconds) and a longer coda with corny banter between the cop and Father Dyer. As any aficionado will tell you, this is not a 'director's cut' in any real sense (Friedkin's version was released in 1973), but it's probably closer to how writer/producer Blatty might have edited the film. As well as new subliminal demon imagery, it also includes a scene between Chris and Regan's first doctor, and an expanded role for von Sydow's Father Merrin, most notably a key speech about why the demon has picked on this little girl: to make us despair for humanity. In other words it's now more than ever a faithful Catholic treatise on Evil, even if the film's shock effects remain at least half the story. Either way it's rigged, but it certainly puts you through an emotional grinder.