Latest news with #WilliamFriedkin
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Oscar-nominated horror movie star of 'cursed' blockbuster looks unrecognizable on rare outing
A horror movie icon who shot to fame in a 'cursed' blockbuster which threw her personal life into turmoil was seen on a rare public outing this week. The Oscar nominated star's debut leading role, saw her become a worldwide star but hit with death threats and sensationally accused of promoting Satanic beliefs. Her later career would be blighted by box office flops as she was 'typecast' as a distressed teen. She was famously arrested for drug possession aged 18, and also posed nude on the cover of Playboy five years later. In recent years she has pivoted from acting to a focus on her animal rescue - although did reprise her most iconic role in the film's 2023 sequel. So can you guess who she is? It's The Exorcist star Linda Blair! The actress, now 66, starred as possessed Regan MacNeil in the iconic 1973 film aged just 14. Blair cut a low-key figure in a black tee, straw hat and high waisted trousers as she wheeled her suitcase at LAX. The original movie debuted in December 1973, following Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) as she enlists the help of two priests (Max Von Sydow and William O'Malley) to exorcise a demon from her daughter Regan. William Friedkin (The French Connection) directed the original, with The Exorcist author William Peter Blatty writing the screenplay adaptation based on his book. Fans who flocked to the sensational film, were shocked at scenes that showed Blair's character involved in terrible violence and profanity. In one gruesome moment Regan is shown masturbating with a crucifix. Other scenes show the character's head-spinning and vomiting over a priest, who was trying to expel the demon from Regan's body. The Exorcist was controversial and subsequently banned or restricted in some countries - and it was even claimed the film was 'cursed' after a mysterious set fire and mishaps during production. Friedkin himself said: 'We were plagued by strange and sinister things from the beginning, it is simply the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.' The film is still considered to be one of the scariest movies of all time, earning $441 million at the box office and earning 10 Oscar nominations, making history as the first horror movie ever to earn a Best Picture nomination. The role earned Blair a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. At the time of the film's release, rumors spread Blair had been killed off during its making. There were other stories that the young star had survived the film, but had come away psychologically damaged after acting out the demonic possession. Blair later reprised her role as Regan in the Exorcist sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977 - which was a critical and commercial failure. That same year aged 18 she was charged with conspiracy to commit a felony in the alleged sale and purchase of cocaine. She pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of conspiracy to possess cocaine, in exchange for three years' probation. Blair fractured her spine while thrashing around on a mechanical bed for the film - with the injury developing into scoliosis. Blair would never reach the heights of her The Exorcist performance again. In 1974 she starred as a runaway teenager suffering sexual abuse in controversial TV film Born Innocent. That same year aged 15 she dated Australian singer Rick Springfield, who was 25 at the time. Establishing herself as a Scream Queen, she starred in horror films including Stranger in Our House in 1978, Hell Night in 1981 and and Grotesque in 1988. She was nominated for five Razzie Awards between 1980-1985. On a trip to Australia in 2013, Linda Blair admitted to the Daily Telegraph that the films producers had deliberately spread rumors about her and the movie to stir up controversy. 'There was all this negativity about what I had been through, so I began this world press tour,' she explained. 'I went out to England and Australia and all over the world to talk about the film and to show that I was fine.' In 1982 in an attempt to break free of her horror movie roots, she posed nude for Playboy. In 1996 she made a cameo in Scream and appeared on Broadway the following year in Grease. In 2006, she guest-starred on Supernatural, playing the part of Detective Diana Ballard. In 2010, she appeared as herself on the cable series Pit Boss and Jury Duty. Before The Exorcist: Believer, her last screen role was in ghost drama Landfill in 2021. She reprised her Regan role again in 2023's The Exorcist: Believer.
Digital Trends
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Check out this great neo-noir before it leaves Amazon Prime Video next week (July 2025)
When you're actually trying to figure out which titles you should prioritize on a given streaming service, it can feel almost impossible. Speaking for myself, I know that trying to pick a single thing to watch from among the vast array of titles available on services like Prime Video can feel almost impossible. What I often do, then, is pick something that won't be available for long. Prime Video has plenty of titles coming and going all the time, and if you're looking for one to watch this month, I'd start with To Live and Die in L.A. Here are three reasons you should check it out: Recommended Videos We also have guides to the best new movies to stream, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on HBO Max, and the best movies on Disney+. It's a dark, moody action movie Although To Live and Die in L.A. is in some ways a standard cop action movie of the 1980s, in others it's much stranger and more nihilistic than that description makes it sound. The film follows a rogue cop who, after losing his partner to a master counterfeiter, becomes hellbent on revenge. As he pushes the boundaries of his job, we find ourselves wondering whether he's gone way too far in the pursuit of justice. It's a nervy movie that you might walk away from hating both the hero and the villain, which remains one of the reasons why it's aged well. It's rarely available to stream This is a slightly unusual reason, but one of the best reasons to check out To Live and Die in L.A. is that the movie is actually usually pretty hard to watch on streaming. This is a rare window where the movie's available, and given that it's one of the definitive action movies of the 1980s, it's well worth your time. Given the uncertainty of licensing rights, you can never tell when a movie is going to pop up on streaming and when it might disappear for years at a time. While streaming isn't the only way to watch movies, it's often the most convenient, so take advantage of this convenience while you can. It features Willem Dafoe at his villainous best While the entire ensemble of To Live and Die in L.A. is doing excellent work, the movie's true standout performer is almost undoubtedly Willem Dafoe, who plays the master counterfeiter. Dafoe is not known for playing nice guys, but his performance as the villain at the center of this movie is particularly unsettling because he's so cold and calculating. Dafoe can be big and hammy, but here, he underplays almost every scene in a way that makes him seem deeply real and just as malevolent as you would want him to be. It's a great early turn from one of our best actors. You can watch To Live and Die in L.A. on Amazon Prime Video.
Forbes
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Friedkin's Masterpiece ‘Sorcerer' Joins The Criterion Collection
A truck laden with unstable dynamite crosses a dilapidated bridge in William Friedkin's 1977 ... More thriller 'Sorcerer' Courtesy of Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures Sorcerer seemed like a sure thing, a guaranteed box office hit. Two of director William Friedkin's previous films ( The French Connection and The Exorcist ) received eighteen Oscar nominations, winning seven including Best Picture for The French Connection . The Exorcist shattered box office records for a horror film, grossing $ 193 million on a $ 12 million budget. It has since grossed over $ 440 million after numerous theatrical re-releases. Throw in Roy Scheider (Chief Brody from Jaws ), the leading man in the highest grossing film of all-time (as of 1975), and you have a recipe for a blockbuster hit. Yet upon its release on June 24, 1977, Sorcerer grossed less that $ 13,000 on a $ 22 million budget. That's not a typo. Thirteen THOUSAND dollars. What went wrong? It was a troubled production that ran overbudget, but how did so much talent fall flat in theaters? Ultimately, it was just bad luck. A small science fiction film called Star Wars was released four weeks before Sorcerer . These were the days before home video. The only way to see a film was in theaters, and Star Wars mania dominated the country when Sorcerer hit theaters. Audiences wanted to see Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader square off for the third, fourth or fifth time rather than check out a thriller about four men transporting volatile cargo through a South American jungle. For decades Sorcerer simply disappeared. In the formative years of the home video market, no one wanted to put out a flop on VHS (nor later on DVD). If it didn't do well in theaters, no one was paying $ 80.00 for a VHS copy of it. So, Sorcerer fell into obscurity. A few weeks ago a gorgeous edition of Sorcerer hit shelves courtesy of The Criterion Collection. Being added to their global canon of cinema not only gives film fans a beautiful 4K UHD edition of the film, but it also serves to place William Friedkin in his proper context as one of THE auteurs of the 1970's, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. There have been other releases of the film, but this is the best looking and sounding edition of Sorcerer you'll find. Briefly (so as not to spoil the fun), Sorcerer is the tale of desperate men taking desperate measures to extract themselves from the squalor of the South American hellhole they find themselves in. A local oil company is battling a raging fire at one of its wells. Standard operating procedure is to create a large explosion that sucks the oxygen out of the immediate surroundings and extinguishes the fire. The only problem: the oil company has used all their on-site dynamite to clear the surrounding jungle. Enter Jackie Scanlon (Scheider) and his motley crew who sign on to transport a load of sweaty, unstable dynamite through the 'roads' of a South American jungle. For those of you who aren't chemists (like me), dynamite 'sweats' nitroglycerine. All it takes is a big bounce to blow the cargo and drivers sky high. Scanlon and his comrades are literally driving a bomb through the jungle with a big theoretical paycheck waiting for the survivors. Master French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot tackled this same subject matter in his 1953 black and white masterpiece The Wages of Fear which is also enshrined in The Criterion Collection. Sorcerer is a master class of suspense and character development. The opening of the film is a brief origin story for each of the four men and gives their characters a depth that was largely ignored in typical 1970's thrillers. We know why each man is willing to take on such a dangerous assignment. They all need a miracle to turn their lives around. The search for that miracle culminates in one of the bravura suspense sequences in film history as they navigate the decaying span of a rotting bridge in a torrential downpour (pictured above). Criterion is the gold standard for film restoration. Their new 4K digital restoration of the film and its accompanying 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack were approved by Friedkin prior to his death in August 2023. Remastering 1970's films is tricky business. The goal is to make it sharper and richer without losing all the film grain in the process. It's no surprise to anyone that Criterion nailed it. Sorcerer hasn't looked this good since the weekend of its ill-fated opening. (Be certain to turn off any motion smoothing function on your television, and set the frame rate to 24 frames a second to avoid that strange polished look that TV manufacturers created for live sports broadcasts.) This release of Sorcerer is full of the kind of extra content that seems to be omitted from so many home video releases these days. The Criterion edition includes Friedkin Uncut , a 2018 feature length documentary on the director's career. Fans are getting two Friedkin films in one. All Criterion releases are currently 50% off at Barnes & Noble (through July 27th). Add Sorcerer to your collection and rediscover an underseen classic that deserved a much better fate in theaters than it received.
India.com
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- India.com
This horror thriller will send chills down your spine, only 25 people watched in theatres, few were unconscious for days; movie is…, lead actors were…
In 1973, a film emerged that would redefine the horror genre and leave an indelible mark on cinematic history. Directed by William Friedkin and based on William Peter Blatty's novel, 'The Exorcist' delved into the harrowing tale of a young girl's demonic possession and the desperate exorcism attempts by two priests. Its chilling narrative, combined with groundbreaking special effects, captivated audiences and critics alike, earning it ten Academy Award nominations and securing two wins. How The Exorcist Landed In Controversy? Upon its release, 'The Exorcist' met with both acclaim and controversy. Its intense scenes led to reports of fainting and distress among viewers, prompting some theaters to provide barf bags and others to ban the trailer altogether, as it shows the face of the demon in black and white, which disturbed many. Despite or perhaps because of these reactions, the film drew massive crowds, eager to experience the unprecedented horror firsthand. Was There Any Impact On The Mind Of Audiences? It is worth noting that many strange incidents happened during the shooting of this film. A fire broke out on the shooting set of this film and some crew members died. At the same time, when it was released in theaters, many viewers had heart attacks and many remained unconscious for several days. The production house, Warner Bros., chose to release the film in just 25 theaters at first to assess how audiences would react and to handle the strong responses noted during the screenings. How The Exorcist Became Nightmare For Many? As per The New York Times, it was reported that once inside the theater, approximately 25 people, who came to watch this nightmare, vomited due to the graphic content on the screen. Others fainted or exited the theater feeling nauseous, started crying and shaking before the film had finished halfway. One pregnant woman, who came to see 'The Exorcist' with her husband, went into a deep state of shock, due to which she suffered a miscarriage. The Mind-Boggling Collection Of The Exorcist Financially, 'The Exorcist' was a monumental success. With a modest budget of 11 million, it grossed approximately 233 million domestically and an additional 197 million internationally, culminating in a worldwide total of around 430 million. When adjusted for inflation, this figure translates to over ₹3,500 crore, solidifying its status as one of the highest-grossing horror films of all time. The bone-chilling flick featured Ellen Burstyn, Late Max von Sydow, Late Jason Miller, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Winn, Jack MacGowran, Father William O'Malley, Barton Heyman, Peter Masterson and Rudolf Schündler, in which music part was helmed by renowned music composer Late Jack Nitzsche, whose composition can still give you chills.
India.com
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- India.com
This 2-hour 2-minute horror thriller will send chills down your spine, only 25 people watched in theatres and few were unconscious for days; movie is…, lead actors were…
In 1973, a film emerged that would redefine the horror genre and leave an indelible mark on cinematic history. Directed by William Friedkin and based on William Peter Blatty's novel, 'The Exorcist' delved into the harrowing tale of a young girl's demonic possession and the desperate exorcism attempts by two priests. Its chilling narrative, combined with groundbreaking special effects, captivated audiences and critics alike, earning it ten Academy Award nominations and securing two wins. How The Exorcist Landed In Controversy? Upon its release, 'The Exorcist' met with both acclaim and controversy. Its intense scenes led to reports of fainting and distress among viewers, prompting some theaters to provide barf bags and others to ban the trailer altogether, as it shows the face of the demon in black and white, which disturbed many. Despite or perhaps because of these reactions, the film drew massive crowds, eager to experience the unprecedented horror firsthand. Was There Any Impact On The Mind Of Audiences? It is worth noting that many strange incidents happened during the shooting of this film. A fire broke out on the shooting set of this film and some crew members died. At the same time, when it was released in theaters, many viewers had heart attacks and many remained unconscious for several days. How The Exorcist Became Nightmare For Many? As per The New York Times, it was reported that once inside the theater, approximately 25 people, who came to watch this nightmare, vomited due to the graphic content on the screen. Others fainted or exited the theater feeling nauseous, started crying and shaking before the film had finished halfway. One pregnant woman, who came to see 'The Exorcist' with her husband, went into a deep state of shock, due to which she suffered a miscarriage. The Mind-Boggling Collection Of The Exorcist Financially, 'The Exorcist' was a monumental success. With a modest budget of 11 million, it grossed approximately 233 million domestically and an additional 197 million internationally, culminating in a worldwide total of around 430 million. When adjusted for inflation, this figure translates to over ₹3,500 crore, solidifying its status as one of the highest-grossing horror films of all time. The bone-chilling flick featured Ellen Burstyn, Late Max von Sydow, Late Jason Miller, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Winn, Jack MacGowran, Father William O'Malley, Barton Heyman, Peter Masterson and Rudolf Schündler, in which music part was helmed by renowned music composer Late Jack Nitzsche, whose composition can still give you chills.
