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_special screening ,

Boorman and the Devil + Q&A Special Screening Tonight

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I recently got the heads up regarding a screening and question/answer session with director David Kittredge of his documentary Boorman and the Devil at The Genesis Cinema this Thursday today.

I am not familiar with David Kittredge's work but any insight into the making of John Boorman's films is bound to be fascinating especially his much maligned 1977 Exorcist II: The Heretic. Which by all accounts the original theatrical release was not liked by anyone involved (or who had seen it).

William Friedkin's The Exorcist has spawned two sequels: John Boorman's Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III (1990), restored and re-released in 2016 under it's original name The Exorcist III: Legion. Two prequels: Renny Harlin's Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) and John Frankenheimer / Paul Schrader's Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005). Two reboots: David Gordon Green's The Exorcist: Believer (2023) and Mike Flanagan is currently working on The Exorcist: Martyrs to be released next year as well as a television series The Exorcist (2016–2017). This franchise keeps turning heads.

Despite the huge success and cultural phenomenon status of the original Exorcist film I am only somewhat of a fan. For me it is more of an example of canny marketing and manufactured hysteria rather than a great film. My interest is can be distilled into 3 factors: the post title opening scenes of Iraq, a world largely ignored or painted a certain way by and large the media of my youth, as it is in The Exorcist - a thinly veiled "home of an ancient evil" in a similar fashion as Spielberg's Raiders of The Lost Ark with cognate scenes, set in Egypt, this ancient exotic world fascinated me and was part inspiration for a need to see more of the world. Raiders of The Lost Ark is currently in cinemas celebrating its 45th anniversary and can be experienced in 4DX,4K and IMAX.

The inclusion of part of Mike Oldfield's timeless Tubular Bells. Hypnotic, off kilter, haunting and like nothing else before it. It is astounding that Oldfield's song became the sound of horror for a generation. Author William Peter Blatty wanted his friend composer Barry De Vorzon (Night of the Creeps, The Warriors, Event Horizon) to do the score but Friedkin was looking for something specific.

Legend has it director William Friedkin discovered Tubular Bells by complete accident in a pile of records and chose it over the work Lalo Schifrin had done for the film score. He has said something along the lines of wanting something less asserting of terror and more pervasively eerie. Tubular Bell's inclusion in the film spurred it on to mega success.

Thirdly the author of the The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty is a character of note. Before becoming an accomplished author and screenwriter who adapted his 1971 Exorcist novel into the screenplay for the film he was a US Air Force veteran who had worked in the Psychological Warfare Division, afterwards he joined the "United States Information Agency" in Beirut (both his parents hailed from Lebanon).

10 years prior to writing The Exorcist he wrote Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane!, after the huge success of The Exorcist film he reworked it into a book entitled The Ninth Configuration (1978). He went on to direct the film adaptation of The Ninth Configuration, starring Stacey Keach his first choice for the role of Father Damien Karras for the original Exorcist film, Scott Wilson and Jason Miller the actor who actually played the role of Father Damien Karras in the original Exorcist and is also the father of Jason Patric. It's also worth noting that the film was scored by Barry De Vorzon Blatty's first choice for The Exorcist score. And that is where I first came to know of William Peter Blatty. He saw The Ninth Configuration as part of The Exorcist "universe" with characters cross referenced in both films and the second in his Trilogy of Faith which concluded with The Exorcist III (1990).

The Ninth Configuration is an absolutely fantastic film and blows my mind. Even at the time on what became a well worn video cassette it looked starkly low budget, dated and very much in the b-grade exploitation genre. I haven't watched my DVD copy in a good while and presume it has not aged well - especially in this age of high definition.


However given a proper budget who knows what this film would have gone on to. In the modern era "Strikingly similar" themes are explored in author Dennis Lehane's 2003 Shutter Island brought to screen in 2010 by Martin Scorsese with Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams and the late great Max von Sydow, who also played Father Lankester Merrin one of the lead characters in The Exorcist, (the archaeologist in the opening Iraq scenes).

After Friedkin bowed out of development of a third Exorcist film, Blatty went on to take ideas and concepts that he and Friedkin had conceived and turned them into his 1983 novel Legion, which he then adapted for screen and directed as the 1990 The Exorcist III. For Exorcist III he reunited with The Ninth Configuration actors: Scott Wilson, George DiCenzo, Ed Flanders and Jason Miller.

Production of The Exorcist III was mired in issues and had a luke warm reception on release. But 2016 saw the release of The Exorcist III: Legion ostensibly the Directors Cut, which included a restoration of previously lost footage closer to Blatty's original vision.

Anyway I digress but that along with master film-maker John Boorman's marvellous body of work, particularly: Point Blank (1967) with Lee Marvin, Excalibur (1981) which needs no introduction, Hope and Glory (1987), his adaptation of John le Carré's The Tailor of Panama (2001) with Pierce Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush, Queen & Country (2014) with Callum Turner, Caleb Landry Jones, David Thewlis, Vanessa Kirby and Richard E. Grant and the unforgettable Zardoz (1974) with Sir Thomas Sean Connery.

Boorman is clearly not afraid to gamble on risky stories. Two of his films are on my greatest films ever made list, so if I had not got the heads up on this special screening so late I would have been able to shuffle things around to make it to the screening.

Also kudos to David Kittredge for taking his interests delving into them and bringing Boorman and the Devil to the screen it looks to be an absolutely fascinating deep dive and the QA session is sure to be insightful.

Boorman and The Devil Poster

Boorman and the Devil + Q&A 9pm, 16 September, 2026 Genesis Cinema, 93-95 Mile End Road, Whitechapel, London E1 4UJ Boorman and the Devil releases in UK and Ireland cinemas on September 25, 2026.

THE ESTABLISHING SHOT: SPECIAL SCREENING OF DAVID KITTREDGE'S THE EXORCIST III DOCUMENTARY BOORMAN AND THE DEVIL + Q&A SPECIAL SCREENING THIS THURSDAY