Editorials
[This Day In Horror] ‘The Exorcist’ Is Unleashed Upon Audiences!
December 26th, 1973.
William Friedkin’s horror masterpiece The Exorcist has more cojones than any mainstream horror film I’ve seen in years. It’s an amazingly brutal, profane, scary and funny film – one that simply couldn’t be made today within the studio system. Not a chance. The fact that this movie came out 39 years ago blows my mind.
According to BoxOfficeMojo, the film has taken in around $232,906,145 at the US Box Office and $208,400,000 in foreign markets for a combined worldwide total of $441,306,145. Huge numbers for a movie with a production budget of $10.5 million, a figure that by today’s studio standards seems scant. In short, the movie wasn’t just a hit – it was a global phenomenon (even though those numbers include the gross of 2000’s successful re-release).
I wasn’t even born 39 years ago and I imagine the same could be said by a large chunk of our readers. Why do you guys think we don’t see movies like The Exorcist hit that same level of mainstream awareness today? Are audiences weaker? Are the corporate-owned studios more cowardly? Is there some sort of new politically correct awareness that is actually increasing the limits on what’s deemed appropriate in the artistic marketplace? I have my own theories, but I want to here from you.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
You must be logged in to post a comment.