1973's The Exorcist is a landmark film for any number of reasons (many of which we get into here). It's also a film Kelly had never seen, and a favorite of our friend Matthew J. Cressler. Matt talked to us about Catholic horror and The Exorcist two years ago, but we really wanted to dig into the film in detail, so here we are.

The Exorcist is one of many examples of art imitating life imitating art. It both revived a certain kind of supernatural zeal in Catholicism while also exploring an underlying aversion to the same.

While it's not always successful and doesn't necessarily hold the same shock value it once did, it also completely reimagined what a horror film could be and provided proof of concept that the public was ready to explore and challenge religious ideas in new and sometime shocking ways. And like a lot of other horror that has captured the cultural imagination throughout history, The Exorcist spilled over into the real world, giving rise to the idea that the film was cursed.

And in the next episode, we'll take a closer look at its cultural and religious impact.

Matt is on Bluesky @mjcressler