Exorcism Cinema Book Published

Here it is! The Tensions in Exorcism Cinema project began in 2013, when my partner Christopher J. Olson (Seems Obvious to Me) and I watched the film The Possession and noted how common it seemed for women to be the victim of possession who needed to be saved through exorcism. We wondered, is that true of […]

The Exorcist on Fox

Christopher Olson (Seems Obvious to Me) and I have been working on a project analyzing the portrayal of exorcism in cinema for the past several years. That project is about to reach fruition with the publication of our book Possessed Women, Haunted States: Cultural Tensions in Exorcism Cinema from Lexington Books this November 15th (https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498519090). […]

The Pop Culture Lens Episode 16: The Exorcist (1973)

As I have been writing about for awhile now, Chris and I are working on a book project that explores the tensions depicted in exorcism cinema. That is, we are analyzing films that depict possession and exorcism to understand what is being said about the world through those representations. Part of this analysis has been […]

Stigmata: Viewing the Church as Bad Guy

A long time ago, in what seems like a much different life, I had a huge crush on Gabriel Byrne. I am not exactly proud of that, but he was one of many actors that I have had crushes on, and is always the case when I have a crush on an actor, I must […]

The Unborn: Exorcism, the Holocaust, and Twins

Comic book fans will undoubtedly recognize the name David S. Goyer. For better or worse, he has become synonymous with Warner Brothers’ cinematic adaptations of their DC Comics titles. Although he gained notoriety as the writer for a Marvel cinematic adaptation, Blade (1998), his most successful writing gigs have been with Christopher Nolan on the […]

Deliver Us From Evil: The Danger of Possessing Men

As we have repeatedly seen during this project we are calling Tensions in Exorcism Cinema, there appears to be a narrative made popular by the success of The Exorcist (1973). There is a reason we like to say that the 1973 movie is the one that started it all, even though there had been films […]

From Reaffirming to Challenging Traditions: A critical comparison of The Last Exorcism and The Last Exorcism Part II

Christopher Olson and I presented our first analysis for the exorcism cinema project at this year’s Midwest Popular Culture Association conference. We subsequently wrote the presentation as a paper that would go in a book we are developing. We just submitted the book proposal last night, and now this morning you can read this analysis […]

5 Things People Believe About Demons, Exorcisms and The Spirit World

As All Hallow’s Eve approaches, and the dark veil between the land of the living and the land of the dead lists, we in the Western world turn to concerns of all things supernatural. But it is not just Halloween that propels people to be worried about how the spiritual plan can impede in this […]

Feminist Tensions in The Last Exorcism and The Last Exorcism Part 2

At the Midwest Popular Culture Association‘s 2014 conference, Chris and I presented the first analysis from our exorcism cinema project. The presentation is titled: Feminist tensions in exorcism cinema: Case study analysis and comparison of The Last Exorcism and The Last Exorcism Part II. What follows are the notes for the presentation, which constitute an […]

Sir Anthony Hopkins Performs an Exorcism in The Rite

Sir Anthony Hopkins is one of those interesting actors. Best known as an incredible actor throughout his entire career, sometimes he will do movies that are, for lack of better words, slumming it – doing a movie for a paycheck. Freejack. Alexander. The Edge. The Wolfman. Red 2. To be fair, I cannot really blame […]