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…
Tag: The Last Exorcism
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…
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…
The Devil Inside: The One that Pissed Off People
A good found footage movie relies on its ability to trick you into thinking, just for a second, that maybe this could have been happening. We all know it didn’t — the fact that we are seeing a “movie” is the largest proof against that idea — but we still like to trick ourselves in…
The Last Exorcism Part II: Not Really Real
In our last post, we discussed the first found footage exorcist cinema, The Last Exorcism. What we have found interesting with this latest series of exorcism cinema is this desire to bring to the forefront the idea that such cases of exorcism are real, either through the filming techniques or the demonstration of being inspired by…
The Last Exorcism But First Found Footage
Before Chris Olson and I started on this project, we were just watching horror movies. I have been fond of found footage style horror movies since The Blair Witch Project. And in my last post on the exorcism cinema project, I started thinking through why these movies are relying on tactics designed to foster a…
