Silhouetted by a gothic Georgetown streetlamp, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) stands alone facing the MacNeil house: certain doom. Outside of Elsa Lanchester's screaming Bride of Frankenstein visage, is there a more indelible (or potent) horror film image than this particular establishing shot from the now quarter-century old The Exorcist? Friedkin's masterpiece has been relaunched on home video in honour of its silver anniversary, and it still packs a pea-soup punch. I dare say the film has, in many ways, aged better than another history-making Me Decade relic, George Lucas' Star Wars.

Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is a renowned actress and single mother to only-child Regan (Linda Blair), the prototypical American Adolescent Girl: she longs for a complete family unit, and whiles away the hours in fantasy-land. Sometimes a ouija board is her only company. This dabbling in witchcraft is partly to blame for Regan's ultimate possession; surely, there is no more susceptible a target for the devil herself than a demoiselle on the verge of womanhood, a creature unprepared for the societal expectations and physiological changes that lay ahead.

Chris is an atheist: she consults dozens of head-shrinkers before approaching tortured Father Karras (Jason Miller) for an exorcism. Karras is at the outset as skeptical as the doctors who have studied Regan's case--the film's greatest strength is its presentation of priests as humans first and God's preachers second. Karras' meetings with a bedridden Regan, her body deteriorating as the evil inside her literally begins to rot her flesh, change his viewpoint. Regan spews bile at him, literally and figuratively: she torments him with comments about his recently deceased mother (a guilt-ridden Karras claims responsibility for her death), and eventually cries out to him in his mother's distinct speech.

Father Merrin is a deeply spiritual explorer whose recent excavation in Iraq has left him haunted by demonic visions. Merrin has performed exorcisms in the past--one of them was so physically and spiritually taxing it reportedly almost killed him. He exudes confidence, concealing his fear and a heart condition before Chris and Karras. The evil that has manifested itself in Regan is fiercely powerful, and its motive becomes frighteningly clear near the end of the picture, when its determination to triumph over Catholic faith leads to an inevitable climax.

Each time I see The Exorcist, a different element of the film stands out. This time, I focused on Miller's character, who somehow makes his introspection abundantly clear--the movie is as much about Karras exorcising his private problems as it is about Chris' desire to preserve Regan's prepubescent innocence. (That was a loaded statement, I know--many critics are fond of saying The Exorcist was made by a bunch of gynecologically-terrified filmmakers, but I don't have the wherewithal to qualify or dismiss such a notion.) Quite a number of scenes feature Miller in street dress, as Friedkin is determined to visualize Karras' wavering belief system.

Friedkin is fond of saying that you get out of The Exorcist what you bring to it, and previously I had considered this film a downer. I'm a few years more mature than I was when I last watched it, and I now see it as a very uplifting cinematic experience. When Regan kisses Father Dyer (Rev. William O'Malley) on the cheek in the final scene, I suddenly felt at piece with the terror that preceded it, that we can defeat our demons.

The Exorcist comes to us on DVD in a "special edition" that truly earns the moniker. I will first discuss the transfer of the movie itself, and then explore in detail the wealth of supplemental material.

The image on the disc is letterboxed at 1.85:1 and enhanced for 16x9 televisions. I haven't seen the previously available widescreen DVD, but by all accounts the 25th anniversay edition showcases an even newer transfer of the film. As it stands, I was a little disappointed by the quality. For starters, there is excessive film grain in some shots (that looks unintended), occasional compression artifacts, and sometimes the colour 'pulses' (to see what I mean, skip to chapter 22--there is definite fluctuation in not only saturation but hue during some of these scenes). Overall, colours didn't strike me as utterly true. Blacks are very crisp, however, and there is a clarity to this latest representation unlike what I had seen on previous incarnations of The Exorcist. Owen Roizman's cinematography is too often underpraised.

The sound is another sticky issue. The 5.1 remix is half a letdown (given what praise had been bestowed upon the remixed soundtrack for the P&S DVD). Dialogue is often very low, and at times, brittle (common to seventies soundtracks). Effects, on the other hand, are very evenly recorded and distributed, and bass, while not deep, is unsettling. Do I have the right to scrutinize this DVD rendering, given that the film was originally released in 1973? Sure. For starters, Warners boasts that this Exorcist has been digitally remastered; I expected to be dazzled. Secondly, Warners' The Wild Bunch restoration boasts a terrfic DD track, and that movie was made four years earlier.

Warners really delivers on the extras, though. There is a truly excellent 76 minute BBC making-of doc included on side B called "Fear Of God" that collects revelatory interviews with most of the stars, director Friedkin, author William Peter Blatty, and a host of crew members (such as innovative make-up artist Dick Smith). Did you know, for example, that Jane Fonda turned down the part of Chris because she felt it was "a conservative, rip-off piece of shit"? Or that nine people connected to the production passed away during the shoot or shortly thereafter? I especially appreciated--after reading Peter Biskind's controversial Seventies-Hollywood docudrama (if such a term can be applied to books) Easy Riders, Raging Bulls--that Friedkin, a bully of a director, was not spared criticism by any member of the production team. I might have purchased such a film on its own; as an appendage to a 25^th anniversary edition of The Exorcist itself, it is more than mere icing on the cake.

This SE also offers two commentaries (one by the animated, arrogant Friedkin, the other by a somniferous Blatty, who ducks out at the halfway point on his, to be replaced by music), extensions of some of the interviews found in "Fear of God", four theatrical trailers (the last for the abomination Exorcist II: The Heretic; I'm shocked Warners acknowledged its existence), six TV spots (you haven't lived until you've seen the commercial entitled "You Too Can See The Exorcist", which is too funny to describe), storyboards (shown in sequence, as if you're reading a comic book adaptation of the screenplay), the no-longer mythic alternate ending (which is truly awful--Friedkin fought Blatty to remove it and I'm thankful he won), four "reel recommendation" trailers, and a video intro by Friedkin before the film. Top all that off with a cool interface (that resembles a doomsday version of City of Angels' DVD menus) and cast and crew bios, and you have one of the best collectible packages ever released. And, for once, the film in question deserves the treatment.-Bill Chambers