Some 50 years ago this winter my wife and I made the trek to St. Louis to see a new movie getting a lot of buzz.

The Exorcist.

It wasn’t showing at many screens, so we made the 40 mile drive to St. Louis County to a theater showing it. It was a gray winter day, I remember that.

I also remember being scared shitless. I had never seen anything quite like it. The scares, the voices, the language, the music, the mood.

We left the theater quiet and spooked.

I was curious 50 years later when I saw a trailer that clearly indicated that instead of another variation of the original movie, a new one was coming out that wanted to at least work from the original.

It does. The opening begins with a babble of languages and an exotic setting, just like the original.

And the return of Ellen Burstyn had me most curious.

I mostly like this new movie. I appreciate how it doesn’t find easy villains in religion. Ellen is good.

The scares don’t come close to the impact of the original, but how could they? In 1973 it was something new.

I have to close with a spoiler alert.

Ellen tells us her daughter in the original, Regan, play by Linda Blair, wants nothing to do with her and so she has no part in the movie.

But as the climax comes and Ellen is blinded by the demon and in a hospital bed, you knew what the last shot would be.

We hear the voice and “hello mother” and then it is Blair and an embrace.

I could see it coming, most anyone could see it coming, but I didn’t mind.

It was a warm ending.