The Exorcist

(1973; screens Friday at 7:30 p.m.)

William Friedkin's notorious Catholic shocker gives us Linda Blair as a dumpling-cheeked 13-year-old girl who's possessed by the devil and driven to such antics as peeing on the living-room carpet, masturbating with a crucifix, and regurgitating split-pea soup into the faces of her acquaintances. It's among the nastiest horror films ever made, but it's so leaden and self-serious that the scariness isn't much fun.