PIL targets The Kerala Story 2, seeks removal of ‘Kerala’ from title amid communal concerns

A new Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed before the Kerala High Court challenging the title and release of the recently released film The Kerala Story 2. The petition, submitted on March 3 by a retired social science teacher and a practicing lawyer, calls for the removal of the word “Kerala” from the film’s title, arguing that it unfairly associates the State with sensitive and controversial themes. According to the plea, the petitioners contend that the film’s title and subject matter risk portraying Kerala in a negative light. They have alleged that the narrative reportedly depicts the State as a centre for forced religious conversions, a portrayal they believe could damage its social and cultural image. The petition also references an ongoing legal tussle involving the filmmakers. It notes that the producers have approached a Division Bench of the High Court challenging a recent interim order issued by a Single Bench, which had temporarily stayed the film’s release. T...

The Exorcist review – Friedkin’s head-swivelling horror is still diabolically inspired

The 50th anniversary extended director’s cut of the 1973 tale of teenage possession still shocks

William Friedkin’s deadly serious contemporary horror, adapted for the screen from the bestseller by novelist William Peter Blatty, is back now in cinemas for its 50-year anniversary in the extended director’s cut. This is the film that whispered its evil into the ears of US audiences traumatised by political and generational upheaval. It is also the great ancestor of the entire horror genre: a 132-minute jump scare – with horribly malign slow sections – taking place in upper-middle class America rather than some exotic central European locale. (I have in the past suggested that it brought supernatural fear into the American suburbs; well, I should admit that Georgetown in DC is hardly a suburb, in fact the point is that it is very near the political centre of the free world.)

Ellen Burstyn plays movie actor Chris MacNeil, a single mother ordinarily resident in California but currently renting a handsome townhouse in Washington as she shoots a film called Crash Course; she is playing a liberal academic at odds with the student body who are violently possessed with revolutionary ideas. Her director is a louche and boozy Brit called Burke Dennings, whose persona is maybe inspired a bit by Ken Russell, who is played by veteran Irish stage actor Jack MacGowran and whose death shortly after shooting helped create the “cursed film” aura that surrounds The Exorcist.

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