linda blair

This year’s Halloween has been and gone – but we’re continuing our recent run of horror-themed podcasts (with three Draculas and many more vampires) by dedicating our November episode to the late, great William Friedkin’s seminal film about demonic possession: The Exorcist. More than that, though, we’re bringing back one of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture’s most beloved guest stars: Daniel Thron, of Martini Giant fame. (We were planning to bring him back around this time for a second Dune podcast, but, well, things happened.) Join Julie, Sam and Dan as they talk about the masterpiece that has endured over the decades, in spite of a franchise that has truly plumbed the depths. Come for the projectile vomit and turning heads, stay for the surprising humanity of a film about a young girl and a mother driven to the edge. And that’s before we even get to Dan’s Kentucky accent!

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Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

An Ennio Morricone-scored movie that exists in a variety of versions? When reading Alan’s latest insightful piece on the many cuts initially made to Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, I couldn’t help but be possessed by my teenage memories of watching that infamous sequel to a great horror classic, Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and learning about the many different re-edits it had gone through – to no avail: The movie was a massive critical and commercial failure and, despite releases of all kinds of versions, has found few friends since.

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