Maybe someday there'll be a place on television for a show about religion helping people to cope with the everyday horrors that can strike at any time, but that show obviously can't be The Exorcist.
The best, though far from the most popular, of this season's many TV remakes is Fox's terrifying new twist on The Exorcist, buried in a Friday time period but delivering the shivery goods with ghoulish regularity.
Taking place in the present day, the series is, crucially, not a retelling of the famous Regan case from the Friedkin's film but a new tale, set in the same demon-ridden universe.
It's deathly serious and deathly dull, though I did laugh when Davis, as a worried mom, immediately concludes that her sullen, withdrawn teenage daughter is possessed by a demon.
The pilot holds some promise, and then watching children act like profane, satanic monsters is almost always unsettling, even when network standards don't permit certain words.
