The Exorcist and Van Helsing - Iffy Stream

Thanks to my favourite iffy internet stream this morning, I was able to watch the first episodes of ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘Van Helsing’ and in the process getting the jump on the UK viewers.

It is not a remake of ‘The Exorcist’. It's just … similar with the creepy music at the end. Alfonso Herrera, stars as Father Tomas Ortega a progressive young priest who looks to have his own demons and slowly comes around to the strange happenings at the home of a family in his parish.

Oh, he doesn't believe Angela Rance (Geena Davis) when she tells him her teenage daughter, Katherine (Brianne Howey), is possessed. She tells him strange things are happening around the house still he is sceptical about it. Katherine spends her time locked away in her bedroom being positively unsocial we learn during the episode she was involved in a car crash were a friend was killed. Also in the house is her husband Henry (Alan Ruck) who isn't well and another young teenage daughter Casey (Hannah Kasulka).

Father Ortega starts to have nightmares about Father Marcus Keane (Ben Daniels), a veteran priest who in the dream is performing an exorcism on a young boy and with him changing about the Rance family he seeks him out for is help. Things start to liven up then like most openings of a new series they are a slow burn to get the characters and story line up to speed but this looks like a little gem and if you're a horror fan, this series shows some promise. Stay tuned …

Meanwhile seeing I was up so early I switched to the new ‘Van Helsing’. Van Helsing is now female sort-of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"-ish only much darker and much more violent

Kelly Overton stars as Vanessa Helsing, a young woman who is resurrected into a near-future world that has been overrun with vampires. She's very good at fighting them, which is handy for the small band of human holdouts she joins.

Even better, it turns out that the only thing that can turn these vicious, feral creatures back into humans is Vanessa's blood.

It, too, gets off to a slow start, but "Van Helsing" picks up in the second episode it was a double bill. It is also super violent and super gory. If you like, that sort of thing, you might want to give this a chance I will be.