NEW YORK — The Destination America network’s “Exorcism: Live!” on Friday could turn out to be the scariest pre-Halloween program on television or the ghostly version of Al Capone’s vault. There isn’t much middle ground.
The mostly live, two-hour telecast will culminate in an attempt to rid a suburban St. Louis home of supposed malevolent spirits. The boy who was the subject of the head-turning 1949 exorcism immortalized in William Peter Blatty’s book “The Exorcist” and subsequent movie briefly lived in the Bel-Nor, Mo., house.
“This, to me, at least, is probably the quintessential American horror story,” said Henry Schleiff, group president at Discovery Communications who oversees the network and is no stranger to colorful promotions. At Investigations Discovery, he ran a “Wives With Knives” marathon one year as counterprogramming on Super Bowl Sunday.
Only 3 years old, Destination America is available in about half of the nation’s TV homes. It has established a specialty in programs about the paranormal like “Ghost Asylum” and “A Haunting,” and is looking for some major attention.
Chip Coffey, who participates in the show, said the spirits communicated with him when he visited the house, and a picture of Pope Francis was mysteriously ripped from his hand. “This stuff is real,” Coffey said. “This is nothing to play around with.”
