The True Story: The Exorcist, 5

Adam Sweeting reviews a TV documentary on scientific theories about the Exorcist

The recent low-budget hit Paranormal Activity has been laughably hailed by delusional critics as “the most frightening movie ever made”, but it barely scrapes the foothills of the hair-raising ghastliness depicted in The Exorcist. William Friedkin’s demonic-possession shocker was released in 1973, but even today you wouldn’t want to watch it without keeping a large brandy and the off switch within easy reach. This documentary in 5's series The True Story, which tries to find rational explanations for movies, sought to explore the real-life story that the movie, and prior to that William Peter Blatty's novel, was based on.

Paradox, BBC One

Beeb's futuristic cop-opera lacks transatlantic pizazz

The best thing in Paradox so far has been the enormous explosion that provided the climax to episode one, as a train stranded on a railway bridge was incinerated by an erupting chemical tanker. A dramatic aerial shot captured an angry pillar of smoke and flames shooting hundreds of feet into the air, against a backdrop of lush Lancashire countryside.

The Twilight Saga - New Moon

It's the eternal human-vampire-werewolf romantic triangle!

They're back! Bella Swan and Edward Cullen (otherwise known as Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson) are once again smooching on a screen near you. I turned up one hour early for a showing of the new Twilight movie, and the damn thing was already sold out. Which suggests the film will do every bit as well as, if not better than, its predecessor, which made $383 million worldwide.

Misfits, E4

Asbo-cases develop super-powers

Filmed in the same Thamesmead locations in south-east London as Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Misfits also features a gang of young trouble-makers in boiler suits. Unlike Alex and his Droogs, who face the fearsome "Ludovico" aversion therapy (after which thinking about violence, or hearing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, triggers nausea), this bunch are on a fairly slack community service gig. They paint benches between spliffs and indulging in the sort of banter you’d find on any Facebook page not being monitored by the grown-ups.

The Turn of the Screw, ENO

A screw that fails to turn much horror

Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw is first and foremost a psychological horror. And psychological horrors are all about rocking the mental boat. Capsizing the mental boat. Sinking the mental boat. David McVicar’s production of The Turn of the Screw for the English National Opera does not rock the mental boat. He doesn't rock any boat. I'm not sure McVicar is in a boat. He plays the work so supremely safe, so PG-safe, so two-condom safe, that I feel McVicar is nowhere near a boat; I imagine him on dry land, in a deck chair sipping a piña colada, flicking through his Key Stage 1 on rocking the mental boat. The words that first came to mind as I watched the production were: "spooky", Edwardian, safe, yawn, zzz.
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