Release and Reception
The Ninth Configuration was not a commercial success upon its cinematic release in 1980; however, it received generally strong notices and a Best Picture nomination at the 1981 Golden Globe Awards. Although the film did not win, Blatty did win a Golden Globe for the film's screenplay. After initially poor box office returns in its test markets, Warner Bros. returned the film to Blatty and allowed him to take it to another distributor. United Film Distribution, affiliated with the United Artists theatre chain and best known for releasing George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, picked up the film and released it in other markets under the title Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane. Blatty initially sold the videocassette rights to New World Pictures, who released it on tape in 1988. Later on, Warner Bros. reacquired the U.S. rights to the film for all media, though their current DVD is basically a clone of the UK edition produced by independent distributor Blue Dolphin.
Leonard Maltin has described the movie as "hilarious yet thought-provoking, with endlessly quotable dialogue and an amazing barroom fight scene." Blatty's screenplay was later published in 2000 with commentary by English film critic Mark Kermode (Kermode also contributed to the audio commentary and feauturette on the film's DVD release in 2002). Kermode has described The Ninth Configuration as "a breathtaking cocktail of philosophy, eye-popping visuals, jaw-dropping pretentiousness, rib-tickling humour and heart-stopping action. From exotically hallucinogenic visions of a lunar crucifixion to the claustrophobic realism of a bar-room brawl, via such twisted vignettes as Robert Loggia karaoking to Al Jolson and Moses Gunn in Superman drag, Blatty directs like a man with no understanding of, or interest in, the supposed limits of mainstream movie-making. The result is a work of matchless madness which divides audiences as spectacularly as the waves of the Red Sea, a cult classic that continues to provoke either apostolic devotion or baffled dismissal 20 years on."
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