The Ninth Configuration

The Ninth Configuration (1980) is William Peter Blatty's cult drama you can watch online on iFILM. A new Army psychiatrist, Colonel Kane, arrives at a gothic castle that has been turned into an asylum for soldiers who cracked under the Vietnam War.

The inmates aren't violent so much as unmoored — one stages Shakespeare with dogs in the leading roles, others argue theology or vanish into private delusions. Kane (Stacy Keach) refuses to shut their fantasies down; he lets them run, and it slowly dawns that his own grip is just as fragile. Scott Wilson plays an astronaut who walked off a Moon mission, and his long duel with Kane over God and evil is the film's beating heart.

Blatty, who wrote The Exorcist, directed this one himself and made something genuinely odd: a debate over whether God exists, wrapped inside black comedy, war drama and near-horror. It took the Golden Globe for its screenplay and has lived ever since as a buried classic — not for everyone, but unshakable once it clicks. Watch The Ninth Configuration (1980) online on iFILM.