Overall Rating
  Awesome: 61.14%
Worth A Look: 24.17%
Average: 10.9%
Pretty Bad: 1.9%
Total Crap: 1.9%
10 reviews, 151 user ratings
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| Exorcist, The |
by MP Bartley
"Head spinning."
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Where would we be without 'The Exorcist'? We'd be without one crappy sequel and one crappy prequel for a start. But we'd also be without possibly the most controversial and talked about horror film ever as well. Because whether the lashings of critical praise heaped upon it are warranted or not, it can't be denied that it needs to be seen and it needs to discussed.Iraq in the 70's and Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) is helping to excavate an old ruin. However he finds idols and statues that disturb him and seem to have an adverse and violent effect on those around them. Over in America, Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is doing quite nicely for herself as an actress and as a single mother to the chubby and cute Reagan (Linda Blair). Meanwhile, a few streets away Father Karras (Jason Miller) is undergoing a crisis of faith. His mother is dying, he can't do anything for her and he can't shake the feeling that he's in the wrong profession. What brings these three seperate groups together is the change that Reagan is about to undergo - and it's not the normal one that girls go through. After falling victim to a series of fits, Reagan changes from a toothy ickle girl to a cursing, screaming child from hell with a penchant for head spinning, projectile vomiting and speaking in tongues. She's possessed and who ya gonna call? Not the Ghostbusters in this case.
Let's get one thing out of the way: 'The Exorcist' is not the five-star, soul shattering experience that it's often made out to be. Perhaps it was at the time, but not any more. I'm not pretending to be a tough cookie, I'm quite easily scared or creeped out, but 'The Exorcist' has dated in places. The infamous head-spinning moment looks really false now, and the projectile vomiting is more likely to elicit grossed out laughs than shrieks of terror. There are other problems too. The Iraq prologue is clunky and feels like it was added on from another film. And the re-appearance of Father Merrin at the end also feels tacked on. And for those who want their terrors instant and fast, they should be warned that 'The Exorcist' takes a good 40 minutes to warm up and get the chills going.
But don't let those criticisms cloud the main point of 'The Exorcist', which is this: just go see it. Now. Because 'The Exorcist' is perhaps the creepiest experience you'll ever have, rather than out and out scary. Friedkin, one of the darling boys of the 70's, casts the whole film in a solemn, gloomy atmosphere. It drips with impending doom and a deep sense of dread. He tones all the colours down to a melancholic autumn feel, which gives it a realistic feel that worked so well in his 'The French Connection'. The horrors of 'The Exorcist' work so effectively because they took place in a resolutely ordinary setting. No haunted hotels, no storm-wracked tropical island, no abandoned ship, just a nice, suburban house.
And the horrors are affecting ordinary people too. Burstyn is great as the increasingly-horrified mother and Blair does some incredible work under the terrific make-up. Von Sydow is loaded with gravitas and authority as Merrin, although it's Miller who pulls off the best performance. He's soulful, wounded and desperate all at the same time and Miller conveys simply through his resigned body language or anguished face. Tough performances for a tough film.
And tough the scares are when they come. Friedkin freaks you out several times with his subliminal flashes of the demon possessing Reagan. He finds scares in the most ordinary places and through his intelligent use of framing (the reappearance of Karras' dead mother mid-exorcism).
But 'The Exorcist' is not the scariest film you will ever see. It may be the scariest film you ever hear however. Friedkin's use of sound is dazzling and I firmly believe that 'The Exorcist' would be just as scary listened to as an audio-tape as it is as a visual film.
Just listen to the buzzing of insects that infest the film at times. There's the growls of fighting dogs that reach a deranged pitch before suddenly cutting to a quiet suburban scene. The demon first manifests itself as really unnerving sound in the attic. And then the sound of the possessed Reagan herself, is the scariest thing in the film. Animal cries, screams, backwards English and a growly throat are all mixed together to devastating effect. Indeed, the biggest jump in the film is the demon's cry of "Merrin!" when you least expect it.
The quick glimpses of the demon may haunt you at nights, but it is it's soft chuckle that will really get under your skin and freak you out.Sequels and prequels notwithstanding, 'The Exorcist' deserves a place in the horror top ten for its sheer impact alone. No other film before or after has had quite the same pervasive impact on culture and society. It may not be the scariest film ever made, but when you turn the lights out and huddle under the blankets after seeing it, it would be a brave soul that would consider dismissing it lightly.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1142&reviewer=293
originally posted: 10/30/04 00:17:54
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Trilogy Starters: For more in the Trilogy Starters series, click here.
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USA
26-Dec-1973 (R)
DVD: 05-Oct-2010
UK
16-Mar-1974 (18)
Australia
22-Mar-2001 (R)
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