Scare Value Hall of Fame – 2023
The Exorcist review.
William Friedkin’s masterpiece turns 50 today. The possession movie to end all possession movies. Many have tried to top it. No one has come close.
Classic movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
The Exorcist
Directed by William Friedkin
Screenplay by William Peter Blatty
Starring Ellen Burstyn, Max Von Sydow, Jason Miller, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Winn, Jack MacGowran, Eileen Deetz and Linda Blair
The Exorcist Review
The Exorcist was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It became the first horror movie to do so. Believe it or not, it tied The Sting for the most nominations that year with 10. It brought home statues for William Peter Blatty’s screenplay adaptation of his own novel and for Best Sound. Five decades later it has stood the test of time. With all due respect to The Sting…better than any of the films awarded instead. The Exorcist isn’t just the best movie of 1973…it’s one of the best movies of all time. Horror or otherwise.
William Friedkin’s masterpiece was, however, the highest grossing movie of 1973. With the box office and critical acclaim in tow…The Exorcist can brag about a resume few horror movies can claim. Jaws could make a similar claim just two years later. It was nominated for Best Picture, picked up three awards and was a giant box office hit. A horror movie wouldn’t win Best Picture until Silence of the Lambs nearly 20 years later. That movie can lay claim to being the only horror movie to do so. The Sixth Sense, Black Swan and Get Out are the other excepted horror films to gain a Best Picture nomination.
It’s an arguable point, obviously. Snobs attempt to strip most of them of their horror label all the time. Silence of the Lambs is a crime drama! Jaws, an adventure movie! Or we’ll just use the coverall term…thriller! When worst comes to worst…just throw out “Elevated Horror” and hope no one punches you in the face. The Exorcist is the hardest one to do it to. I’d argue that several movies have gotten nominations that, at least, dabble in horror. One day I’ll write about why Parasite is a horror movie…but that won’t be today. Today we are going to talk about The Exorcist.
Specifically, we’re going to examine why The Exorcist works even better today than it did 50 years ago. Simply put…time. Time has made it scarier. I’m not talking about having to sit through five decades of knockoffs that couldn’t do anything remotely close with the concept…although it is there if you want it. I’m talking about the actual scariest aspect of what many believe to be the scariest movie of all time. The technology.
The first half of The Exorcist takes its time establishing the relationship between Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) and her daughter Regan (Linda Blair). The possession comes on slowly. The bright, cheery young girl we meet progressively becoming colder and more lifeless. Blair is unforgettable. Burstyn is even better. She takes Chris from loving to distraught in the most natural way possible. She’s terrified of what her daughter is becoming. The reflection of evil on her face is more effective than any trick Friedkin pulls out…and he has the best tricks anyone has ever used in a possession movie.
That scariest aspect? It’s not Regan’s possession. It’s Chris’s crisis. She turns to every specialist she can find. Her successful acting career opens every door for her. The best of the best in every field. And they have no answers. Repeated visits to the hospital for tests comprise a large portion of The Exorcist. The crude medical technology of 1973 is utterly terrifying. People throw around the phrase “they couldn’t make that movie today” to mean they wish you could be as openly offensive in media as they are in their real lives. You actually couldn’t make this movie today. At least, you couldn’t set it today. Modern medical procedures come with their own nervous anticipations. But it is nothing like this.
A metal vice clamps down Regan’s head. Loud machines bang around her head. Needles penetrate her throat and blood spurts everywhere. She endures every painful procedure imaginable. In search of answers that won’t come. Compare to modern medicine…1973 looks downright medieval. Of course, medicine will find no answer. Regan’s brain isn’t infected. Her soul is. Medicine, psychiatry, hypnosis, invasive procedures…this girl needs an exorcist.
Enter Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller). A priest with a background in psychiatry and a bad case of lost faith. Along with experienced exorcist Father Lankester Merrin (Max Von Sydow), Karras attempts to rid Regan of what ails her. Merrin is no stranger to this demon. Damien is not prepared.
So many decisions in The Exorcist are made through patience and common sense that Damien’s final choice to take in the demon and sacrifice himself form the perfect ending. It’s a decision made in the heat of passion. It’s also the only one that works. Karras is the film’s most interesting character. The weak spot that the demon can attack…but the only one strong enough to defeat it.
And then…there’s that scene. When people talk about The Exorcist one of the first things they are likely to mention is the scene where Regan turns her head around. It’s incredibly shocking and effective. But there is a lot more to the scene than that. That is the punchline to the gag…but the set-up is what makes it work.
Chris enters Regan’s room. Items are tossed around the room in a supernatural nature. She looks at her daughter who is stabbing herself with a crucifix in a very sensitive area. Chris fights for the crucifix. She is grabbed by her daughter who forces her head into the bloody area while the demon yells “lick me”. Chris, face covered in blood, is slapped across the room. When people try to help a chair moves across the floor and slams the door shut. A dresser begins to close in on Chris, but she manages to get away. That’s when the head turn occurs. The voice of the man the demon killed asks Chris a chilling question.
It’s a perfect scene. It comes out of nowhere and it doesn’t last long. It motivates Chris to seek out Karras even though she has no religious beliefs. The scene goes harder than you’d ever expect it to. Perhaps harder than any scene ever has. A scene that changes the movie completely. The slow build explodes into the most shocking violence imaginable. It ends with a lot of time left in the movie. You have no idea where it’s going next…and you’re afraid of where it might.
It’s nothing to say that there has never been a better movie about possession than William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. I don’t know that any movie in the subgenre has even come close enough to touch its tier. The better argument is where it ranks among all horror movies. It’s a gold standard. It sits firmly among the best horror films ever made. You can debate order but it’s in the top percentile. It perfected a genre. It doesn’t just hold up…it’s power only grows with time.
Scare Value
The Exorcist is a masterpiece. A movie that can’t be improved upon. Something made obvious by five decades of attempts to do so. Not just one of the greatest horror movies ever made but one of the greatest movies full stop. It only improves with time. Top notch from performance to production. One of the greatest movies ever made.
5/5
The Exorcist Links
Rent/Buy on VOD from Vudu and Amazon
Buy on 4K/Blu-Ray from Amazon
