The Exorcist
HORROR-THON 2023 • IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD
9/10
DIRECTOR: William Friedkin
STARRING: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair
RELEASED: 1973
RUNTIME: 2 hours, 2 minutes
WATCH ON: HBO Max, Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at Home
SCARE LEVEL: High.
PEA SOUP: Never again.
The movie that scared a whole generation opens with an old priest at an archaeological dig in Iraq. There’s no jump scare, no blood, and no music. Just a man looking at an old stone statue. It’s a sign of how patient this movie is willing to be before it destroys you.
Chris MacNeil is a famous actress living in Georgetown with her 12-year old daughter, Regan. When Regan starts acting strangely, Chris does everything a parent is supposed to do. She takes her to doctors, then specialists, then more specialists. The medical tests are almost harder to watch than any possession.
Nothing works, and Regan gets worse. Her voice changes, her face changes, and the bed starts shaking. Finally, out of options, Chris turns to Father Karras, a young priest who’s losing his faith. Karras brings in Father Merrin, the older priest from the beginning, who’s met this demon before.
MY HUMBLE OPINION
This is the first horror movie ever nominated for Best Picture, and it definitely earns it. It’s directed like a serious drama, which makes the moments when it goes unhinged land even harder.
The scariest thing, besides the head spinning and pea soup, is Ellen Burstyn as a desperate mother running out of answers. Every doctor tells her it’s nerves, a lesion, or something they can easily fix. She knows they are wrong.
The effects are mostly practical, and they still work. The makeup on Regan holds up 50 years later. It’s ugly and nightmare-inducing.
And then there’s “Tubular Bells,” the music that plays as Chris walks home under the autumn trees. It’s a few looping, almost pretty notes, and somehow it’s the scariest sound in the movie.
FUN FACT FOR YOUR NEXT DINNER PARTY
Production was delayed for six weeks after a mysterious fire burned down all of the original sets except Regan’s bedroom, located in a different part of the sound stage. It was determined that a pigeon most likely caused the fire by flying into a circuit box in the rafters, but that didn’t stop the cast and crew from being distressed.