Fifty years after the release of The Exorcist (1973) it is still hailed as one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) horror movies of all time. Are critics right to say this and is it, under my criteria, a perfect horror?
As with Audition, it’s going to be hard to do this without spoilers so, spoilers ahead.
My copy of The Exorcist (a new Blu Ray, as I got a player for Christmas) starts with a talk from director, William Friedkin, in an amazing cardigan. He talks about how movies should make you feel something, not just scare you, but make you really think. He says, “turn down the lights and turn up the sound”, and who am I to say no? In my latest viewing I did just that, no lights, just a candle, a blanket and the film.
The Plot
The movie begins in Iraq, an old priest, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) is working on an excavation and finds a relic – he walks up to the stop of a hill to gaze upon a creepy statue and we get our first, famous, jump scare, with some barking dogs.
Cut to Georgetown.
Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) and her daughter Regan (Linda Blair), live a good life. Chris is an actress who is relatively well off and famous and she and Linda have a good relationship, despite the absent father.
We also meet Father Karras (Jason Miller) who is a priest and a psychiatric doctor – he is losing his faith and wants out of his job so he can be nearer to his sick mother (who promptly dies).
It’s Regan’s birthday and we get the first signs of something wrong, the bed is shaking and during the party she comes downstairs, speaking weirdly and wets herself. After consulting doctors and going through many tests and more episodes of madness, the idea of exorcism is floated.
Chris meets with Father Karras and he visits Regan. After seeing more of her episodes he approaches the church for permission to exorcise her and they bring in Father Merrin. Together they perform the ritual.
Big ending spoiler: The “devil” kills Merrin and leaves Regan to enter Karras after he commands it to do so. Instead of strangling her he throws himself out of the window and down some stairs. Both priests die but Regan lives and is well again.
There is also a subplot with a murder investigation – Burke, the director of Chris’ latest film, also visited Regan and ended up dead at the bottom of the stairs. Here we get the fantastic Detective William F. Kinderman (Lee J. Cobb), who is the lead in The Exorcist 3.
Is it Perfect?
Keeping this fairly brief will be difficult – I have many notes.
The film starts off so quiet. So few words are spoken at the start and this allows it to build to the louder more action-packed ending. Small details, like Karras meeting an old, creepy man on a deserted tube platform, give a feeling of unease that puts you slightly on edge throughout.
Most know the famous music from The Exorcist (Tubular Bells), but maybe they forget the scene it is first heard in – Chris is walking home, through otherwise normal streets – it is a nice day. The music alone gives the scene a creep that is achieved without any other devices – a feat that is great.
The acting is fantastic from everyone. Linda Blair, at only fourteen when the film was made, is outstanding. Her expressions range from a happy twelve year old to a devil possessed demon. When she has to vacant she is seriously creepy and her acting when she is flailing around is like nothing else. An interesting fact is that Mercedes McCambridge, who was 29 at the time, stood in for Blair during the infamous crucifix scene, where Regan stabs herself in the vagina with a cucifix, but with good editing, you really can’t tell it isn’t Blair. Lina Blair and Ellen Burstyn have great chemistry – they clearly have a loving and fun relationship, displayed by simple scenes that are natural and effecting.
Jason Miller is also great as the moody priest that drives that side of the story. When his mother dies he is affected greatly and his friend, Father Dyer, visits and takes care of him. We also see him at the end receive a necklace left by Karras, he’s a great side character as it ties together Chris, Regan and the priests’ storylines at the end.
There are many small scenes that I noted down as affective and noteworthy, but to pick one- shout out to the scene where Chris is driving home from a hospital visit – it’s a very short shot but it is reminiscent of Psycho – deliberate or not, I liked that it made my mind go there.
The exorcism itself is a true horror scene, one that isn’t drawn out, it scares in a short, sharp manner, just enough to make your heart race then plummet you back down to earth. There is gore, there is goo, there is screaming and levitating and a head that goes all-the-way-around. The scene is set in one single bedroom, it uses no CGI and is powered by the acting, writing, direction, makeup and a model of Regan made for the head-spin.
The Exorcist is truly scary. It plays with the idea of religion being an answer as well as it being the power of suggestion; it uses sound as a device – using quiet and loud in a symbiotic way, not just making things loud because “loud is scarier” or quiet because “quiet is creepier” – a mistake often made in modern horror; it moves at a steady pace, allowing only one or two small subplots that ultimately all lead back to Regan’s possession anyway. And damn, the costumes are fire.
Modern exorcist movies have so much to live up to and thinking back to this year’s appalling Exorcist: Believer (2023), I shudder to think what is coming in 2025 with Deceiver.
And that’s why The Exorcist makes my list of “perfect” horror movies.
William Friedkin’s dope as cardie.
Want to suggest a perfect horror movie? Use the comments and I might write about it!
That Horror Chick 