The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 100 Days to go: 67
Movie #340: The Exorcist
When I was growing up, I heard several people say The Exorcist was the scariest movie they’d ever seen. I stayed away from it, probably for that reason. When I did finally see it — fifteen or twenty years ago, now — It was more like the most bizarrely hilarious movie I’d ever seen. This is what happens when something is vastly overhyped. It had lost any ability to really scare me and instead played out like an exercise in absurdity.
To be honest, in the years since I first saw The Exorcist, I’ve forgotten everything about it except for vague bits and pieces of the crazy possession parts. I remember them, and I remember thinking how over-the-top it all was, and that’s about it. Tonight, I took advantage of my diminished memories and really tried to watch it with fresh eyes. It’s a lot better than I remember.
The possession is still really cheesy to my jaded, more modernized perspective, but it’s easy to see how terrifying this would’ve been in the ’70s. Jumping beds and spinning heads and projectile vomit were effective special effects back then, and the kind of really obscene, vile language — especially paired with religious imagery, like when she’s stabbing her vagina with a cross, screaming for Jesus to fuck her — coming from a young teen girl (Linda Blair as Regan) was nothing short of jaw-dropping. It would definitely leave an impression on people. It would likely cause nightmares. I could see how frightening this movie would’ve been upon its release.
But that’s not actually all there is to it. Ellen Burstyn is great as Regan’s mom Chris. She has to carry the entire film on her shoulders — all the terror, all the fear for her child, all the uncertainty and the dawning revelation of what’s going on and the fight to get Regan help — and she carries it off wonderfully. She really feels at ease in the skin of this woman — successful, independent, loving, and worldly — and when things start to go badly for Regan, you can see the stress of the situation starting to wear on her, in her eyes and her posture. Her very bearing is diminished, held up by sheer force of will to help get her daughter better. It’s a fantastic performance, without reservation.
The other primary performers — Jason Miller as Father Karras and Max von Sydow as Father Merrin — also hold their own. Father Karras has a storyline all his own for much of the film about the death of his mother, because of which he’s very much a tortured soul having a crisis of faith. Max von Sydow was a million years old even back then, and in fact it’s remarked how old Father Merrin is. He’s the wise old priest of great faith and confidence, and the two of them together are quite convincing as they tend to Regan’s demon.
The plot isn’t really entirely solid, as it meanders around for a very long time before you get to the exorcism part, with three or four different narrative strands early on that don’t seem to fit together or bear any real relevance. It’s kind of a double-edged sword, because while the movie definitely benefits from setting the stage of normalcy and slowly building the degree to which Regan is possessed over time, it also suffers a bit for it. I mean, the title gives away the fact that Regan’s possessed, so the characters in the movie all taking forever to get there themselves comes off as both reasonable and tedious. By the same measure, there’s really no explanation as to why this demon, supposedly out for revenge against Merrin, has picked this girl in this city, thousands of miles away from where Merrin was in Iraq at the start of the film. And there aren’t any solid connections made as to why or how Chris winds up contacting Karras (or why Karras isn’t the one to contact Merrin, seeing as the demon mentions him by name). The ending is also surprisingly abrupt, with one priest killed off-screen and the other violently possessed and hurled out a window, which apparently saves the girl. Then again, with everyone in the theater no doubt distracted by the insanely scary goings on up until that point, they probably weren’t too concerned with a minor thing like the plot.
Of all the movies in this collection, The Exorcist was definitely not one I expected to enjoy at all, but I find myself having gained a certain appreciation for it. What it does, it actually does pretty well. I might even watch it again sometime.
Viable Option 