"Somewhere between science and superstition, there is another world. The world of darkness."
Despite saying that I’d never watch it again, I watched The Exorcist over the weekend. The first time I saw it, I was 17. The summer before my senior year was dwindling to nothing. I’d kindled a love of horror over that summer, and I decided by the end of it that it was time to watch what many consider the scariest movie ever made. So dad and I rented it at our friendly neighborhood video store, and I can honestly say that it scared the crap out of me. I didn’t sleep well for the next three days.
After that decidedly unpleasant experience, I told myself (and just about anyone who would listen) that I wouldn’t watch The Exorcist again. Not ever. Well, since you’ve read the first paragraph you know how good I was at keeping that promise. Some horror movies don’t stand up well upon a second viewing, but frankly the movie was just as scary as I remembered it. Although I have to add that I slept fine last night, so I can chalk that up as a win.
You might be asking yourself what could scare a grown man, not to mention a horror aficionado, so badly that he isn’t comfortable sitting with his back to a dark hallway (that’s true by the way). The Exorcist is the story of Reagan, a little girl who is possessed by a demon after playing with a Ouija board. At her wits end and despite her skepticism, her mother contacts the Catholic Church and commissions an exorcism.
The Exorcist is a study in escalating tension. We begin the movie by seeing Reagan (played by Linda Blair) as a cute, sweet little girl, living with her mother. Her idyllic life is shattered by increasingly erratic behavior, punctuated by strange occurrences that have no real explanation.
When Reagan’s mother finally breaks down and takes her daughter to a psychiatrist’s office, where we are first introduced to the image of Captain Howdy, a white face that lunged at the viewer from a black background.
From there, the scares only get worse. I found myself unable to relax for a moment, because when I did I half expected that white face to jump onto the screen again and give me another freaking heart attack!
Lest you think I’m a wuss, I’m not the only one to be scared by this movie – it literally freaked out an entire generation. When The Exorcist was in theaters, some people became so frightened that they fainted in their seats. Others vomited, and one man fell and cracked his jaw on a seat in front of him when he fainted. The film was so disturbing that the evangelist Billy Graham believed that the Devil himself had infested the celluloid of the film.
The Exorcist is the Cadillac of horror films. It is the apex of American horror, unsurpassed even to this day. To steal (and modify for my own use) the tag-line from R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series: “Viewer beware, You’re in for a Scare!”
I leave you with this, the reason Billy Graham was convinced the devil had infested the film. Without further ado, I’d like to introduce you, dear reader, to Captain Howdy:
Captain Howdy says: "Sleep tight! I'll be seeing YOU in your dreams ;)"
Andrew Kincaid writes horror, blogs, and watches way too many scary movies.. He’s making the world a stranger place, one story at a time. Get in touch with him on Facebook and Twitter, and check out his debut horror anthology ON DARK PATHS, available on Kindle!
I remember watching this film in my late preteens and thinking, “What’s all the hubbub about?” I may need to revisit and see how I feel now that I’m a parent.
I think that as a parent you may find it more frightening. After all…it’s basically a 2 hour long metaphor for puberty. haha
I think The Exorcist is a movie for people of a certain generation. I remember watching it when I was about 12yrs old & it scared the bejesus out of me. Yet my two teenage daughters wacthed it last winter & were not that impressed. Maybe the film is now so overhyped if you are seeing it for the first time.
One of the greatest scary movies ever made.
I think you’re right. I watched it with a girl I’m seeing, who insisted on watching it, and she didn’t think it was all that scary. Sure she jumped when Captain Howdy showed his face but it didn’t haunt her dreams or anything. She found the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre boring as well. I think modern audiences are jaded by the gore and skin, and can’t appreciate good old fashioned terror.
God I’m only 23 but I sound like an old fart :)
As a veteran of watching horror flicks from before my teen years, I can say that The Exorcist never really scared me. Try Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” – I’ve seen it at least fifteen times (no, I’m not exaggerating in the least), and it STILL scares the hell out of me.
Psycho is pretty spooky! I can’t say it scared me like the Exorcist did, but it did creep me out :). And we have it to thank for the modern slasher film haha
Ok I know this is sacrilege but I found the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre to be boring. Lots of running around screaming in the woods & not a lot else. The Hills Have Eyes was a similar film of that time & in my humble opinion a much better movie. I think modern horror movie audiences are jaded & that is down to being endlessly feed sequels where the law of diminishing returns applies or shoddy remakes of great movies.
If your an old fart at 23, i’m prehistoric :)
The thing that bothered me most about the original TCM was the dude in the wheel chair. He was sooo annoying! I liked the movie over all. After TCM I was going to show her Night of the Living Dead, but that one is pretty ponderous too so I didn’t think she would like it haha. It has to be fast and in your face anymore, or it isn’t going to freak people out. Look at the ending of Paranormal Activity, and compare it to the alternate endings on the DVD. The one that won out was literally an in your face moment.
Yeah it seems all we get is sequels and remakes. It isn’t that they’ve run out of ideas, it’s that they’re afraid of taking risks b/c it’s so expensive to make a movie. You don’t get the exploration you got in the Seventies and Eighties haha.
haha okay maybe I should say compared to the girl I was watching the movie with and her age group, I’m an old fart (she’s 18…I should add that so I don’t sound like a total perv lmao) That and it doesn’t help that I’m stuck in a time warp. I listen to older music, watch older movies, and watch a lot of docs about the “good ole days” haha. Oh and I actually read, so that sets me apart too haha
I’m afraid I found Paranormal Activity to be about as scary as an episode of Scooby Doo. I rented the DVD & taking all the possible endings into account I still think the movie sucks the farts out of roadkill! It’s hard to tell if Night of The Living Dead would have the same effect now. I can’t get my kids to watch it because it’s in black & white. I think it was easier in the 70s & 80s to make a low budget indie film & get it distributed on home video. That’s where the likes of Sam Raimi & Peter Jackson made thier mark. Now it’s all major studios that as you say will not take a financial risk with a movie.
There is nothing wrong with liking older music, movies & documentaries. It makes us old farts feel relavent :)
[...] Comments « The Exorcist [...]
Agree about Texas Chainsaw: hysterical, one-note nonsense, the celluloid equivalent of a loud shriek without any subtle tones of terror; whereas the Exorcist manages to strike a balance, a far more scarier picture, with it’s supernatural aspects.
I must say I find films like Rosemary’s Baby more frightening as I get older: oblique, paranoid and just…creepy!!
Oh, and that guy in the wheelchair was just begging to be killed, lol.
He was begging to be killed! God he was so annoying! Still, TCM does hold a place in the pantheon of horror; it continued the legacy Psycho started and gave birth to what we now call the slasher film. I haven’t seen Rosemary’s Baby that I remember. I’ll have to check that one out one of these days :)
[...] factor wears off pretty quickly. Paranormal Activity is a one shot wonder, unlike a movie like The Exorcist which retains its creep factor no matter how many times you’ve seen it (but then I’ve [...]
[...] very few things within the genre genuinely creep me out, and even fewer manage to scare me. The Exorcist was a movie that managed to do both. Something about seeing an innocent young girl in the throws [...]
[...] including heavy hitters like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and William Peter Blatty (the author of The Exorcist) are represented in the anthology. The stories within vary widely in content – from ghost [...]
[...] a movie that sticks with me long past its run time. I’ve made no bones about the fact that The Exorcist scared the bejeebers out of me, and it definitely qualifies as a movie that’s stuck with [...]
[...] When I did the experiment in full light, it appeared as if my face floated loose from my head. In the first of my three low light trials, my face deformed in one instance–my nose became huge and lumpy like a potato. In the second trial, my face took on the appearance of a gargoyle and in the third I looked like Captain Howdy from The Exorcist. [...]