Fall 2014 #5: The Exorcist (1973) - William Friedkin

Alright so I was beyond excited to put this on my list. I feel like I’ve reached a point in my life where I don’t scare easily, which took about… 21 years of desensitizing myself to horror movies by growing to absolutely love them for cinematic purposes. I still stay away from slasher films, but in the past two years or so I saw Carrie, The Shining, Nightmare on Elm Street, Night of the Living Dead, The Grudge, Silence of the Lambs, The Ring, Scream, and The Exorcist for the first time. I guess you could say

But I knew I had to get this one off my list before Halloween, so I sat down and let myself get taken away… to the 1970s.

I know, I know, scary. The film follows a 13 year old girl who is suddenly possessed by a very disturbing and cruel demon. After what seems to be weeks of hiring doctors, therapists, and running tests, Chris MacNeil (played by Ellen Burstyn) decides that to save her daughter she will need an exorcism.

To get to this point of desperation, Chris sees her daughter, Regan, do some pretty horrifying shit. 

When the priest, Father Karras, is contacted, the church also sends the help of Father Merrin, one of the only priests they know to have performed an exorcism before.

This is when the movie gets really good.

I should also probably mention that I had seen Scary Movie 2 before, so I knew a lot of these special effects were coming before they happened. This didn’t in any way affect my enjoyment of the movie. I loved every minute of watching Regan transform from a normal girl into the most hideous, foul-mouthed demon I had ever seen.

From that into this.

The process is pretty incredible. 

The film is also based on the events of a real exorcism, performed in Maryland in 1949. Supposedly most of the events that take place in the film actually happened, although the head-spinning-around is probably the most disputed of all.

Last fun fact: Adjusted for inflation, the film is the highest grossing R rated movie of all time. It also was so horrifying to viewers, that several injuries occurred due to audience members fainting in the theater.

The film won two Oscars, Best Screenplay and Best Sound.