‘The Exorcist’ (1973) Review

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“The power of Christ compels you!”

The Exorcist, not unlike Halloween, was one of those movies I didn’t really appreciate the first time I saw it. My video diet at the time was mostly slasher films, monster movies, and anything with gore/nudity. Into that steady stream of stabbings, decapitations, boobs, and dismemberment, The Exorcist dropped like a lead weight. I was bored out of my mind and spent a significant amount of time trying to freeze-frame the ‘face’ that appears during Father Karras’ dream.

Part of the problem was that the primary shock pieces in the film – the head turning around, the pea-soup vomit, the crucifix masturbation – had already become entrenched in popular culture. I’d seen those things copied and parodied a dozen times before I got to see the actual film. To me they were elements to be made fun of, rather than be shocked by.

I’d also rejected religion and embraced science in my teens. The ultimate message of the film seemed (and seems) to be that science fails in the face of true evil, and religion holds the only succor. To quote my teen self, “f*%k that shit.” Of course, science had become my religion, but I wasn’t going to figure that out for a while yet.

The late 1990s were, for me, a time where I re-assessed a lot of things – choices, interests, life goals, family. I went back to school, got married, and generally moved out of the mental adolescence that seemed to mark my late teens/early twenties. I got a little (only a little) more self-aware about my own biases and ignorance. (Yes, this self-referential rambling is going somewhere.) The 90s were also a decade that offered little in the way of new films for a horror fan, so in the wake of my self-assessment I also started looking at films I’d discarded or dismissed earlier in my life. Halloween was one of those; The Exorcist was another.

Halloween was honestly more of a revelation to me than The Exorcist. I thought I knew Halloween and watching it again in the 90s was like watching a completely different film. The Exorcist remained the film that I remembered – but I had changed, and my enjoyment of the movie changed accordingly. I could now appreciate the anti-science/pro-religion message without feeling like I was being attacked. I enjoyed the pace and slow buildup of fear and tension now that I had developed (some) patience, and I could shake off the cultural baggage attached to the set pieces and enjoy them in the context of the film, rather than that of society in general. And I could see how different the film was than any other horror film being made at the time. How terrifying it must have been to see for people like my mother, who had been raised Catholic (and knew the rap of a nun’s ruler on her knuckles). How good it was.

The Medium

I’ve got the 2011 Blu-ray release from Warner Brothers. The last time I watched The Exorcist, I chose the Extended Director’s Cut, but I found the additions to be distracting. This time I watched the theatrical release and much prefer it. There are several more recent releases, including a 50^th Anniversary 4k from last year.

For streaming options, The Exorcist is available for subs on Max and can be rented or purchased on AppleTV, Amazon and the Microsoft Store. I THINK The Exorcist was briefly rereleased in theaters this year. If so, I hope you got a chance to see it on the big screen!

The Movie

The Exorcist opens on a dig in northern Iraq – Father Merrin (the ever-awesome Max von Sydow) unearths a small statue of a demon (and an amulet). Troubled, he returns to the dig later and climbs to a high point where he faces a large statue of the same demon as the wind howls in off the desert. Though subsequent films in the series indicate that this statue is that of the demon Pazuzu and is the very same demon he defeated in an earlier exorcism, very little in this film directly references that. (Though this opening scene and a scene where Merrin’s name is mentioned by the demon possessing Regan are indicators in that direction.)

Then we’re whisked off to Georgetown, where actress Chris McNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is filming a new movie. She’s staying in Georgetown with her young daughter Regan (Linda Blair). Chris starts hearing noises in the attic, which she assumes are rats, though her butler insists there are no rats in the building. After an incident with a Ouija board in which Regan refers to a spirit she sometimes talks to that she calls ‘Captain Howdy,’ Regan begins to develop strange behavioral issues. She confronts an astronaut at her mother’s party telling him, “you’re going to die up there” before urinating on the carpet. She has violent outbursts and swears like a sailor. After an incident in which Regan’s bed begins to bounce around like a carnival ride, Chris takes her to a doctor. This begins a long set of medical tests as the specialists try to figure out what’s wrong with her.

The medical tests are some of the most horrifying parts of the film. Watching the doctors basically flail around in the dark while looking for a rational explanation really set me off in the 80s, but I’ve since had more experience with doctors. Things are no longer quite as bad as they are in this film – the incredibly painful and intrusive tests shown in the film have been replaced by much less problematic ones nowadays – but the insistence on more tests in pursuit of theories and hunches is something I’ve seen a few times. I’m sympathetic – I know medical science requires a fair amount of testing and exploration – but it’s just incredibly difficult to watch a loved one get poked and prodded over and over again as your faith in the professionals’ ability to figure it out drains away.

Watching it this time around I was struck by the thought – what if this happened to a middle-class family? A poor family? Chris is wealthy – I mean she’s got a maid, a butler and a live-in assistant. She can afford all these expensive tests and treatments. For a poor family this would be impossible – Regan would be committed faster than you can say ‘ward of the state.’ On top of that, calling in a Catholic priest would carry completely different baggage nowadays. In the 70s it was all about the loss of faith – Chris has no religious background and even Father Karras is having a crisis following the death of his beloved mother. Now it’s less about faith and more about trust. A different kind of faith, I guess. Would you let two male Catholic priests be alone in a room with your pre-teen daughter? There’s been significant damage done to the Catholic ‘brand’ over the last few decades. Trust is a lot harder to come by.

Medical science fails Chris, as does psychiatry. She eventually turns to religion, and to Father Karras (Jason Miller), who is both a psychiatrist AND a priest. Though suffering from his own crisis of faith, he eventually becomes convinced that Regan really IS possessed. (I’m always astonished by how much crazy crap this actually takes – I’d be on the phone with the Vatican after the first “your mother sucks cocks in hell!”) The Church approves an exorcism and sends Father Merrin, the elderly priest from the opening sequence. Together, he and Karras try to rid Regan of the horrific presence that has possessed her.

Things really get cranking once Karras is on the case. Director William Friedken has invested a lot of time and effort into presenting a detached, clinical look at how things are building up. There’s almost a documentary feel to some of the scenes – particularly the medical tests – that gives a feeling of realism to the events. So once he steps on the gas and shoves us into that freezing room we’re unprepared for how crazy it gets. He’s established a sense of trust – yes, this is bad, but it’s a distant thing – and then Regan is projectile vomiting pea soup, and cranking her head 180 degrees, and floating three feet over her bed. We’ve been slowly ascending a rollercoaster, and now we plummet over the other side.

The exorcism scenes are top notch horror filmmaking. They’re tense and awful and frenetic and terrifying. The only criticism I really have of the film during this time is the death of Father Merrin. That he dies off-screen feels like a bit of a cheat, though there are parallels for Father Karras with the death of his mother, that he was also not present for. Those are not really followed up on, however, so it really just feels anticlimactic – a missed moment for me. It deflates Karras’ ultimate sacrifice a bit, though that’s still an effective scene.

Friedkin is an effective filmmaker in cinematography, pacing, and direction. One new thing I noticed this time around is in the scene where the detective, Kinderman, questions Chris about the death of the movie director, Dennings. As he questions her more about Regan, the camera moves in slowly, getting closer and closer. Once he abandons that line of questioning and moves on, the camera starts pulling away – a neat little ‘warmer, warmer… colder, colder’ moment I hadn’t noticed before.

The acting is generally very good, with Jason Miller as Karras, Linda Blair as Regan and, of course, Max von Sydow as Merrin being standouts. Ellen Burstyn is fine and sometimes quite good, but she reaches hysteria too easily at times and leaves herself with nowhere to go. Supporting characters are fine, with Lee J. Cobb as Lt. Kinderman being notable, though his character is sometimes a little too Columbo-cute for the circumstances. The soundtrack is also great, with contributions by various artists. The standout is, of course, “Tubular Bells” by Michael Oldfield, a piece as iconic and identifiable as any music cue in the last fifty years.

The Bottom Line

Still a horror classic and the defining horror movie of the 1970s, The Exorcist’s success revealed and whetted an un-tapped appetite for horror among the general public and paved the way for a horror renaissance. It’s unsettling and horrifying in all the best ways and finds that horror in both science and the supernatural.