I can’t be exactly sure what it is, but the power of something or other keeps compelling people to go back to The Exorcist. It’s been out for over 45 years, a time period in which it built a reputation as the scariest movie ever made and cemented itself as a touchstone, a rite of passage for horror fans. Debates abound about, after four and a half decades, it’s still as scary- whether it has managed to maintain its terror factor despite its pop culture ubiquity and (debatably) dated special effects.
Yes. Yes, it is still straight-up terrifying, and if you think otherwise you may have watched a different movie. It exudes an atmosphere of pure, unmitigated horror. It’s the ultimate 4-AM first-time viewing experience, especially if you are (like I was) still a horror-averse idiot who thinks “oh, this won’t be so scarring”. And then it starts. And everything you’ve heard about it, every “scariest movie ever” claim and every “you won’t sleep for a week” assertion comes back to you and then there’s the title screen and OH GOD THE TITLE SCREEN and that score and the string instruments that have come directly from the pits of hell hit and you’re thinking “i can’t do this I can’t do this I can’t do this” and then it spends like 10 minutes on an archeological dig in the middle east. I think I went off on a tangent there but my point is as following: The Exorcist is life-changing. It’s as great and as bat-s**t terrifying as you’ve heard. It’s disturbing and super scarring. After my first watch, I swore off ever watching it again. As of today, just over 8 months later, I’ve seen it three times. It’s that alluring, that fantastic, that great.
William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel The Exorcist drew buzz. The book was upsetting to people on a level that nothing had really been before. It was protested by religious groups and caused an insane amount of controversy. So naturally, Hollywood (70’s Hollywood ruled) decided that it needed to be filmed.
While Blatty’s book was becoming a huge success (or at least extremely well-known), another guy named William was dominating another medium. William Friedkin’s The French Connection grossed $51.7 million (unadjusted, the 2nd highest grossing film of that year) and won 5 Oscars, including best picture and best director for Friedkin. He had recognition, and the ability to direct what he wanted.
After being turned down by Arthur Penn, Mike Nichols, and Stanley Kubrick (side note- while the movie is perfect as is, a Kubrick interpretation would’ve been cool to see), Blatty (a producer of the film) pushed the studio to hire Friedkin to direct because he liked the style of The French Connection. So began the most cursed production until Apocalypse Now began shooting 3 years later.
Friedkin was brutal. He manipulated his actors in extreme ways, including but not limited to: Slapping William O’Malley to achieve a solemn mood, lying to Jason Miller about where he was getting hit with pea soup before having it be his face, fired blanks randomly to elicit scared reactions from the crew, and turned the set of Regan’s room into a freezer during the exorcism scene. The atrocities of the film don’t stop there, as many people associated with it died during and after filming, causing many people to believe that it was cursed. It was boycotted and banned in several countries. Theaters provided barf bags at every showing. And it, adjusted for inflation, became the 9th highest grossing film ever made.
Which begs the question: How? The short answer is that it’s completely incredible. The long answer is that it was more or less completely different from anything else ever, and represented a huge change in a time when movies were changing rapidly. Prior to 1973, there’s not too much precedent for pure horror the likes of which The Exorcist is. Psycho in 1960 is far less sinister, more crowd-friendly (this is not a knock on Psycho, which is an even better film than The Exorcist is). 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby is probably the closest thing to it, but even that is more of a drama (also not a knock, it’s pretty unbelievable as well). So The Exorcist was different and new, and that’s attractive to a wide audience, no matter how nauseating and upsetting that new thing may be. There’s a different answer as to the critical and awards success it achieved, including ten Oscar nominations, including best picture and director (it won for best adapted screenplay and best sound). The reason for that is simply that it’s that good. Friedkin’s extreme methods paid off big time, as the final product is still the high-water mark for the genre, the thing that every great new horror movie (see last year’s Hereditary, which ascends to the level of such films as The Exorcist and The Shining). Images, lines, scenes from this film stay with every viewer, and for all of the great things about it, one of the best things you can say about The Exorcist is that it stays with you. That eerie atmosphere that is created with that first scene never leaves, it’s there long after the credits roll. For all of its incredible technical aspects, for every great performance, for every shot that’s the greatest single movie frame ever (it’s just the one (see above picture), but that’s enough), the triumph of The Exorcist is how damn unnerving it is. That’s what makes it the greatest horror movie ever made. 45 years on, we’re still waiting for something to top it.
The Movie Files 