Essay: The Exorcist

by Sol463

James Kendrick a film critic states, “It was an immediate, visceral experience that has lost little of its impact today, even on jaded moviegoers.” I am a jaded moviegoer. I have been subject to movies influenced by The Exorcist in ways I cannot fully appreciate, since birth. In the end, it provides with no great love or awe for the Exorcist. Is it the innovator, I dare say cinematic god, that many people claim it to be? The blurb under the movie reads, “The scariest movie of all time.” Sure, I am guessing the virgin eyes and ears ate it up like it was candy, but to me it is just a regular old horror flick that I have seen a thousand times. Although entertaining, the movie is far from being the scariest movie of all time.

The plot is as it was in the beginning, the same “timeless” story line that rocketed it to the top. Kendrick talks of, “There was buzz on the street about how frightening it was.” A young girl, played by Linda Blair, is for all accounts possessed by the devil. Something her atheist mother only desperately accepts after all other avenues have been exhausted. She turns to a priest named John Karras, played by Jason Miller, following the advice of doctors; to “witch doctor” her daughter well. It soon becomes clear to the young priest, who is also a psychiatrist, that the girl does indeed appear to be possessed. An older priest, played eloquently by Max Von Sydow, who has had experience with exorcism, joins Father Karras. Together they attempt to face this demon and free the young girl. A storyline, though nicely constructed, that doesn’t strike fear in the hearts of jaded movie folk.

This movie may have scared the pants off of moviegoers of the seventies. Kendrick tells us, “Rumors flew about audience members running out of the theatres, fainting, vomiting.” However, such gore has become so commonplace that this movie only provides basic entertainment, rather then the sheer horror, it seems those in the seventies suffered. It truly is difficult to appreciate the effect this movie had on a virgin audience by one who has been subject to movies like Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, and Halloween all of their lives, especially to a connoisseur of horror. Nothing says terror like dismembered teenagers. Kendrick goes on to say, “…it is precisely this interplay between the ethereal and the physical that gives the film its impact.” The spiritual scare plays a big part in this, but obviously if a person does not subscribe to its particular newsletter it becomes difficult to buy in to, something Kendrick readily admits.

Wonderfully chosen for this hum drum horror, is a young Linda Blair, you might remember her from such movies as… The Eoxrcist. She adequately portrays the possessed young girl, in the year of 1973. That warped the minds of a generation with her frank mock masturbation scenes. Ellen Burstyn candidly portrays Linda’s mother, Chris MacNiel. Her acting is great enough that I was moved enough to… continue watching the movie. I cannot deny that the acting is perhaps greater than your average horror flick. When you take into account the extremes they apparently went through it does show the value a dedicated actor and director can have on even in the lowliest of horror movies. For instance the director chose to film the final exorcism scene in a huge meat locker built around the set. The breath and discomfort you see from the actors is not manufactured fatigue. Ellen Burstyn suffered a back injury when the director, Willem Friedkin in his desire to get a good shot, instructed a stunt man to pull hard in the scene where Regan strikes her mother. He did and she flew back wailing out in actual pain, Friedkin waited until he was sure he had the shot before mercifully yelling cut.

The fact that we are still discussing the Exorcist and it is not a vague pop culture reference is a testament to the effort that went into this movie. Kendrick joyously remarks, “The exorcism sequence that is the climax of the film is a marvel of acting, directing, and editing.” Friedkin, the director, made conscious choices to ensure the quality of his film. He chose to use physical special effects and stayed away from the industrial light and magic style of effects, adding grittiness to a movie that might have gone the other way, with sadly fanciful light shows. Wilson Bryan Key, another film critic humbly states, “…, [The Exorcist]was a brilliant example of creative subliminal sound engineering.” Friedkin also took care in the construction and implementation of the sound effects. He recorded the sound of buzzing bees at sixteen different frequencies and stuck it all together to form a single sound. He played the sound during select parts of the movie. It is suppose to subconsciously resonate some sort of innate response. I’ll let you know, when it kicks in. He did this with the sound of pigs and big cats as well. “A large proportion of the audience recalled the sound with great discomfort,” says Key. I can imagine that some people did indeed suffer discomfort, but to say it was merely the sound is simple minded, movies are a visual art, without the pictures there would be nothing tangible to tie these sounds to. If you are in the African plains in the middle of the dark and you hear a great roar come from behind you, you don’t think to yourself gosh that sound is frightening, you think I am about to meet an unfortunate end, the image of some great beast popping into your head as you attempt to flee. Sounds by themselves mean nothing if there is no way to relate them to actual danger.

The Exorcist is a movie that inspired an entire generation, fans and moviemakers alike. It was well written and finely acted and nicely directed. It just doesn’t matter, all these things help to make the movie easily accessible to future audiences but it does not ensure it the same impact that it had when it first debuted. The movie, quite frankly is dated and its effects and daring have been greatly surpassed eons ago. This movie if released today would barely register on the radar screen.