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The Exorcist (1973) Now here's a thing... For many years, I'd been positively evangelical about The Exorcist, though not in the same way that someone like Mark Kermode has been. While Kermode happily, powerfully and effectively sang the film's praises, I was the party-pooper grumbling about how awful the it was, how undeserving of its massive success it was and how over-rated it was. So it was with a sense of malicious anticipation that I sat down in mid-2004 with a DVD of the film ready to rubbish it and finally put into words the bile that rose in me at the very mention of Friedkin's blockbuster. So imagine my surprise when, two hours later, I was unable to find any way to justify the negative feelings I'd harboured about what is in fact a beautifully shot, excellently directed and – mostly – brilliantly acted film. I still maintain that the film is over-rated, but awful? Unwatchable rubbish? Pretentious crap? All accusation I'd made in the past, now words that I was being forced to swallow. Over the years, I'd never denied the incredible importance of The Exorcist. In the early 70s, there was quite simply nothing like it and it's no exaggeration to say that changed many people's conceptions of what screen horror was all about. It was a genuine phenomenon, trailing behind it stories of mass hysteria, faintings, vomiting and other unsavoury activities at screenings around the world and it paved the way for so many other films - some of them terrible (the host of Exorcist clones that appeared all over the world), many of them excellent. In many ways, some of this hype may have helped to obscure the film's many merits to detractors like myself; the sensational publicity that surrounded the film and the subsequent legend that accrued around it – particularly here in the UK where it was banned on video for a decade and a half – gave the film a reputation it neither deserved nor could live up to. So what does it have going for it? Stunning photography for a start – the opening Iraq sequence may be rather superfluous but it's amazingly shot and many of the most memorable moments in the film stem not from the outrageous and often confrontational images, but from the skills and artistic eyes of director William Friedkin and photographer Owen Roizman – the haunting shot of the demon Pazuzu (unnamed in the film) appearing on the bed behind a writhing, silhouetted Regan; the unsettling dream sequence wherein Karras' guilt over the fate of his mother becomes inextricably linked with the fate of Regan; and that brilliantly simple, oh-so-memorable iconic image of Merrin arriving at the haunted Macneil house and frozen momentarily in the glare of streetlight. Say what you will about Friedkin – and, yes, he can be overstated and his career arc may have been less than impressive post-Exorcist – but even at his worst, he has one of the most incredible visual sensibilities of any 70s American director. His composition, choice of colour scheme and use of light and dark are exemplary and even at the depths of my anti-Exorcist rhetoric, it was impossible to deny the beauty of the film. It may not be the most frightening horror movie ever made, but it's certainly one of the best looking. But even better than the visuals – and herein lies the real key to the film's scariness (and yes, despite my early protestations, it is scary) – is the soundtrack. Not just the music, though that's unnerving enough, but Friedkin's astonishing use of special and natural sounds. The music is mostly a compilation of classical music, Friedkin displaying perhaps his oft-acknowledged love of the work of Stanley Kubrick, but also includes the now famous opening bars of Mike Oldfield's prog rock classic Tubular Bells, forever rendered eerie by its association with the film. The success of The Exorcist is now widely credited for having made Tubular Bells the success it was and helping to found Richard Branson's Virgin empire. But it's the sound that matters the most here. It was a truly groundbreaking piece of sound design by Robert Knudson and Christopher Newman, which deservedly won an Oscar. The collage of heightened sound often builds to a cacophony that contributes enormously to the sense of unease. From the sound of angry insects that backs Merrin's discovery of the amulet in Iraq, through the growling, rumbling noises of the medical equipment used to further torment and torture the hapless Regan to the sonic violence of the exorcism itself, with its maelstrom of demonic voices, chanted litanies and sounds too weird and unearthly to identify, this is a key moment in the development of sound as one of the key weapons in a film-maker's arsenal. The sound is what gives the film its greatest asset – it's cumulative feeling of unease and anticipation of something dreadful about to happen. The film is deeply troubling even before we get to the possession scenes, Friedkin and his technicians skilfully creating a sustained atmosphere of foreboding that is far more effective than the in-your-face effects set pieces of the latter half. Also worthy of note are the many excellent performances that bring the story to life. Max Von Sydow we expect to be brilliant and he doesn't disappoint, bringing a frailty and enormous dignity to the part of the doomed Father Merrin. Jason Miller, a previously little known little known playwright and some time actor who landed the vital central role of the conflicted Damien Karras. Miller is outstanding as the tormented priest, giving the film the much-needed emotional core to ease it over some of its more ridiculous moments. That Miller never got another part as good as this – except of course another excellent turn in Exorcist III (1990) is a tragedy. It's actually difficult to assess Linda Blair's contribution to the part effectively given that, in truth, she really had little to do. She's there as the un-possessed Regan but her more memorable moments are actually provided by others – by Eileen Dietz who stood in for her during the masturbation and vomiting scenes and by the extraordinary work of Mercedes McCambridge in creating the voice of the demon. But... Doubts still remain and one of the biggies relates to some of the supporting cast; Jack MacGowran is frankly unbelievable as the drunken film director, the various doctors seen in the film never once give you the impression that they understand a word they're saying, let alone believe in them, but worst of all is the inexplicably praised and Oscar-nominated Ellyn Burstein. Her portrayal of Chris Macneil is so hysterical, so over the top that you end up wanting to slap her to see if you can calm her down a bit. OK, so her daughter's been possessed, and a certain amount of hysteria is understandable, but the way Burstyn plays her and Blatty wrote her, Chris is already highly neurotic before the Satanic shit hits the fan – witness her screeching response to her estranged husband's failure to call Regan on her birthday. Her melodramatic over-reacting is deeply irritating and a blight on the otherwise fine cast of lead players. Other doubts remain – at times, especially contrasted to the quieter, more suggestive moments, the big shock sequences seem a little like desperate grandstanding from a director that has all too often resorted to overblown gestures alongside some genuinely brilliant work. The pea soup puking and crucifix masturbation are the moments that had audiences reeling in the aisles, but Friedkin proved that it was in his more subdued moments that the terror worked better. A case in point – at one point during Karras' initial investigations we catch a horrifying glimpse of Regan sitting on the edge of her bed with her head turned around at an impossible angle. It's a genuinely creepy moment, a did-we-really-see-that shock that is later blown when Friedkin can't resist the temptation to remount it, this time screen centre in huge close-up. The effect this time is frankly laughable. This scene epitomises the crashing lack of subtlety that prevents the film from being the masterpiece it is all too frequently hailed as. The film is also uncomfortably reactionary – the sequence wherein Regan is subjected to medical examination is filmed so as to make it every bit as terrifying as her subsequent possession, suggesting that science is a lost cause and that only by falling back on ancient superstition and only half-understood rituals can we save the innocence of a child. It's also a deeply conservative film, playing into adult fears of losing control of their children, a theme immensely popular at the time, coming at the tail end of the hippie era with its free love, hallucinogenic drugs, radical politics and any other number of temptations waiting to possess the souls of the youth of the nation. In many ways, it's much easier to blame the Devil than to point the finger at social, economic and parental ills and The Exorcist tapped into these fears every bit as much as it did fears raised by the lasck of faith and the crisis in the church. The same ideas had been played out earlier – and some of us thing to better effect, though they were no less reactionary – in Piers Haggard's masterly Blood on Satan's Claw (1970). There's also an inescapable air of pomposity and ponderousness about The Exorcist – Friedkin and Blatty clearly saw it as an important film and while there's absolutely no denying that genre films shouldn't be taken seriously – we wouldn't all be here on this site if we didn’t think that – the film does sometimes seem a rather schizophrenic affair. On the one hand, it wants to be a serious drama about a man wrestling with his conscience and loss of faith while on the other it wants desperately to be a blood-and-thunder horror film, a big-budget exploitation movie aiming for maximum shock value. The two often sit uncomfortably with each other, the seriousness of the drama tending to make the horror look ridiculous while the genre elements distract from the film's loftier pretensions. Though for many of course, it's precisely this mix that makes the film so appealing. C'est la vie... When I first saw The Exorcist, on a theatrical re-release
back in the late 1970s, I admit I was genuinely scared by it. Over the
years, I became rather like Damien Karras, losing the faith and doubting
my initial devotion. Unlike Karras, I've yet to be redeemed –
I still think it's deeply flawed, over-rated. But it's also brilliant,
distressing and of immense importance, it's impact perhaps blunted somewhat
by too much hype and too many cheap parodies. But when it does work,
it does so magnificently and I for one shall see it with new eyes and
who knows, may yet join the ranks of devoted Exorcist faithful,
worshipping at the altars of Friedkin and Blatty. Well, maybe not, but
then I never thought I'd ever write half the words you've just read,
so who knows...
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