![]() ![]() He heard stories about telekinetic activity, which set it apart from other reported incidents. Blatty’s initial intent was to write a nonfiction account of an exorcism performed at a St. Real Events in Real TimeĪs advertised, seemingly endlessly, the story was inspired by actual events. The Exorcist looks more real, because they had to keep it real. The 1973 film capitalizes on the grainy, gritty, almost-documentary-like lack of sheen to project a more unsettling cinematic experience. All these things work against remakes, and retries. There have been imitators, special effects are more advanced, and film stock and footage grade are a thing of the past, replaced by pristine images that are enhanced further by CGI. William Kinderman in The Exorcist, and telegraphs every pain, frustration, and curiosity he feels for his undertaking and those he encounters. He cowered Humphrey Bogart onscreen in Sirocco (1951), and would have hung a whole jury in 12 Angry Men (1957).Ĭobb puts in his most restrained performance as Lt. Cobb is known for bombastic, brash, and impulsive characters, like his Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront. We feel the anguished decision Jason Miller’s Father Damien Karras has to make in order to take on Regan’s possession. We are as infuriated as Regan’s mother Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) that she can’t get help for her daughter, and are shattered along with her when science doesn’t have any answers. Viewers connect to very natural horrors, mundanely terrifying, before unnatural ones make their dissonance cognitive. Is it satanic? It doesn’t matter, but it is. ![]() It is in the slow-motion delivery of characters we care about, deeply, who are faced with an existential crisis. The reason the expectations of the mind-numbing terror are still met has little to do with the appalling and all-too-real appearing imagery, however. A millisecond of one image from the film has appeared in countless viral memes, and to this day it can scare a modern audience if they gather in a dark theater and turn off their phones. The mythology preceded the film before its initial release, and its reputation has only made that legend grow. Reverend Billy Graham denounced the motion picture, saying, “The Devil is in every frame of this film,” as if that would make it any less appealingly frightening. Nearsighted audience members removed contact lenses to be spared the promised splatter spectacle of projectile pea soup vomiting, ghastly head-spinning, and unimaginably excruciating crucifix insertions. Word on the street warned that viewers ran out of auditoriums and passed out in the lobbies at the phantasmagorical extravaganza. It was a demon just waiting for some studio to unleash it into theaters, and Warner Bros. William Peter Blatty’s novel was a bestseller before that, threatening to infest every bookshelf in every home in America. The Exorcist terrified moviegoers when it came out a day after Christmas in ‘73. It is scary because it is studiously subdued, and daringly sloppy. ![]() The devil likes it slow and has never been more intimate, and real as in director William Friedkin’s multi-Oscar-nominated film. Filmmakers repeatedly try to copy it, but that’s not the same as producing a bold and groundbreaking original work, and when they do, they try to speed up the action to get to the thrills. No possession film will ever be as frightening as The Exorcist (1973) because it is a movie no one wants to make anymore. ![]()
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