Tucker on the Classics: The Exorcist

I decided in addition to reviewing new flicks out in the movies now I am going to dissect classics too. I am going to try to do it more often. I was originally going to assign a day that my readers could count on a write up of a classic movie, but who are we trying to kid?

Anyway it is a wonder I went this long without seeing this movie for the first time (last week). My parents talk about seeing this movie for the first time together (given the year it was released and my parents marriage it was on TV) my mother had the living day lights scared out of her, and my father thought it was the funniest movie he ever saw. So that is the way the film is still viewed you either love it or hate. Years ago during a night of mindless hanging out at my house Ryan and I think Lima Beanz were sent to get a movie for the night the returned with the Exorcist after about 40 mins. Everyone got pissed and said they wouldn't watch it. So they returned later that night with Posion Ivy 2: The New Seduction.

Um..oh yeah the review.

Well the movie starts out oddly in Iraq before we blew it up. A bunch of stuff happens and this guy finds an idol and more stuff happens. I really didn't get the point of showing us all this. Then the movie settles into what you expect a semi-famous actress becomes worried when her daughter starts swearing like a sailor. Next thing she knows she looks increasingly more evil and even though the doctors (almost comically) keep coming up with far fetched excuses why her daughter and levitate beds, over power adults, and speak in other languages she knows better.

During the mother/daughter plot line another storyline is running along at a slower speed about a youngish priest who has lost his faith. Eventually he gets roped into the case of the actress's daughter and is invited to sit in on an exorcism. They sceen play inspired by a newspaper article decades prior rests it's strength and heart on questioning ones faith. Wondering what it would take for some one to think there could be such a thing a supreme being or evil spirits. Apparently, more than some split peas soup vomit in the face for some.

However, what it's famous for is the sequence upon sequence of creepy images including the bedroom turning ice cold, and Linda Blair talking in a demonic voice uttering words I had no idea were said on film that long ago. Eventually the title character (turns out he is the dude from Iraq in the start of the film) shows up to show the young priest how to oust demons from little girls. The slow moving film intensifies the last 40 mins only to end almost suddenly which is surprising but also refreshing had it been made today one would imagine they would try to trick the audience a few times about if it was really over or not.

The film is way better than my friends make it out to be. Although flawed mostly as far as the sceenplay goes for example the girl seems like she goes from normal to demonish in 30 seconds I wouldn't say the movie crap.

Lets face it as fun as the horror genre is very few such films in that section of the video store are actually "Good". One thing that alienates viewers from this film I think is the fact that there is no one real hero to root for. The mother is helpless, the younger priest isn't more haunted and melancholy than likeable. I saw the version you never seen (which would make the original cut that for me I guess) and figured before I read about it that the steps scene was way over the top and out of place. I don't know what version most people have seen that are my age, but that scene should have stay deleted. However the film is highly superior to Halloween and I would even say The Omen (better directed anyway). It was a good (not GREAT)and highly important film. So why do most of my friends detest this film?