Somewhat Overrated

Rating: 6/10 (10 June 2007)

I liked the Exorcist. I did. But it didn't scare me.
That's somewhat fatal to the "best horror movie of all time" moniker, as I'm a pretty easily scared moviegoer. Ultimately, it left me disappointed.
As others have said, the movie starts out amazingly. The scenes in Iraq: trembling hands, frightening statue, fighting dogs. Excellent. By the time it cuts to Georgetown it has you ready for the worst.
The next forty minutes lose some of that momentum, but still hold promise. Between the increasingly ghoulish series of medical experiments inflicted on Reagan and Father Damian's incredible visits to his mother (the second being the most impressing), you're really ready for the horror to begin full bore.
But it never happens. We're treated to what amounts to an hour long montage of 2 minute "shock clips" that range from silly to disturbing, but never exactly scary. Promising earlier devices such as the Ouija board, the evil statues and the noises from the attic are all frustratingly abandoned.
The claustrophobic atmosphere of the bedroom and upstairs hall are repeatedly interrupted for no good reason. The introduction of a totally unnecessary police detective both wastes time and provides disastrously unneeded comic relief. There's no way to maintain a persistent atmosphere of dread when the Mother of the Possessed is signing autographs over coffee in a sunny morning kitchen with a smiling, mustachioed detective who apparently wandered in from a different movie. Talk about a mood killer.
I'm coming off as overly negative: The Exorcist is not bad. There are a thousand and one worse horror movies. But it's not nearly as great as I had been expecting, either. No doubt in '73 it was unlike anything audiences had ever seen, but in '07, I'm sorry to say, it appears to have lost its power.