My initial thoughts after watching The Exorcist (for the first time ever)

Rating: 10/10 (9 September 2017)

I think The Exorcist is the most realistic horror film I've ever seen. Though, this is both a compliment and a detriment to the movie. The blend of grounded drama and true horror is done superbly, the acting is just flawless all around, Ellen Burstyn gave one of the best performances I've ever seen on film, along with Jason Miller and last, but definitely not least, what Linda Blair did as just a child actor is simply unbelievable. The Exorcist is well-deservedly a horror classic, one of the best horror films ever made, it's a great film, but I had two huge problems with it. The editing and most importantly the way it was shot, the cinematography. There were many editing choices that I did not agree with, keeping some of the more mundane scenes running for too long and cutting some amazing and truly scary scenes painfully short. While this bothered me, I absolutely hated the fact that the cinematography is just so impossibly bland. There's no style or edge to it, despite the last 30 minutes of the film, which is cinematic perfection and a horror masterpiece there's absolutely no atmosphere to the film, which unfortunately made the extremely well developed dramatic scenes and the first hour of the film borderline boring. Still to end on a high note as time goes by I'm sure I'll appreciate the good sides of the film more, because the good is just excellent, but for now I'm a little frustrated by these two minor things, because they did take away a lot of enjoyment out of the film for me.