The 30th Anniversary of one of the all-time greats

Rating: Null/10 (15 November 2003)

More so than Alfred Hitchock's "Psycho",more so than Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby",William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" expanded the limits of what was acceptable terrain for a commercial horror film. This classic shocker of the supernatural,and one of the scariest films of all time,which notoriously contains a sense of a demonically possessed 12 year-old girl masturbating with a crucfix,shocked critics and even frightened its audiences when it was released more than thirty years ago. When it was released in 1973,there were reports of people fainting or succumbing to hysterics. Movie theater operators confided that they were standing by with paper bags and kitty litter for the piles of vomit in the aisles. Also,some even ran for their very lives out of the theatre and movie operators had to even call in the local law enforcement to calm down individuals who were out of control. It's ver hard to see or even imagine today's audiences having such visceral reactions to a current films such as "Texas Chainsaw Massacre","Jaws", "Halloween","Friday The 13th,"Alien","A Nightmare on Elm Street",and "The Omen",to name a few. As extreme as the reactions were,audiences couldn't get enough of it making it one of the top ten films of 1973 and one of the highest grossing picture of its day beside boxoffice contenders of that year were "The Sting","Enter The Dragon","American Graffiti","Serpico",and "The Way We Were" all were released in 1973.
It also beat out its competition for the highest grossing film as well,dethroning Francis Ford Coppula's 1972 crime epic "The Godfather",and Irwin Allen's 1972 disaster epic "The Poseidon Adventure" to reign supreme as one of the highest grossing horror films of all time,until 1975's "Jaws",dethroned "The Exorcist" off the top spot. But in this case,the outrage that cause a political and social debate over this picture mabye seems quaint today,but in the 30 years since William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" scared the bejesus out of everyone,we've inmbibed so many violent movies that it is very hard to be shocked since advance technological achievements in filmmaking his come along. While moralists and psychologists may debate the effects of this progressive desensitization,the passage of time does have one benefit,it is easier to evaluate "The Exorcist" on other terms rather than its shock value. Even after all those years,Linda Blair's character of Reagan will give some individuals nightmares that will haunt them for the rest of their natural lives.