A landmark among horror films???...I don't think so...

Rating: 6/10 (30 December 2006)

THE EXORCIST was a novel I read years ago and never saw the film, disliking the novel too much. Not even all the hype about the movie could make me interested in going to see it and stories I heard about people getting sick from the shocking reality of the fright scenes.
Now I've seen it on AMC (with all those annoying commercial interruptions), and I see that I wasn't missing anything. It starts out painfully slow (for a film regarded as a landmark among horror films), and only vaguely begins to suggest what is about to take place in the girl's bedroom. (It's based on the true story of a boy's possession, not a girl's). I guess they figured it would be racier if a girl was involved.
ELLEN BURSTYN is the worried mother who is told her daughter has a chemical imbalance in her brain after the girl appears to be deeply disturbed by something. Of course, none of the doctors can explain why her bed was moving convulsively up and down--the first tip-off that this is indeed going to be a horror film. It's almost an hour into the movie before the girl's first big attack comes on and she has to be sedated. By that time, I felt like I had already had a tranquilizer myself.
But from this point on, as medicine fails to pinpoint the girl's illness, the mother turns to the local church for guidance and the story begins to exploit the theme of possession. LINDA BLAIR is highly effective in her manic attacks and those around her seem to be in real danger of the demon possessing her. It's only until the middle of the movie that the word "exorcism" is even used by a doctor who suggests that the mother consider using it to rid her daughter of the spirit.
The main shock appeal of the story (which made the book such a best-seller) begins as soon as Father Damien (JASON MILLER) begins the rituals--which, unfortunately, takes until midpoint in the film. By that time the viewer has mainly been treated to various glimpses of Georgetown and some pretty autumnal photography and a couple of cozy scenes with LEE J. COBB as a detective interested in a murder that took place near the girl's home. MAX VON SYDOW's entrance into the film is an impressive one, cinematically, as fog drifts around the Georgian brownstone and he shows up to assist Father Damien.
While it's the snail pace of the story that defeats the film from the very beginning, it's this very fact that makes the actual exorcism scenes more shocking by contrast. And they do have shock appeal.
ELLEN BURSTYN's drab looking mother is hardly the vision of a movie star who could stir LEE J. COBB into asking for an autograph. She looks about as downtrodden and upset as LINDA BLAIR in all of her garish green-paste make-up. Sure, THE EXORCIST is a shocking story but it now seems obviously contrived to upset anyone who hasn't heard of the practice of "exorcism" as practiced by the Catholic Church.
Here, director Blatty exploits his theme with professional polish and theatrical effect--but it's still far from a landmark horror film, in my opinion. Why it became such a box-office smash, I've never been sure.