I guess you had to be there....

Rating: 9/10 (13 April 1999)

I've read most of the comments on this film, and I am struck by the extreme polarization of views. While the majority think it was the best horror movie ever made (and I quite agree), a large percentage found it boring and even funny. This strikes me as especially interesting because...THAT'S EXACTLY THE WAY IT WAS 25 YEARS AGO. Most people were genuinely terrified, but a lot of people LAUGHED at it.
First of all, this deserves the title of classic for the same reason King Kong (1933) is a classic: Nothing even remotely like it had been done before. Even those people who weren't scared by it, have to acknowledge that fact. Laugh all you want at the cheesiness of King Kong today, but rest assured women really DID faint at its premiere. Same with The Exorcist. Second, the film especially terrified those of us who had a Catholic upbringing. Blatty was able to reach into the deepest recesses of our fears, and pull out the....for want of a better word, "gothicness" of the Roman faith and shove it in our faces. Third, the Exorcist terrified on a completely different level than most other horror films. You can sleep tight KNOWING that Freddy Krueger is a Hollywood invention, along with Jason, etc. Do you know the devil isn't real? Today I am an atheist, and don't believe in the devil, yet I can still appreciate what the director was hinting at, and what buttons he was trying to push.
I challenge anyone to name a more viscerally terrifying movie than the Exorcist.