Scary on a psychological level

Rating: 7/10 (3 April 1999)

I have seen this movie two times. The first time six years ago when I was sixteen years old. I had nightmares for a week. I had only heard that it was scary and didn't know anything else about it (being Swedish, I of course knew that Max von Sydow had a part in it), so it *did* scare me. It isn't scary in the special effects 'body-parts are flying'-kind of way or anything, it's scary on a psychological level which is a thing I don't think people who say that this isn't a scary movie can see. They obviously wants more blood and maimed bodies. This is horror with *class*. More of a Silence of the Lambs-"scariness".
However, I have now seen it a second time and I have to say that I don't find it as scary as I did when I was sixteen. But it is still a great movie and didn't William Peter Blatty say that he based his book on an article he had read as a student about an exorcism that the Catholic church *had* allowed for a young boy. I don't know if that's true, but if the Catholic church allows an exorcism then it must be... serious.
Great and intense movie. I give it 7/10.