terrifying and excellent

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 2013)

This contains spoilers so I suggest you don't read if you haven't watched the film: I saw this on its 25th anniversary remake under perfect conditions (alone, sober, on a dark November night in the cinema). 15 years later it still affects me. I was intrigued by the most scary film ever made epithet but thought that this surely didn't apply any more to a film made in 1973. The first 40 minutes confirmed my thoughts - slow, boring, with a poor special effect of the Pazuzu statue and barking dogs in the desert. Yup, this was a dated, boring film. But suddenly, the psychologist comes along and speaks 'to the person inside Regan', and it all changes. That voice is heard, and it gets scarier and scarier from then on. A few of the scenes which stand out for me: the fit she has at the hospital, which we watch on a CCTV type screen - very creepy; the holy water scene, with the water ripping scars in her legs; the talking backwards tape replay when the phone rings suddenly (is it her? I wondered); the demon's voice; the horrific sound affects when they're downstairs looking at the bedroom; the scene when the objects in the bedroom are spinning around; the headturning scene and its sound effect; teasing the audience by slowly zooming in on the bedroom door - what does she look like now?, I wondered in terror. Excellent use of light and sound really increase the fear affect.