Head-Turner

Rating: 6/10 (5 September 2010)

To see in 2010 a film made in 1973 which is billed as 'the scariest movie ever made' is to get off on the wrong foot. Common sense tells us that even if we wouldn't watch rubbish like Saw, Hostel, Nightmare On Elm Street etc on a bet they have to contain gratuitous footage far more disturbing than anything Friedkin and Blatty could dream up 30 odd years ago. That out of the way it is still psychologically difficult to forget the hype whilst watching the movie. Of COURSE it has more depth than any dozen so-called 'horror' flicks of today put together plus well-drawn fully rounded characters so that essentially it is more a conventional drama with excessive behaviour than an out-and-out horror movie. For myself I could have used about three times the footage that Lee J. Cobb was allowed. His lonely film-buff cop was one of the best things on view and I have a feeling that in the novel he had much more exposure. That aside the cast were uniformly good if slightly overshadowed by Cobb. Still a fine movie.