The Exorcist holds up

Rating: 9/10 (12 December 2019)

The Exorcist holds up. A monument to the kind of filmmaking that cannot and will not ever happen again, for reasons both bad (manipulative if not abusive directorial tactics), and good (true "on location" shooting and practical special effects). It's also been dissected to death thousands of times, so I'll keep my remarks brief. I can't argue with it being called the Best Horror Film of All-Time. I haven't to date seen a better one. So leaving it short of the 10 out of 10 mark feels like a slam against the genre. It isn't intentional. I've grown to really appreciate horror movies. The recent uptick in "serious films" by "auteurs" that are also clearly horrors has made it pretty clear that it's a genre on the rise. And they can all thank The Exorcist for that, even if it's only taken half a century.