The Best Film ever - Horror, Religion and the Faith in it all.

Rating: 10/10 (5 January 2003)

Ah, how times have changed.
I saw this movie when it was first released widely in 1974. Back then in Hollywood Films, children didn't SAY or mouth the words the possessed Regan spews,(today many children say these words and more on TV and in film, so it's not so shocking) Priests were looked at as wise-old religious confidants, and it was rare to see a 'celebrity' single Hollywood Actress raising a child to boot! Challenging these norms is what makes "The Exorcist" film scary, the materialization of a demon/demons taking over a body of a pre-adolescent child makes it horrific and the real scriptures from a Christian Holy Book being conveyed with such force with the scary (again, for its time) special effects in a mainstream film made it spectacular.
Before "The Exorcist", the epic Hollywood mainstream religious films with scripture and subsequent lessons were "Ben Hur" and "The Ten Commandments", "Samson and Delilah", "The Robe". Uplifting, true. But here was the start of, as many religious people put it, "Satan getting more box-office than Jesus". And not only was watching this child becoming slowly possessed was a problem, but so was watching the lives of those around here who would ultimately come together for not a happy ending.
Make no mistake, this was a first in mainstream Hollywood film history. You had a man of the cloth who--sure--was questioning his faith, but you also saw he was as human as we all are. This Priest had problems with his family, problems with his faith, problems with how he was educated!! Wha--??!!
You had an "working actress" trying to raise her child and be a good, attentive single mother at the same time.
You had the hero of the film, an old Priest who retired to archaeological digs which in his young priesthood ago had a battle with a demonic spirit in Africa that he thought he ran off the face of the earth only to realize that it had re-located to a little girl's body.
Then, you had a little girl who had problems of her own. She's growing up with no one to relate to, for her parents divorced, her father never continued a relationship with her, she's aware that her mother is having a "relationship" with the director of her film. She's changing... and the best solution they can come up with is grueling, seemingly barbaric test after test on her body and mind which would probably take its toll on anyone young or old.
You put all this together with excellent direction, and an excellent script adaptation from its book, layers of STORY and character development and you have one of the best films of all time, "The Exorcist".
Now, some 30 years later, one would consider 'scary' and 'horror' in film only so if it contained a lot of blood and guts and computer enhanced special effects. For its time, The Exorcist did it all by hand and it was spectacular. The Special Effects may look "rinky-dink" by todays standards, but its the religious inferences and WHY it was occurring on top of the effects that was horrific. I mean its one thing to see a child floating above a bed, but why she is, is what scares you.
I do feel the more connected you are in the Christian Faith, is what may make this film horrific than most. Horrific good or Horrific bad. You have several battles here, you as a film goer pick and chose which one or none you care to believe but the bottom line is for all that this film presents, it does it well, provokes discussion and thought and I still haven't seen a film to match what "The Exorcist" has.
One of the top 5 Films of all time.