One of the best horror movies ever made

Rating: 10/10 (7 April 2012)

What's remarkable about The Exorcist, especially when you compare it to other horror films, is its patience. It takes the time to calmly develop the ordinary home life of a modern postnuclear family, letting you get comfortable in the setting, and then things slowly get stranger and stranger, until eventually everything you knew has been upset or overturned.
There's a fear of the future here, of a new deviancy that the older generation can neither understand or control, which very much positions The Exorcist in the social battles of its age, possibly even as a backlash against the youth revolt of the 1960s. But there's also a more universal fear here -- the fears of parenthood, and the unshakable notion that your child might turn out to be a monster and you would be responsible.
More than this social commentary, what stands out is the excellence of execution -- the note-perfect direction, pacing, cinematography, and acting. None of this is very flashy, but it all has a kind of technical skill that makes The Exorcist a terrific movie, and one of those rare gems that can be admired for both ideas and craftsmanship. It's considered a classic for a reason, and should absolutely be included in the canons of not only the horror genre but the New Hollywood era of major studio art films.