So genuinely horror, and still so much more than that!

Rating: Null/10 (4 January 2000)

In the beginning of the movie I wasn't so pleased, but what it became turned out to be not only one of those storylines told so fluently and conclusively that you can surely watch it again and again, but also really scary. I was kind of excited when I watched it (on TV), and afterwards I was shivering and couldn't stop.
A problem was that I had to watch parts of it with my mother in the room who kept asking questions like whether I don't believe this crap or whether this isn't pure s**t in every commercial break. But that's because she doesn't see that the movies is more than just your all-day pleasant neurotic romantic comedy. There are so many possibilities, among them getting scared, getting angry, getting disgusted. I love these unpleasant emotions in movies if only they are strong enough, and "The Exorcist" is disgusting and scares the crap out of you.
So I was stunned and caught myself thinking it was perfect, though there were innumerable things about it that bothered me.
(*) It's actually a very cheap means to create terror, having a little girl uttering the words "f**k me" repeatedly in a strange, masculine voice.
(*) The ending is way too fast to make sense.
(*) The horrible emotions the mother must feel with her daughter having become such a THING are a bit overlooked.
(*) and so forth.
But after all the movie is a horror movie and what it achieves is just great. The impact on the viewer's emotional state is devastating. All performances are superb, though I don't really see why Linda Blair received an Oscar nominee, but she wasn't bad at all.
The peak of insanity, that makes this a horror flick, is left for the last couple of minutes, before that the storyline goes through normal every-day issues (medicine, death), keeping the viewer interested and also with that certain quality of pain, anguish and spookiness. There's a great second storyline with the Ellen Burstyn character's Hollywood friends; and along with the terror comes some enjoyable ridicule on the Catholic Church.
Not definitely, but probably a 9 out of 10 in my mind.