Hmmmmm

Rating: 6/10 (21 August 2009)

I viewed the majority of this movie at a Halloween party a few months back with some difficulty. I actually could not even watch all of it. I turned away during the pea soup scene, and left the house to go get pizza shortly after Regan mauled herself with a crucifix and did that famous head spin. Whew, that scene gives me the creeps. This movie alternates between complete gross-out scenes to more subtle yet chilling scenes. It would have been better if there was more of a medium.
I spent a lot of the viewing of the movie distracting myself from it-- doing things like munching on candy corn and playing guitar. One of my friends complained "I was playing the same song for too long". I guess I can see what he means. Bob Dylan's music doesn't mix too well with The Exorcist soundtrack. Tubular bells actually formed a very good soundtrack for the film. I didn't read the book, but, when researching it on IMDb I thought it looked like it could be a great horror film, and I wanted to watch it.
I was disappointed though. While there were parts of the film that were really well-done (the beginning and end for example) overall it kind of left me cold. It was just too unsettling. Things that would have helped The Exorcist would be toning down the language, some of the gruesome violence, and set a mood for the story that incorporated more suspense and less horror. (The suspense level was very sustained in the beginning but most of it was lost towards the middle, and the movie switched to switched from creepy to disgusting).
The language in this movie was actually offensive to me. I am very rarely offended by profane language, so if I am, its got to be pretty bad. Other than the language, there were two scenes that really ruined the movie for me, just two little scenes. Those were the Hospital scene, and the Crucifix scene. It would have been so easy just to edit those scenes, and maybe one or two others, and the director probably could have had an improved movie that relied on suspense rather than shock value.