A Shock Film That Didn't Stand The Test of Time

Rating: 1/10 (28 June 2015)

Being a huge horror fan who was born some time after the era of classic releases, I have been systematically working my way down the classics over time. To my fresh eyes, some of them have aged very well: The Shining, Psycho, Alien, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre even, while others sadly haven't held up:
The movie, as most probably know by now, is about a little girl who gets possessed by a demon (via playing with a Ouija Board of all things), her mother thinks it's mental illness, and then when it's pretty clear it's not they get in contact with an exorcist, along with a side story about a priest struggling with his faith in the wake of his mother's sickness and death but ending up agreeing to help with the exorcism in the end. Not a bad setup for a frightening movie rooted in religious imagery, however the issue here is how it's structured more like a drama film with some scary bits here and there rather than a full horror film.
The movie is 2 hours long but could probably be cut down to 1 hour easily as it is padded with long stretches of nothing happening. One might argue this is to build atmosphere and suspense, and yeah if that is what it actually did then it would have been fine with the slow pace, the problem however is that it really fails to deliver on any sort of tension.
What we get is everyday dialogue in the vein of a soap opera, interluded with shots of dark hallways, flickering lights, doctor visits and flash cuts of spooky faces. This is not good building of atmosphere, this is a director trying to convey horror but not actually knowing how to get under the skin of audiences psychologically by using old tired tropes that I can't imagine were all that fresh even if the 70's. There is also an attempt to show the little girl gradually going from innocent child to pawn of Satan, though due to poor editing and a oddly put story structure we don't get to actually know her much, and there is long stretches of side plot in between her scenes which ruins any sort of personal connection the audience might feel to her beyond "she is a innocent little girl"
Which brings us to the other part of the movie: torture! Now movies like Saw and Texas Chainsaw Massacre are often labeled as meaningless torture due to their sadistic betrayals of human suffering, but at least there they have a purpose. It shows character and how they deal with being put through hell, it builds the universe, it gives an intensity to scenes as you feel the terror of the character being forced onto you in a powerful way. The Exorcist on the other hand falls more into the camp of Eli Roth's Hostel: torture for tortures sake.
There is no reason to show everything that is being done to the little girl at the hand of the demon; everything from self mutilation, defiling a cross, assaulting her own mother and using language you would expect a internet troll to use to rile people up. It practically reeks of indulgence in shock imagery and trying to tick people off on the part of the director and writer, especially when considering how violently and inhumane they treated their actors, making Rob Zombie seem like a Nobel Peace Price winner in comparison
Now all of this, all of it could have been okay if the characters and deeper meanings of the film had been good enough, but... there really isn't much character to go around. Reagan is "the girl", her mother is "the screaming lady", the priest and exorcist are "the knights in shining armor" and the demon is "the dragon", and it all boils down to a Saturday cartoon good vs. evil all in all. Their motivation is that they are good, and demons are presumably evil, and therefor they have to get rid of the evil thing. The mentioned side plot of the priest who assists in the exorcism don't really add up to anything other than the demon using his feelings about his mother against him to try and weaken him, it's really no deeper than a wrestling villain trying to rile up his opponent all in all. The simple black and white dichotomy along with the constant swearing and attempts to shock rather than trying to make the audience think makes it all sorta come off as rather juvenile
And that is the reason I feel this movie doesn't hold up: it just doesn't have a strong foundation to it. It's all style, iconography and shocking moments to tell your friends about and no heart, no soul, no humanity to ground it with. It uses it's human components as pawns in a game rather than characters to be known
As a drama it doesn't hold up due to the flat characters, as a horror it is not scary, as an exploitation special effect fest it has too many boring parts in between the gore, and as a religious film it doesn't work due to how vulgar it is. All in all it is a confused movie that wants to do too many things at once and ends up doing very little at all. Not recommended unless you just want to know the historical context of the piece and study the special effect use at play