The movie that won't lose its shock

Rating: 9/10 (29 March 2001)

Nowadays not everybody is still used to slowly built-up plot lines like in The Exorcist. Then again, futile details like a plot have been thrown overboard in most recent horror movies. Apart from setting the story and confronting us with the growing terror lurking underneath, this slowly built-up story serves another purpose: when the horror finally does come, it hits you all the harder.
If The Exorcist has become a classic, this has largely to do with the fact that it was the first mainstream movie that used splatter and gore. The movie isn't a complete success: the second time Ellen Burnstyn and Linda Blair share the screen (the first time they have to act) isn't really a highlight in the history of acting. The acting seems a little wooden. The same can be said for some of the scene transitions. Never mind that, though. Once the horror really starts, the movie is a rollercoaster of all kinds of horror. Like Mürnau's Nosferatu, this movie will always keep shocking you. In 2001 the movie is still as repulsive as it was in 1973 (even though considerably less people will run out of the theatre because they have to throw up). Not that many horror films can shock you this much. Ellen Burnstyn will always remember this movie because of her spinal injury (the pain on her face when she's thrown through the room is real), just like we will always remember her for this movie. The same can be said for all the actors in the movie: you'll always remember them from this movie (except possibly Max von Sydow).
The biggest shame is the ending they had to make: the original one might have been too shocking, this one is definitely too ludicrous. It's a very bad spot on an otherwise remarkable film.