The power of story compels us

Rating: 10/10 (25 June 2014)

The Exorcist in my opinion is one of the best horror films ever made, yet I didn't find it really scary. Seeing Linda's Blair's head spin around and vomit some green muck was a little unnerving to see I guess, and there were a couple of other little moments, piths of unease you could say. This was when director Friedkin was making great films, yet there's no film I really hated of his, except may'be for The French Connection which I just found slow, where I just didn't sit out the battle. The film has a fantastic script, and brilliant story structure, where we sympathize with Blair's unhappiness, as Daddy's split and left her with her single Mum (Burston) a famous actress as in the story, which I liked. What I liked though here, was we really got to know the family, where sadly for Blair, despite her richly deserved Academy Award, he career sadly plummeted into B grade. Noticing changes in her daughter, matters become worse for Burston, when suddenly Blair becomes one of the possessed, where an evil spirit has taken over her body. A young reclusive priest (Jason Miller, who very much reminds me of Gabriel Byrne, even with the accent) is called into perform an exorcism, and flush the spirit out. Where finding other doctors have failed, and this is over his head, he sends for a master exorcist (Max Von Sydow) to try his hand at it, at ridding the evil in the possessed Blair. He's virtually the last hope, so the scene is set for quite an intense ride. What I liked too, was how we were taken into Miller's life in the priesthood and personal, where his Mum is very sick. Scary or not, I just love this movie, first seeing it back in 2001. It may stretch reality some, where we wanna believe it is possible and it may not be a terrifying ride for some, but what gives the movie it's buzz is as I said, the finely written script, and the lives within in the characters in it, something most horror films fail to do.