Better the First Time.

Rating: Null/10 (5 December 1999)

I first saw The Exorcist on my own, underage and unprepared back in 1974. It terrified me. My walk home from the cinema meant that I had to cut across dark, isolated farmland. Every noise of every hidden creature became a demon in the shadows. I recently watched it a second time. It is still a relatively scary film, but it has been parodied so many countless times that I feel it is now impossible to get the original effect. The world is increasingly less innocent even by 1970s standards. Children are now brought up on diets of violent video games and films. It is hard to know how a movie is ever going to capture the raw horror that this one once did. But then again, - Older people were probably saying the same thing about King Kong!