Not half as good as the ratings would lead you to believe.

Rating: 6/10 (6 January 2008)

A hokey, synthetic, horror film that never really disturbed or frightened me. Despite the sensational details of the film, it's laborious, and the characterizations and details in the first half of the film are not particularly necessary. The script seems truncated and leaves many things unexplained and Lee J. Cobb's detective serves no real purpose. For me, the most disturbing scenes were those involving the rigorous and invasive medical tests that the doctors put Regan through, and the film's single most impressive effect is the make up job on Max Von Sydow, a most convincing job of aging. Ellen Burstyn, a powerful performer, is effectively shrill and over the top, and Linda Blair's performance as Regan is a triumph of make up, dubbing and special effects. Unlike Hitchcock, Polanski or DePalma, Freidken takes his horror seriously; the film is heavy-going; humorless and shallow, and you don't feel for Regan or her mother, so the movie basically operates on the level of a carnival freak show.