Impressive piece of cinema, but hardly scary

Rating: 9/10 (7 June 2004)

As one of the most controversial movies ever made, the Exorcist was one of the first to so explicitly target religion in such a mainstream way. Viewed as a work of heresy by the Catholic church, the Exorcist's plot centres around young Regan, the daughter of a famous actress, who seems to be possessed by Lucifer himself. After trying everything down the medical road, her mother turns to religion, and Father Damien Karras.
Karras recently lost his mother and blames himself, and added to this the fact he seems to have lost his faith would compel us to believe he's not the best reverand to be dealing with an exorcism. Enter Max von Sydow's Father Merrin who's previously carried out a 4 month exorcism, however, and the 2 of them take Hades on, head to head.
This film goes down in folklore due to the hype and reputation surrounding it. And yet, when we probe the surface, what we really find is a simple good Vs evil yarn, albeit with a supernatural twist.
It must be said that Blair is quite incredible as Regan/the demon, and never fails to convince us that she is either or both. The makeup and special effects are extremely well realised, and there's no doubt that in the 70's, this would have been terrifying stuff. Nowadays, however, the likes of Ring have eclipsed this on fear levels, and consequently I barely even got a chill out of this - but I *did* thoroughly enjoy it.
The level of 'wrongness' is quite good, what with the semi-subliminal demon imagery, and the all-round performance of Blair - especially that Spider walk down the stairs...
All in all it adds to really a rather enjoyable and impressive piece of work.