The Exorcist - The Best Hell on Earth You've Ever Seen

Rating: 10/10 (1 January 2013)

It may be no great coincidence that the scariest movie of all time was released in the 1970s, a decade notorious for cult killings, hallucinatory drugs, civil unrest, shocking imagery, and a public consciousness that was still very entrenched in the wrath of God versus the duplicity of the Devil. "The Exorcist", directed as a play of madness and hellfire by William Friedkin (and based on a book that was supposedly based on a "true story") is a great film that set the standard for horror—so high in fact, that it spawned a million sequels, imitators and montage techniques that we so easily take for granted in the CGI age. To see The Exorcist today is still a visceral delight, though it's unlikely viewing it will lead to any miscarriages or seizures, like it did during its debut, no doubt benefiting from a bit of group hysteria. It is a film that has aged slightly, but that still packs an emotional wallop, even with an entire generation of desensitized nihilists who grew up playing GTA.
Horror and Gore
The Exorcist goes for scares over gore, though there are a few bloody murder scenes here and there. Friedkin rightly understood that the inexplicable and the surreal are truly the scariest parts of a nightmare, which is why he went all out to transform an innocuous little girl into an obscenity-spewing, spider-crawling demon filled with nothing but contempt for mankind. Friedkin's creative use of cheap visual effects is spectacular, and more effective than one hundred computer-animated corpses. Pazuzu is truly one of cinema's greatest villains, and perhaps because of the spirit's random, indiscriminate nature. No one was safe from an angry spirit, and the fact that Friedkin allowed it to possess a sad little child (surpassing Hitchcock's in-the-shower vulnerability) was truly the end of our fourth wall comfort zone.
How to Watch It
The subliminal messages in the film add to the creepiness factor. For the best results, watch it sober, in the dark, and watch it before all the millions of imitators. Don't be surprised if your honey demands you to put the DVD outside the house before returning to bed!