Good...But Dated By Today's Standards

Rating: 6/10 (1 February 2007)

The Exorcist was the first film about demonic possession that was a huge hit late in 1973. The hype was amazing. They had theater managers dressed up as paramedics to promote the film because there were reports that people were fainting, vomiting, and getting all kinds of other sick symptoms when they saw this movie.
The premise was good for it's time. Demonic possession in a pre-teen girl, parent doesn't know what to do, doctors run all the physical tests, including blood-work, and MRI's, everything is normal so.....AHHH HA!, the girl's possessed! We get the dramatic effects of head-spinning, vomiting, bed-levitation, and "F*** Y**!" bombs enough to nauseate ourselves (at least in the uncut version.) Young Linda Blair certainly makes a good devil child. But the problem is that all of the adults in the movie, ranging from her Mother, to the doctors, to the clergy, serve as little more than reactionary figures to what Reagan does, or simply say, "We don't know what the problem is." So when the exorcism is finally performed, you KNOW that Reagan's gonna have a hissy-fit tantrum, scream profanities, and throw up.
The beginning of the film goes on forever and is downright boring. It is almost as if the writers needed to add some subplots because obviously you can't have 2hrs of "What do we do about poor Reagan's fits?" A great music score is a plus and you might get some scares and gross outs ONCE the first time you see it. If this was 1973 and I was writing this review than, I would give the film a higher rating because for that time, this was cutting-edge horror. But now, there are SO many films that can do the "satanic child" story with even stronger supporting characters where you don't have to wait for 45 minutes for something to happen. (i.e The Omen.) The Exorcist has some good shock moments, but the story is too predictable, and the other characters are too one-dimensional to make it a great film.