A Very Thought-Provoking Film

Rating: Null/10 (24 September 2000)

First of all, I AM including SPOILERS!!!!! SPOILERS!!!! SPOILERS!!!
I just saw this excellent movie at the theatre on Friday when it opened. I've seen it before but never on the big screen. As horror movies go, this is the leader of them all. It's a very intelligent, thought-provoking film. Thr horror and evil in this movie cannot be categorized or rationalized in any human capacity. For this reason, it is so unfathomable and so unrealistic to some people that they come away amused and confused. But for those that dare to understand the meaning in this film, the reality of it all leaves you shaken to the very core-reaching for what little faith you have in your humble human existence. The evil portrayed in this film is not physical or tangible in any form: there are no serial killers here, no Jasons, no Freddy Kruegars. What we're dealing with here is evil in its' purest form. We avoid this movie, we're ignorant, or we nervously laugh off its' implications but it's there. For how can we fight something that has no form? Something that is nowhere yet everywhere? Something that knows past, present, and future? Something that is a part of you yet apart from you? Surely these are the questions little Regan must be asking herself in whatever awareness she has of herself apart from the spirits presence within her. The reality of this brings up other questions and realizations. Specifically, theological ones. The spirit is powerful, yes, but he has his weaknesses but not in any human sense. For he is as much a servant of Jesus as we are although on a different plane of existence. He knows this and as Father Merrin mentions in the movie, he seeks to make us despair about our humanity. As you can see, he does this in the most obscene, most disturbing, animal-like ways as possible. (The masturbation with the cross). He takes our weaknesses and uses it against us. (Father Karras and his guilt over his mother.) In the end, we are only sure of two things and these two things we can never prove in any human capacity. One: Our faith in Jesus to love us and forgive us for our sins if only we realized and accepted it. Two: Jesus bestowed upon us a beautiful and powerful gift that we humans have. This gift is FREE WILL. For it is this free will that enables us to hold on to any vestiges of ourselves in struggling with these powerful spirits. (The HELP ME that is written across Regans' stomach)
It is this free will that manifests itself in the physical inner and outer struggle between Regan and the spirit that results in her convulsions and physical attacks on her body and her senses. (It burns! It burns!) Regan is fighting It but just barely. Serious human and theological issues. For those of you who are already shaking your heads, I'd like to add this. Science is forever seeking to find life on other planets. Life has been found to exist where it was thought impossible. Life has been found in the deep abyss of the ocean trenches where no sunlight penetrates, to the hot, gaseous internal of a volcano to the extreme cold of ice core samples. Knowing the biological tree of life: humans.... animal... bacteria.... nanobacteria... life is apparently in abundance. How arrogant are we to believe that life and intelligence stops with us? That if we can't measure it with our meager tools, we are to conclude that it must not exist? What if the existence of Jesus and evil spirits is something that we will never be able to measure in any human capacity? What if their existence is something we will never have the tool to measure? These are the questions that THE EXORCIST raises. For those who dare and are willing and able to search beyond the surface , the answers we might find are unimaginable and quite terrifying. For those of you are are interested in reading factual cases of demonic posession, I'd highly recommend MALACHI MARTIN'S HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL. It is a scholarly look at case studies of modern day demonic posession. He goes into much detail about the stages of demonic posession and he explains wonderfully the relationship between Jesus, Lucifer, and humans. If you want to challenge your beliefs, I dare you to read this book and consider its' implications.