The Exorcist (1973)
Shove it up your @$$, you f**got!
THE SUMMARY: A young girl gets mysteriously possessed by the devil, until a priest who nearly lost his faith restores it by sacrificing himself for her recovery. It’s one of those horror movies that’s far funnier than it is scary, which makes me conflicted on how to grade it. One the one hand, it’s entertaining. On the other hand, it’s for the wrong reasons. I don’t think laughing with Satan was the movie’s aim, but there I was.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER ELECTRIC NINJA: Famous for its grotesque and creepy scenes, but lesser appreciated is the story of the spiritual struggle going on in Father Karras’ crisis of faith as he is thrust into the face of true evil to save a little girl.
JAMIE AND JEANNE’S AI FACESWAP ART:
Some bad morning sickness, apparently.
In a few years, I will actually be doing this job.
This could be an actual Blonde line from the show.
THE BEST:
It’s absurdly gratuitous: My main point of appreciation could just as validly fit below in criticism, but I’ll place it here because The Exorcist’s silliness is hilariously enjoyable entertainment: the body convulsing that looks like an intense ab workout, the uh… enthusiastic… genital stimulation, the Nickelodeon slime-style barfing to the face, and all this slapstick paired with lines that sound like they were written by the Tourette’s girl on Chris Cuomo’s show.
The problem, as I’ll get to, is this movie isn’t supposed to be Jackass. Yet I’m entertained in exactly the same way.
The honesty of a smoking doctor/there are no experts: I love the scene with the doctor smoking. I know in the ‘70s this was probably normal, but in today’s context, it signals to me he’s a man who doesn’t pretend to know everything, and fully understands the hilarious irony of practicing medicine while poisoning himself, because the reality is we still do that in all sorts of other ways now. The medical profession is so thoroughly corrupt that as I actually shop for a reliable primary care doctor these days, seeing him smoke like this would be a good sign to me.
Likewise, I enjoy the movie’s themes about expertise and realities we can’t always see. When Father Karras is first brought in to help Regan, Chris asks him for his plan, since he’s supposed to be the expert on the matter. ‘There are no experts,’ he replies, ‘you probably know as much about possession as most priests.’ As we’ve learned the hard way in recent years, anybody claiming to understand the world’s every working so thoroughly that they have automatic authority over you is a fraud who should be mocked on sight.
Good makeup and performance for Linda Blair as Regan: The Exorcist has a lot of effects that haven’t aged well, but Regan’s character, at least in visuals, holds up (I’m less convinced by the devil voice, and have been mocking it every day around the house since watching). The makeup has a nice, creepy progression, as does the performance by Linda Blair. Slow and subtle, until she’s yelling about buttsex, which is a little too far.
Sometimes the proof of God is through demons: In losing faith in God, Father Karras’ belief was restored by the revelation of a demon. I can relate. In my own pursuit of faith, as convinced as I am that the world has a moral order and an author of that order, sometimes there’s no proof more convincing than the opposite view, or the null hypothesis. Whether you’re witnessing actual demonic possession, or more common forms of evil like ‘shout your abortion’ activists, actual communists, transgender propagandists, and all the other abundant degenerates, sometimes seeing wickedness is all that’s necessary to prove divinity.
I’m still searching for my own salvation, but I think I’m closer than ever, and a major piece of my development is watching modern miscreants in action. Whatever the truth of the world is, it ain’t them.
At least the makeup was subtle.
It reminds me of Figure It Out.
There are no experts.
THE WORST:
The moral/philosophical component is lacking: I get there’s the arc of Father Karras nearly losing his faith and then returning it, as discussed, but he’s still a secondary character. When I say the moral/philosophical component is lacking, I mean for the protagonist family: Chris and Regan. Why did Regan get possessed? Was it random, or was there a reason? It’s implied for about five seconds that a ouija board was involved, but that plot point isn’t actually explored. What dilemma does Chris face? What development does Chris show? There’s an overall lack of moral and philosophical exploration to explain why Chris and Regan are in this situation, to what extent they deserve this situation, and what they can or should do to get out. This is actually the priest and the devil’s show, and Chris and Regan are just along for the ride, which isn’t satisfying for main characters.
The opening scene is way too long, boring, and pointless: Why am I watching these slow, boring shots of some old archeological dig? Just so this guy can find some demon artifact, and have a pointless callback to it in the main storyline? The opening scenes do nothing to inform us of vital information for the rest of the story. Yes, Merrin had some prior demon encounter. We know that because he’s already performed an exorcism in the past - the only reason he’s a part of the story at all - but we don’t even get to see that event.
Last week I praised Clint Eastwood for getting straight to the action and the point. The Exorcist does the opposite. It lulls you to sleep before it yells ‘BUTTSEX!’ at you.
Some laughably bad camera work: In several instances, The Exorcist uses shaky and silly zoom shots that take way too long to develop and provide nothing of artistic value. Like Return of the Living Dead III, there’s bigfoot footage that is more professionally shot.
It’s not scary, and it’s not deep: This is really just summary for the points above, but my problem with The Exorcist is it fails in its main themes: good vs evil, and terror. In no way did this movie change or even inform how I think about good and evil, or challenge or develop those concepts in any interesting way, and what are supposed to be scares are instead gut laughs. It makes for a movie that provokes little thought or tension, and provides just popcorn entertainment, but the entertainment value is accidental.
THE RATING: 3/5 Wickies. Entertaining, but for the wrong reasons. Or at least reasons other than intended. Instead of ‘on-the-edge-of-your-seat’ suspense and terror, fifty years later, it’s more ‘falling-back-in-your-seat’ laughter. But for a movie as old as it is, it deserves some baseline respect.
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NEXT WEEK: Soylent Green (1973)
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