Rating: 
Summary: The Exorcist
Review: Ellen Burstyn stars as Chris MacNeil, a famous actress whose daughter obviously means much more than her career (as it should be). But when her daughter finds a witchboard in the basement and uses it to contact the spirit of a so-called 'Captain Howdy',
she ends up being possessed by the demon that lies in the witchboard. Now, two priests along with the hope and passion of a devoted mother, the support of a kind nanny, and the curiosity
of a detective, will try to battle evil and triumph and retrieve the sweet spirit of a little girl named Regan who was lost when she made the mistake of using that board.
Possibly the best horror film ever made, this film with its religious undertones, travels deep into our minds and stings the brain with excitement and suspense. All the performances are incredible, as is the cinematography and the music score. Linda Blair (although not always the actress who plays Regan - a stunt person was involved) does an incredible job of portraying Regan MacNeil and we really do feel sorry for her. Great film all around.
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Summary: 11 Minutes Over The Editted Version
Review: Being that the editted version found a way into my permanent memory, I found those eleven minutes of editted scenes plus some subliminal scenes as well. Nothing else is really different. The Exorcist remains as one of the most scariest movies of all times.
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Summary: SCARY, but Incredible
Review: When I first saw this movie a few years ago, I got so scared that I couldn't sleep for a few nights in fear that my bed would start to shake. This has to be one of the scariest movies of all time, but one of the best I have ever seen in the horror genre. Linda Blair gives a stunning performance as Regan, a twelve year old girl who gets possessed by a demon. I still cannot get over how such a young girl could be in such a scary movie such as this. When my family and I sat down to watch it, the music that filled the room gave me the chills. Just hearing it scared me and I almost walked out of the room, but was drawn into the movie. The main suggestion that I want to make is that you do NOT watch this movie alone! Trust me, it is one movie that you will never forget.
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Summary: Quite possibly the greatest horror film ever made!
Review: Ther are alot of great, unforgettable horror films out there that still burn in the back of our minds to this day. But THE EXORCIST stands out among all the rest. It's the first horror film that really focused itself on the Catholic faith rather than focusing on scaring the audience. What I really liked about it was that it didn't just jump to the possession of Regan McNiel; it actually took lots of time before that to develop a plot and give the audience a background history on Father Merin and Father Karras. I get annoyed at the fact that younger kids who are looking for "a really scary movie" always turn to THE EXORCIST and when they start the movie, they can't sit through this kind of plot development. (i.e. my pre-teen cousins) They just want to get to the possession and don't care about anything else. Don't get me wrong, I found myself at times waiting to be scared. But when the horror begins, IT HITS YOU HARD AND NEVER LETS UP!!!!!!!!! It really never lets you go! I usually can take any horror film on Earth, but with this one, especially towards the end, it really started to freak me out and I almost didn't want to watch it anymore. But, if you want to be freaked, definately see it. You can even buy before renting it if you want, trust me.
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Summary: After 20 Years still the best horror movie ever made!
Review: This is one of my all time favorite horror movies. Everyone here does an excellant job. Ellen burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, and max von sydow just to name a few the whole cast was excellant. As was the direction, and the music.
I went to the theater to see it when it was rereleased a few years back. and i was surprised when the theater was full. sevral people laughed a little halfway through(people dont know when to shut up) but by 30 minutes into the movie everyone shut up an did not say word until it was over. pretty good for a movie being 20 years old!
one of my favorite scenes is when chris(ellen burstyn) comes home to a darkly lit house and checks on reagan(linda blair). several images flash across the screen and then theres the famous spider walk. I know for some people this is not an easy movie to watch but this is one of my favorites. see it!
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Summary: One of the best films ever made...
Review: Let alone the best horror film ever made this film is a classic. The director didn't overdue the horror moments like most directors. Even used some to the imagination with the cop's description of the death of the director. Every moment that Regan, the little girl, does something extrodinary it is etched in our minds as we cringe. If you haven't seen this movie already please do so soon, especially in the dark. Like I had said before this film definitely is a classic.
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Summary: Excellent film, but not as scary as it's made out to be!
Review: I just watched "The Exorcist" for the first time the other night. Yes I was all alone, and yes it was the middle of the night and all the lights were out, but no this film is nowhere near as scary as people make it out to be. It definetly had its creepy moments, and there were a few parts that made me cringe, but I honestly don't see what people are so terrified of.
Scariness aside this was an excellent, powerful drama with incredible performances from all involved. I have only seen the newer extended version so I cannot comment on which version is better, but I imagine that people like better whichever version they see first. It seems that more was added character, and story wise rather than horror moments. So maybe that is why some people were dissapointed with this newer edition. I myself thought the story flowed very nicely, and I actually cared about the characters by the end of the film. The dvd itself had great video quality, and an awesome 5.1 audio mix. Plus a decent bit of extras including a feature length commentary with the director. I would recommend this film to all horror, and even drama fans, but if your expecting to be absolutely horrified then you may come away a bit dissapointed.
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Summary: Strong Discretion for The Exorcist
Review: Oh boy it truly scares me a lot! I must say...if you're brave enough to viewed this film go ahead...make your bones chills and please don't watch it alone when you cannot handle it's horrific elements! Absolutely the best horror film ever made! My favorite all-time horror movie. No shattered bloods, no extreme cunning, no exagerrated scream...it's pure serious horror that will disturb you even when you are asleep. It's so freaky scary!!!! Linda Blair scares the hell out of me with her turning freaky head!
Those 12 minutes deleted images surely will make you caught attended!
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Summary: The Exorcist
Review: Although recorded belief in demonic possession only dates back as far as 500 BC Egypt, earlier civilizations believed in evil spirits. The Judeo-Christian legend of Satan, a powerful evil being independent of God, probably began around 583 BC, influenced by Babylonians who ruled the Hebrew people. Back in 1972 one film decided to tackles this subject matter and it soon became known by every living being on the planet as "THE SCARIEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME." That's right, I'm talking about The Exorcist. One area in which The Exorcist was definitely making the news was around the issue of its rating classification. Despite the initial fears of Warner Bros. concerning the necessarily graphic nature of some of the film's scenes, the ratings board of the MPAA had awarded the movie a lenient R rating without a single cut. "There is no confusion about what kind of film The Exorcist is," offered MPAA President Jack Valenti when some concerned parties complained that the film should not have been made available to minors, even if accompanid by their parents. Valenti disagreed, stating, "Much of what might concern some people is not on the screen: it is in the mind and the imagination of the viewer." As film art, THE EXORCIST is a true film majesty and personally, the most handsome, awe-inspiring motion picture I've ever seen no mere words can do justice to the incredible impact of this powerful movie experience; it is utterly shattering THE EXORCIST is a movie that will haunt and finally take possession of you. The Exorcist was loosely based on true events that were reported in Washington, DC newspapers in 1949. The story began in Maryland on the evening of January 15, 1949, when 14-year-old "John Hoffman" and his grandmother heard strange scratching and dripping noises in their house. No explanation could be found for the noises, which stopped after ten days, only to be replaced by mysterious footsteps and drumbeats. After John's Aunt Dorothy suddenly died, the poltergeist-like phenomena increased - with John's mattress shaking violently, food flying through the air and furniture falling over. John and his parents tried to communicate with the poltergeist, which at the time claimed to be the spirit of Aunt Dorothy. Then, in late February, livid red marks emerged on John's skin, taking the shape of actual words. After neither physicians nor psychiatrists could find anything wrong with John, his parents, although Lutheran, consulted a Roman Catholic priest. His recommendations of prayers and holy water only seemed to aggravate John's condition. John's mother took him to St. Louis, hoping things would calm down. But the manifestations intensified. "Father Lawrence," a Jesuit priest, came to visit John in St. Louis, saying prayers over him and pinning two crucifixes under his pillow. After he left, one crucifix propelled itself across the room and the other moved to the foot of the bed as the bed shook violently. On March 16, the Archbishop of St. Louis gave Father Lawrence permission to begin the formal rite of exorcism. During the first night of the ritual, marks appeared on John's skin 30 times -- including the word "Hell" and a portrait of a Satanic visage. The 45-minute ritual was performed several times a night over the next week. John's responses became increasingly rabid, including screaming torrents of profanity and foreign words, violent seizures and uncontrolled urinating. With the parents' permission, John was converted to Catholicism. But his responses to the rituals only became worse. The disturbances suddenly stopped on March 26. Father Lawrence believed John's possession was over. However, they began again on March 31, with John's behavior during the rituals getting even more violent. "I am always in him," the demon said through John's lips. After more days of no progress, Father Lawrence read about an 1870 case of possession that provided a key to exorcising the demon. At 11 p.m., John suddenly interrupted the ritual by shouting, "Satan! I am St. Michael. I command you, Satan, to leave his body now!" After then enduring the most violent spasms yet, John uttered, "He is gone" and suddenly returned to normal, breaking into a smile. John grew up to live a normal, happy life, with no recollection of his "possession."
William Peter Blatty, then a student at Georgetown University, read about John's story in the newspapers. The story stuck with him and 20 years later he fictionalized it to create "The Exorcist." Received 10 Oscar® Nominations in 1974
Best Picture
Best Actress - Ellen Burstyn
Best Supporting Actress - Linda Blair
Best Supporting Actor - Jason Miller
Best Director - William Friedkin
Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium - William Peter Blatty (winner)
Best Cinematography - Owen Roizman
Best Film Editing - Jordan Leondopoulos and Bud Smith
Best Sound - Robert Knudson and Chris Newman (winner)
Best Art Direction - Bill Malley / Set Decoration - Jerry Wunderlich
Won 2 Oscars
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, which went to William Peter Blatty
Best Sound which went to Robert Knudson and Chris Newman
Nominated for and won 4 Golden Globes
Best Director - Motion Picture
William Friedkin
Best Motion Picture - Drama
Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
William Peter Blatty
Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Linda Blair
A nomination for the British Academy Awards (BAFTA Film Award) in 1975 For Best Soundtrack
Fred J. Brown
Jean-Louis Ducarme
Bob Fine
Gonzalo Gavira
Robert Knudson
Hal Landaker
Ron Nagel
Christopher Newman (I)
Doc Siegel
Ross Taylor
And this movie wins my award for scariest movie ever!
Rating:
Summary: The Exorcist (1973) THE VERSION YOU'VE NEVER SEEN.
Review: The Exorcist (1973) is the sensational, shocking horror story about devil possession and the subsequent exorcism of the demonic spirits from a young, innocent girl (of a divorced family). The Exorcist was notable for being one of the biggest box-office successes (and one of the first 'blockbusters' in film history, predating Jaws (1975)), and surpassed The Godfather (1972) as the biggest money-maker of its time. And it remains one of the few horror films nominated for Best Picture. However, it was also one of the most opposed films for its controversial content. Roman Polanski's successful Rosemary's Baby (1968) played upon similar fears of devil possession. The controversial nature of the film's content - exorcism (accompanied by blasphemies, obscenities and graphic physical shocks), was supposedly based upon an authentic, nearly two-month long exorcism performed in 1949 on a 14-year old boy (with pseudonym"Robbie Mannheim") in Mt. Rainier, Maryland by the Catholic Church (in the form of a fifty-two year old Jesuit priest named Fr. William S. Bowdern and Fr. Raymond Bishop). The official exorcism was reported in Thomas B. Allen's and Carl Brandt's 1993 book Possessed: The True Story of an Exorcism. [Possessed (2000) was also a pay-TV-cable Showtime movie of the same name, starring Timothy Dalton.] The film's plot was also partially inspired by a similar demonic possession case in Earling, Iowa in 1928. In the early fall of 2000, the film was recut and released in an 11-minute longer version (and retitled as The Version You've Never Seen), with an enhanced digital surround-sound, six-track soundtrack - as a writer-producer's cut. Additional scenes that were excised were restored to the print, including Blatty's preferred ending in which good triumphed over evil. (A bantering discussion between a police detective and a young Jesuit confirmed the fact that the spirit of Father Damien Karras lived on rather than the Devil's spirit.) Other additions included a shocking down-the-stairs, back-bending "spider-walk" by the satanically-inhabited girl, enhanced scenes with Father Merrin (played by the brilliant central actor Max von Sydow who based his performance on the real-life Jesuit theologian Pierre Tielhard de Chardin), and a few other minor changes. We thought it improved the film. David: ***out of***
I was very impressed with this film. I consider it to be the scariest film ever made! It's intense and extreme, and shouldn't be ignored. Unlike films that rush to the gore, The Exorcist unwinds quietly while Friedkin calmly ratchets up the tension. He devotes considerable energy to the development of his characters, especially Father Damien Karras. This role is portrayed perfectly by the sad-eyed, craggy-faced Jason Miller; it is his sense of guilt in his mother's death, combined with his growing crisis of faith that provides the film with its spiritual and emotional depth. Don't watch it with that so what attitude. Take it seriously and watch it alone in the dark. Andrew: ***out of***
This movie scared me to the point of tears. I also consider it the scariest movie ever made. A new millennium - a new Exorcist. Well, if nothing else, the re-release of the nouveau-gothic mannerisms of William Peter Blatty's novel, so effectively adapted to the screen by director William Friedkin, will provide an opportunity for a generation jaded by increasingly gruesome and gratuitous slasher flicks a chance to see how it can be done without sacrificing the crafty build up of suspense and subtle development of character. One that absolutely must be viewed in the dark. Brandon: ***out of ***
The exorcist, of course, is most often cited (by fans and critics alike) because of the scenes depicting Regan's possession. While recurring claims that this is the "scariest movie of all time" are highly debatable, there can be little doubt that this remains one of cinema's most shocking and gut-wrenching experiences. The special effects, which are key to creating half a dozen scenes that have entered film lore, retain every bit of their enormous initial impact. In my opinion it is the scariest flick ever! This is a horror film that has stood the test of time and has scared audiences for generations. We hope our review has been helpful to you, and hope that wehave persuaded you to see this movie. Not only is it a great horror film,it is a great film period! So if you decide to buy it, you must view it in the dark.
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