Rating: 
Summary: The Film to End Horror Films...
Review: Let's imagine it's Halloween. You sit down and put on a spooky film. Sure, some of you will choose Halloween or Scream, or maybe even Resident Evil.(?!?!) But the only movie that you should have to choose is The Exorcist, the most terrifying film of all time.
The plot is fairly simple. An innocent girl is possessed by an ancient and foreboding demon, and as she turns into the demon himself, her only chance for salvation is through an exorcism. An intense film this is, not so much because of the demon, but because of the horrors that this little girl must endure to ensure her safety. She goes through INTENSE medical examinations, brutal self-inflicted wounds, and painful exorcisms, all to save her soul. The content of the film is bone-chilling, and it will make you think deeply about God and the soul of every human on earth. The most terrifying film of all time is now on DVD. Pray for your soul!
Rating: 
Summary: Dull and silly
Review: This is one of the most overrated horror films (beside Night Of The Living Dead).
It's dull and silly, and not scary at all.
If you want to see real essential horror films, then watch The Evil Dead, Phantasm, Basket Case or The Thing, they are MUCH BETTER than this junk.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad.
Review: 'The Exorcist' has some really creppy and scary scenes in it. There is not much of a story, but the story is held together by the horror of the girl slowly going evil and insane. It is supposed to be a classic, but it is definately not for everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Don't want to see it again
Review: Frankly, I think this movie is overrated. I didn't think it was horrible, but I thought it was really slow, and totally based around shock, vulgarity, and disgust, and not around an interesting plot. To each their own I guess, but I don't see what all of the hype is about. I personally think The Omen is a much better movie than this, but hey, just my opinion.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the Scariest
Review: Society's need for devils, demons, and the grand pooh-bah of them all - Lucifer - enables individuals to explain many terrible things in society. It might be a perverted sense of security. In The Exorcist a demonically possessed 12 year old child (...) is still spooking audiences twenty-five years after the film's release. Universally, it is regarded as one of the scariest cult classics. It's an intriguing film, but unlike most viewers, it made me giggle at times. Flashes of a pasty-faced, red-lipped, sharp-teethed "demon" looked like a frustrated French mime bitten by a rabid racoon during an unsuccessful truffle hunt. The film challenged me to reflect on a more central question - suppose there is no Satan? Experiments on children at Auschwitz become less explainable without a Luciferian figure. Stalin's artificial famine in Ukraine where parents killed and ate their children becomes more horrific without the "comfort" of blaming supernatural evil. Of course an absence of the devil runs contrary to my denomination's simplistic understanding of the black and white world. Yet take away Satan and life becomes more cold, complicated, and may seem pointless at times. In a real, tangible way life actually becomes "scary" without the crutch of Satan. It is less understandable. Shades of gray take over. The cinematographic technique using darkness is brilliant. The music is haunting and there are several unsettling scenes in the film that are chilling - the child's bed levitates, she develops grotesque sores suggesting physical decay, speaks in a husky male voice challenging the exorcist-priests (Jason Miller and Max von Sydow) to sexually violate her, and the spewing of a green, soupy like substance from her mouth onto the holy knights come to battle the devil. The film fittingly takes place in an enclave of Washington D.C. I couldn't resist asking myself whether the child was actually possessed by the negative energy of a long deceased Congressman who couldn't get back into the House Chamber to vote. I do believe that each individual life is a form of energy that can't be destroyed. I'm not in disagreement that the child's body could house a misplaced negative energy. And I accept the widely held belief that ghosts, apparitions, and other energy sources live among us. In that sense, I didn't have to suspend my reality since I believe it. But are they evil? Nor did I find the ability of the demon in The Exorcist to see into any soul unsettling. So what? I might be painfully embarrassed if it happened to me, but such disclosure would hardly merit condemnation for being a monster. This speaks more to our vanity grounded in human insecurity than our fear of the unknown. Although I'm dismissive of this cult classic, it is understandable why the film continues to make so many viewers uneasy. I've personally met people who suffered nightmares because of it (maybe from eating a bad batch of pea soup the night before). Director William Friedkin masterfully balances the surreal with the real and plausible. Is the child actually possessed, or, as several doctors diagnosed, suffering from a severe chemical imbalance in the brain? In exploring demonic possession Friedkin never goes over the top with the unbelievable. He walks a fine line between science and the many things in life that are unexplainable and seem at times supernatural. Although he does not want to offer a black and white answer, he does so by clearly leading in the direction that there are Satanic forces at work. The film offers a plausible depiction of a parallel universe. It may have been stronger had Friedkin made the child possessed by a "demon" rather than Satan. Why would Satan try to take over the world by possessing an innocent child of an insignificant actress-mother? Using a generic energy source with a bad attitude makes more sense. Lucifer would better achieve his agenda of world control if he or a minion took possession of a Bible-thumping American president who appears deceptively presidential instead of a little girl with a sailor's trashy mouth.
Rating:
Summary: 31 Years of Darkness and Light
Review: "The Exorcist" has never seemed like a horror film, unlike "Rosemary's Baby" or "The Omen" and makes it a very difficult film to come to grips with. It is, possibly, one of the most demanding and disturbing films ever produced both on a visual and thematic level. The story, as everyone knows by now, concerns the demonic possession of a young girl (Linda Blair), living with her actress mother (Ellen Burstyn) in Georgtown U.S.A, and of the her eventual rescue through the efforts of two Catholic Priests, Fathers Merrin (Max Von Syndow) and Karras (Jason Miller). The narrative is so matter of factly executed, that we, as the audience, have no problem with what we are being asked to accept, and, despite the famous special effects and shock pieces, it is this confrontation with the supernatural, and the unquestioned plausibility in the film's execution, that leaves us totally stunned and drained at the conclusion. I must admit that this restored version is much clearer than the original. This time around the movie takes it's time, which makes the descent into darkness much more effective. There is more depth on this ocassion - the agony of the mother, the doubt and inner turmoil of Karras, and the serene and hugely heroic Merrin. I also was thankful to see more of the late Lee J.Cobb in what must be one of his greatest characterisations as Detective Kinderman, something which George C.Scott could never hope to imitate, becasue it remains a defined role for all time. This is a Catholic movie- the ritual exorcisim is verbatim and the movie examines spiritual problems, both in and outside the Seminary where some of it is shot. Upon it's initial release the majority of movie goers thought that the devil actually won the battle, which both Blatty and Friedkin admitted shocked them at the time. The overwhelming image that strikes one at the conclusion is the scene where Regan, now fred from possession embraces Father Dyer. There is a close up of Dyer's collar, and even though Regan doesn't remember any of it, the significance is shattering and moving. The character of Fr Dyer along with the other priests in the film are portrayed by real life Jesuits, to whom Blatty dedicated the book. The original excised scenes between Merrin and Karras are put back, especially the scene on the stairs, and a sequence where Merrin recites the rosary. The initial medical diagnosis makes the things that follow more comprehensible , and the scene where Karras listens to Regan on a tape she has made for her Father is quite moving. Jason Miller still shines in the role of Karras, the priest with all the doubts and anguish, but who finally finds his faith again at the expense of his own life. I don't think there has ever been a performance quite like it, and think Miller should have had a bigger career in Hollywood. There are no phoney performances in the film, and acting honours go to all. It's the kind of film that you can't single anyone out as, as an ensemble, the actors are all locked together in one ultimate goal or pursuit. "The Exorcist" will affect anyone that sees it but people of the Catholic faith more than any other. Suddenly we are not so sophisticated after all, and the film has a way of saying that maybe the precepts of fire and brimstone are not so far fetched after all. It has an unsettling way of answering people who profess to believe in a God who is all loving, but not one who would consign us to hell just as easily. That would imply that we can't pay lip service to our faith and that there are certain rules to be followed as best we can, and just like the laws of our society, if we break them, we pay a price. "The Exorcist " says that all the old stories of the Old Testament are not necessarily parables after all. Indeed, the Catholic Church still retains and ordains her priests with the holy order of exorcist, which is the third minor order. There have been reviewers who have said they found the picture absurd and laughable, but I would think in the back of their minds their humour is half heared. Watching "The Exorcist - The Version You've Never Seen" is no laughing matter, not when one brings intellect to bare on the subject. It's always interesting to see Syndow in this role and compare it to the role of Jesus he portrayed in "The Greatest Story Ever Told". One thinks of an aged Peter Cushing, crucifix in hand. Indeed, Cushing himself stated that he could never have portrayed a part in the movie as "it was too like reality" He always viewed his films as fantasy or dark fairy tales. If I had one quip to make it would have been the spider walk sequence, which seems out of place and breaks the concentration slightly, but otherwise it is as close as they come to a masterpiece, of terror, of darkness, but of the triumph of universal light over that dark. When compared with other William Friedkin films the gritty realisim is there, but "The Exorcist" will always stand alone from them, like a lonely but strangely noble figure, even though "French Connection", "Crusing" and "To Live and Die in LA", are just as matter of fact and treat their subjects with just as much sincerity. The complete version does say a lot more, but in a subtle way and the fact that it is 31 years old and still is the most provocative films ever, when all the movies once labelled "infamous" have led us to wonder what all the fuss was about, puts "The Exorcist" in the front rank of truely original movies, and one that will never lose it's power and effect. In that sense, it says something about mankind as we enter the 21st century.
Rating:
Summary: great for horror fans like me
Review: this is definetely the best horror movie ever made. boy did they do a good job with this one. i saw this movie back in 1973 and it is still the best. this is a real movie about a girl that gets possessed by THE devil. it will keep you up for a week. and one more thing. WOW WHAT A MAKE UP JOB.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT WITH FRENCH DIALOG ON
Review: this is a great movie, but it takes it further when you flip to FRENCH AUDIO. My God, it's hysterical. She cusses like a sailor en francais. You'll scream again and again. Mike
Rating:
Summary: Pazuzu would have no interest in a little bourgeois girl.
Review: First of all let me say that I believe that spiritual entities exist in the context of their religions, and so its not right to take something from one faith (like Pazuzu from the mythology of Mesopotamia) and vilify it in the context of Christianity. Demons (coming from the word Daemon) were not always bad things; they were simply entities that could communicate with both the deities and humans. Pazuzu was the Mesopotamian demon of destruction and wind, but destruction was not always a bad thing in pagan mythology, its simply clearing the way for something new. Does the filmmaker expect me to believe that a Mesopotamian demon that has the ability to control wind and in the mythology is even known to protect newborns is going out of his way to possess a spoiled little rich girl under a cheesy name like Captain Howdy? As Implied, Pazuzu was even said to be helpful to humans. Pregenant women were known to wear necklaces of him to protect their babies. There seems to be a similarity to when the Phoenician goddess Ashorah (better known by her Greek-assigned name Astarte) is vilified in John Milton's book Paradise Lost by being turned into a form of the Christian devil.
Other than that I thought The Exorcist was a great movie, who could have imagined a film where a priest would have a man-to-man conversation with a demon? As for the scare factor I thought this movie was more frightening than any other horror movies that I have seen but I think that I may have been scared by different scenes than most people were. The acrobatic and physical tricks which Pazuzu commenced to do with Regans body were not too frightening for me, but I was very scared of that subliminal demon face that kept appearing, and this was amplified by me thinking that it was, "the devil." There are those who would say that because the movie deals with subjects that are evil to the Christian faith, this must also be a heretical movie, but if you watch the credits you will see that there were three, Reverend advisors credited; giving lie to that claim. I'm deducting two stars from my rating of The Exorcist, if they wanted to vilify an entity they should have used one from their own religion, rather than one from another.
Rating:
Summary: Adolescent Girls Can Be So Difficult¿
Review: Lankester Merrin (von Sydow) is a rather frail old priest, an eminent scholar and archaeologist and just about the only man alive ever to have performed an exorcism for real. Working on a dig in Iraq, he is touched by a foreboding of something unpleasant on its way... Damien Karras (Miller) is a second generation Greek immigrant and a highly trained psychiatrist. He could be earning big money in academia or private practice if he hadn't become a priest. But here is, working as a lowly counsellor to other priests in the Georgetown area. The consequences of his life choices are unusually and painfully stark to him as he watches his mother die in a squalid public hospital ward while his brother reproaches him for his inability to do more for her. And he is starting to feel his faith slipping away... Chris McNeill (Burstyn) is a young-ish, successful movie actress staying in Georgetown where she is making a movie with director Burke Dennings with whom she has an incipient romantic attachment. She has a daughter, Regan, from whose neglectful father she is separated. She seems a nice enough lady and a good mother (though from what little we see of Dennings, it's a bit puzzling what she sees in him). The very last thing she is is even faintly religious. But then Regan starts to get sick: her behaviour becomes increasingly odd and disturbing; doctors perform every kind of brain scan, shrinks examine her. Nobody can help. Eventually, as Regan's behaviour becomes more and more frightening and self-destructive, desperate to avoid having to lock her away in some institution, her mother turns to a priest, Father Karras. This initiates a chain of events that leads to Merrin appearing at her door in a taxi, picked out in the foggy night by the light from Regan's upstairs window... This film deserves its classic status. It's a peculiarly effective, powerful and disturbing horror movie that is aging pretty well. Various things conspire to make it so effective. One is that it takes itself with a peculiar seriousness and gets away with it. Most horror movies do not, for good reason: they are efforts at hair-raising entertainments dealing with werewolves, vampires, zombies and other assorted fantasy bogies that adult people know perfectly well are not real. So making a film about zombies with the portentousness that might be brought to making a film about, say, divorce is not generally a great idea and, while a few horror movies do indeed take themselves very seriously, the ultimate intrinsic silliness of the subject matter makes this a huge artistic risk that almost never pays off. But "Exorcist" is dead serious. Blatty's original book is in fact a piece of out and out religious propaganda (its plot pretty much recapitulates C. S. Lewis's "That Hideous Strength": a sophisticated educated young woman does not believe in God until her secular mind-set is shattered to its foundations by her encounters with both Capital-E Evil and Capital-G Goodness...) and the movie (however much it subsequently irritated Billy Graham) was made with some cooperation from the Catholic Church. Friedkin and his cast seem to have bought into all this enough to make it the case that much of the time it feels almost as if we are watching a drama-documentary. This is indeed a big risk but the film is good enough to get away with it. How so? Well, for one thing, it is brilliantly well directed, so much so that it is surprising and sad that Friedkin has made very little of much note since (His most recent films were the weak "The Hunted" and the dreadful "Rules of Engagement"). The film builds very slowly: not much that is all that "horror"-ish happens for the first 50 minutes or so. Though there is some nicely done suspense here, as Chris searches her dark attic for the source of a strange noise she thinks may be rats; but this is just a tease, ending anticlimactically. And there are some scenes in the hospital where tests are being done on Regan that will not be enjoyed by those who dislike the sight of blood. In fact the main function of scenes like these seem to be a very nicely calculated and highly effective way of softening the audience up and setting our nerves on edge for what happens in the last hour and a half. The acting and writing is of a high standard. Smaller characters, notably Lee J. Cobb's amiable film-buff policeman are vivid and fully drawn. Ellen Burstyn is utterly first-rate as Chris and Max von Sydow brings all of his enormous screen charisma to the part of Merrin. A dimension in which the film is especially brilliant is in the use of sound. The tired, standard forms of "scary music" are more or less wholly absent. Indeed music of any kind is used sparingly but effectively. But it is the care that goes into the use of ambient natural sound to create mood that is impressive, right from the start in the opening Iraq scene as we cut we cut sharply from the deafening hammer noises of the dig to a dead silence. Then we get the "rat" noises from the attic, the deafening drone of the brain scanning machine that circles over Regan in hospital, the roaring of a subway train, all again counterposed with moments of dead silence. And of course the dreadful repertoire of noises Regan emits in the frenzy of possession, some but by no means all of which are the product of Mercedes McCambridge's fabulously disturbing vocal skills. If the special visual effects of this movie are starting to show their age just a bit, the sound effects are still a masterclass. The film has weaknesses. Not all scenes work equally well. The short episode where Karras is summoned to the McNeill household at night to witness the words "Help me" tracing themselves on Regan's belly is unfrightening, unconvincing and generally ill-conceived. And if the film's success is partly due to its taking it subject matter of possession and exorcism so seriously, it is the ultimate impossibility to most of the rest of us of doing the same that stops it being a great, as opposed to very good, movie: at the end of the day, it's all a little bit too silly. But a very good movie it remains. For most people I guess its impact has been dulled by the overfamiliarity of so many central scenes and images. But if you like a good scare and you are lucky enough not to have seen this before, it's well worth doing so (alone, late at night and with all the lights out, it should go without saying.) (Note. This reviews the original movie. I haven't seen the 1998 "Exorcist: Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Special Edition" or the 2000 "The Version You've Never Seen" or any of that stuff and have no particular interest in doing so. The recently burgeoning "Directors Cut"/"Special Edition" industry doesn't strike me as a lot more than a tired effort by studios get to a few extra bucks out of old movies by mucking about with them. Most stuff that ends up on the cutting room floor does so because someone thought it belonged there and, when the resulting film becomes a classic there is every reason to suppose the someone in question maybe knew what they were doing. (Indeed I HAVE seen the supposedly terrifying "spiderwalk" scene and its original deletion seems to me singularly well-judged. There. That's you all told.))
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