Film Friday: The Exorcist (1973)

When is a terrifying horror movie not a horror movie? When it’s one of the greatest films of all time and it was made in the 1970’s. As we’ve mentioned before, the films of the 1970’s were different. They tended to be contemplative and involved solid storytelling rather than being about quick emotional triggers. The jokes took time to develop. Love was the goal, not sex. And when it came to scary movies, filmmakers strove for building psychological terror rather than quick shock. The movie that demonstrates this best was The Exorcist.

The Plot

The Exorcist begins with a character you won’t even see again until near the end of the film. The film starts with Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow) on an archeological dig in Iraq. In a scene that involves more sights and sounds than words, you see Merrin uncover an amulet which resembles a demon Merrin defeated in an exorcism years ago. The exorcism lasted several days and nearly killed Merrin. The demon he exorcised was called Pazuzu.

The movie then switches to the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is here to film a movie at the Georgetown University campus. Her daughter Regan (Linda Blair) plays with a Ouija board and soon strange things begin to happen at their home. These are very minor at first. In fact, they are mistaken as just being rats. But soon Regan begins to show signs of potential mental illness. MacNeil has her daughter evaluated by every specialist she can find, but none of them has an answer. They finally suggest an exorcism as a sort of placebo because Regan has begun to claim she is possessed.

As this story progresses, we simultaneously meet Father Damien Karras. Karras is a priest and a psychiatrist. He is a firm believer in modern science and he disbelieves things like exorcism. In his story, Karras's mother dies without Karras being able to help her and that causes him to lose his faith in God.

With her doctors having told her to seek an exorcism, MacNeil seeks out Karras, whom she has seen at the film set. She now believes that Regan is possessed and that Regan has killed her director Burke Dennings. Karras tries to dissuade her from pursuing exorcism, but ultimately agrees to see Regan. He meets with Regan several times and starts to believe that she may actually be possessed, even though the demon within her gives both evidence of his existence and evidence that he is being faked by Regan. Ultimately, however, Karras decides to do the exorcism.

To do this, he needs the permission of the Church. The Church assigns Merrin to help Karras. They then do the exorcism, which involves several truly iconic moments in film.

What Made This Film So Special

The Exorcist is perhaps the best example of how 1970’s films were different than today because there are so many films we can compare to it. Indeed, you can’t really find a modern exorcism movie which isn’t essentially a direct copy of The Exorcist. Yet, all of them fail to live up to the original. And the reason all the imitators fail, despite having so many advantages, such as having a success to study and the benefit of being able to go further in terms of effects and scares with modern audience, is exactly what makes The Exorcist the great film it is.

Unlike the modern copies, The Exorcist takes its time, but it does so with a purpose. This is something too many modern directors don’t understand: time does not equal drama, careful use of time does. Consider the sequence where Pazuzu possesses Regan. This begins so slowly that the audience could be forgiven for not even knowing what is happening at first. Indeed, at first, it seems like a game where Regan is talking to an imaginary friend over the Ouija board, and then MacNeil thinks there are rats in the ceiling. Soon, Regan’s behavior starts to grow stranger. At this point, the film cleverly leaves the door open for this being either something demonic or simply Regan having a mental condition or possibly a seizure condition. At the same time, the director slowly isolates MacNeil. By the time we know for sure, MacNeil has no friends outside her home and Regan is showing supernatural signs of being a prisoner in her own body... she has become bait for Merrin and Karras.

All of this is vital because the point to this story is not the possession itself, it is the horror caused by the possession. Specifically, it the horror MacNeil faces as her daughter succumbs to a condition MacNeil cannot treat which terrifies us as we translate it to our own children. It is the horror of being Regan who becomes a prisoner in her own body which makes us shudder at being in her condition. It is the horror Karras feels when Pazuzu taps his guilt over his mother and what Karras must do to save Regan which makes us sick as we ask if we could do the same thing. That is where this film works and it is through the slow build that the film makes this real. The modern copies don’t get this. They think the horror comes from making the demon seem as evil as possible, but the demon is irrelevant here... a mere Macguffin. Indeed, this film could almost end with the possession being faked and be just as terrifying because it sells us a drama of a mother, a little girl, and a priest who endure extreme suffering. The copies would be a joke without the demon, since that’s really all they offer.

What's more, another key distinction is that this film actually cares about the character stories. Consider Karras’s issue with his mother. We are essentially given an entire movie about that story before Karras ever meets with Regan. The reason is that we are meant to be pulled into who this man is and what his problems are long before we are shown the monster who will exploit his weakness. The copies generally replace this entire movie of story with a montage of someone the priest loves dying and then the priest telling his boss that he’s lost his faith. That gives you the form, but nowhere near the substance of The Exorcist which is why you can’t even remember the names of the copy-cat priests, but you remain haunted by Damien Karras’s story long after you have seen the film.

This film worked because it was a story about several people who endure horrific choices and incredible suffering. It was not a film about two priests fighting a demon. That is what makes this film so unforgettable, so re-watchable, and why none of the copies have ever approached its quality.

Thoughts?