I managed a movie theater and we were showing "The Exorcist" and we were lucky enough to have her come to the theater and talk to the audience about the film. I LOVE the movie and have see it countless times. I told Linda Blair that I was a huge fan and that I saw the movie at a rather young age and it scared me so much I didn't sleep for days (something I am sure she has heard a thousand times). I asked her if she would be kind enough to sign my DVD of The Exorcist, she did and wrote Josh, sweet dreams...love Linda Blair. She was such a sweet person, I treasure that DVD sooooo much and I truly love the movie!!!
The Exorcist is a truly timeless movie due to the amount of subtle nuances and intricacies put into the film. Not everything is perfectly explained. We never see the murder of Dennings or even the exact moment when the girl gets possessed. Instead, we see gradual alterations of her behavior which suddenly get more and more intense and shocking. Most horror films telegraph the source of the terror; a man in a mask, a haunted house, etc. But with the Exorcist, we have the main 'villain' be that of a 12 year old girl who is being used as an instrument by an unseen force. The real terror remains undisclosed, and is using the girl to make those around her suffer - which is more terrifying than some evil spirit chasing people around a house trying to kill them (which is how a lot of modern horror films go). I can't think of any other movie that even comes close to the realism of the Exorcist.
It's amazing that you can all love it so much while people like me think it was "alright" and therefore massively overrated. Likewise, my favourite film of all time is Excalibur and not many would agree there either. Hahaha :)
Contrary to a lot of Kermode naysayers in this comment section, I agree with Kermode that The Exorcist is like an onion .. you can keep peeling off layers to reveal another layer, like Blade Runner, it keeps revealing new thematic scopes and plot connectors with multiple viewings ... What makes The Exorcist so deep and interesting is how it delves into such thematically rich premises such as the existence of demons, evil throughout human history .. like how Blade Runner deals with what it means to be a human vs being a robot programmed to think like a real human .. I concur with you, Kermode ..
Yes, Kermode loves, in particular, how the film is about everybody else: the mother's relationship with her daughter; Chris herself -the actress separate to being a mother, but also Regan, the doctors, the priests, the director of the film Chris is in AND the detective, who's small scenes are some of the most underrated and captivating in all of cinema. Also the relationship 'Dimmie' has with his mother and uncle. A superb film, classy, terrifying, transcendental. In interviews when people express horror (quack quack) that Mark is actually a church goer and ask, "how can you love the horror genre?" He says, "how long have you got? I can talk all day about how it informs my faith. " Wow. Just wow. (Edit: the quack quack....)
I went through the funny phase. There's the scary phase then the funny phase. I'm 31 now and it actually makes me well up watching it now, it's a deeply sad film
I had the opportunity to meet Linda at a fundraiser in 2001 it was one of the best days i ever had i love the Exorcist but i did not mention the movie at all she was glad i didn't. She also had a book i bought from her and i took 3 pictures with her they are so special to me. Thanks Linda and thanks for posting .
@@jeffmendelson8039 I was prepared to be depressed by The Seventh Seal but found it uplifting. Redemption through self sacrifice - a very Christian belief that love for others is more important than love (and life) for oneself. Death isn't stopped - only delayed. But it gives the young ones a chance to have some chance of life.
The Exorcist is the greatest horror film of all time. It find's it's way into your psyche like no other film. Realistic, expertly crafted, smart and purely horrifying. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) would probably come in at number 2 for me but it's a different kind of scary. Texas Chainsaw is a low budget, grimy film that assaults your senses, a pure visceral experience! You feel like you need a shower after watching it! Alien (1979), although a better film overall imo and one that I enjoy more than The Exorcist and Texas Chainsaw, would be my number 3 on a horror film list because it didn't scare me as much as the other two films. The Shining, with it's creepy atmosphere and hypnotic quality conjured up by Kubrick and Jack Nicholson iconic performance, would probably be my number 4.
Shane Roberts you just named three films that profoundly changed the direction of the horror genre. I love all three, but The Exorcist is the one that keeps drawing me back.
2 years after and my viewpoint has (unsurprisingly) changed 😅. While I still agree The Exorcist is a phenomenally well crafted horror movie (and one that actually succeeds in scaring the audience), I prefer Texas Chainsaw (1974) and The Thing (1982). As of right now, John Carpenter’s The Thing is my favourite horror movie..... but with the topic of favourited movies, the answers are in a perpetual state of rotation.
The Exorcist is a Cinematic Horror/psychological Thriller Masterpiece, the Greatest horror ever made , and one of few films that are genuinely scary in an unnatural way
MrHappyBollox I totally disagree With you, few films have ever had such a dramatic impact on so many people like the Exorcist did when it was released in the winter of 73'. My uncle went to watch it when it was first released, and couldn't believe vicars and other religious groups were picketing outside the cinema to discourage people to go in. But nothing could have prepared my uncle for what he witnessed inside the cinema. People crying, fainting and vomiting at the sheer shock and explicit content of the film. lots walked out half way through unable to watch anymore. Paramedics tended to people who had fainted and some who were so upset and needed sedating, my uncles nearly 70 now, and not a religious person, and definitely not easily scared, said never as a film genuinely unsettled him and scared him like The Exorcist had , and never as a film ever since. It was a breakthrough film at the time, and was years ahead of its time , from the music score to the brilliant acting and cinematography, it is a Classic in many ,many peoples eyes
MrHappyBollox I don't think it would have the same effect today as in 1973 , and I think its unfair to make comparisons , we are now bombarded with possession films and graphic special effects, so spinning heads and levitation and vomiting scenes are just the norm today, unlike to that of people of 73,who'd never seen anything like it, but The Exorcist is excellently crafted on many levels, I first saw the film in 1993 and thought it had a creepy energy about it and made me feel uneasy and unsettled , and the music score and directing was brilliantly done. I'm more of a see less gives you more type of horror watcher, I like the ghost writings of M.R.James, and I particularly like "Whistle and I'll come to you' and 'A warning to the Curious'
MrHappyBollox I certainly agree A Clockwork Orange is a great film, and a perfect example of a movie which was a breakthrough film in its genre, and so new,and fresh and innovative for its time, takecare ,nice chatting to you, and Merry Christmas
I don't see any "MrHappyBollox" comments here in this thread, maybe he finally saw The Exorcist on a dark scary night and finally have to admit he's terrified ... so he took down all his previous coments in shame .. hehe
kinda interesting coming across this video after binge watching every other film review of his where he will endlessly compare most other films to this one and then after finally having encountered this video and his take on this classic horror film i feel like i've reached the restaurant at the end of the universe because i can't stop hitting that repeat button on this video due to how seldom Kermode will give a film such glowing accolades, i love how much Kermode loves this film now let me just give small mention to my own first experience of this film, i had to have been about six or seven or eight years old born in '85 and after reaching about three quarters into the film on that initial viewing i had to get out of the house and go into the yard to grab the biggest stick i could find and sit on the curb out front to gather my senses collect my wits and psyche myself up into readiness to confront the evil i had just encountered because as a seven or eight year old the best way i felt i could fend for myself at the time was to carry as big a stick as i could find and thats all that matters to kids at that age, i'll never forget how horrified i was by this film because i was indeed most certainly too young to have been exposed to this kind of graphic content such that i was at that tender age whereupon one cannot easily discern the difference between fantasy and reality, imagine still believing in santa claus at the time a youngling first experiences a film like this, truly unforgettable because ever since i have yet been unable to fully rewatch the whole film without the film invoking the same visceral reactions as it did when i was a child which i would say that in my adulthood is testament to how truly horrifying this film was and will continue to remain a benchmark of horror in cinema history
Regardless of its subject matter.....its a perfectly made example of cinema in every aspect of the medium. IMHO No other horror film can compare to its straight forward and raw authenticity when it comes to telling a disturbing visual story. There is no grandiose cinematic padding or extra fat to enhance the given visual aspects here. What you see is the real thing taken from the superb book.
Nothing, other than Rick Roderick, has impacted my life more than this film. I *am* _The Exorcist_ [ read in the voice of Catherine from _Wuthering Heights_ ].
The idea Mark Kermode is pitching here is the same one I get every time I start watching Gone Girl again. The matter of fact Gone Girl is a twisty dark exploration of the archetype of marriage and because it's filmed the way it is, the film unfolds in a way that only cinema can do and make the archetypical projection visible to the audiance watching the film. As Fincher himself has said, it's not about the 'what' behind the film, it's mostly about the 'how' the film and therefore the story unfolds. Mark Kermode, I haven't seen The Exorcist but must probably it has much to do with the 'how' the film unfolds as to why you love it so much. So I've said it. Cheers
+Denis Vargas I agree, Gone Girl is one of my favorite films, it's impossible to nail exactly why, but every time you watch it there is more to be seen, same thing for me with The Silence of the Lambs and This Is England.
Mulholland drive does the same thing to me that mark describes. Laura Harring in the car coming up the hill and bang other world time. Inception does the same thing. Difficult to describe linguistically but I've give it a bash lol.
Kyle Dick Yeh that Winkie's Diner scene becomes excruciating and your constantly thinking when's it going to explode lol. That dissonant rumbling sound in background as the dream is explained. Goosebumps writing this lol. Angelo Badalamenti is crucial to Lynch's visions I think and sound is a recurring motif throughout the film, particularly homing in on the Club Silencio sequence where sound or the absence of it becomes key to understanding the overall structure of the film i.e. the 'MC' says to us as the audience watching the film and to Naomi Watts and Laura Harring that what we might be hearing and seeing is illusory and that's what sets off the second half of the film.
MartianManhunter1987 Yep, totally agree! The sound is a huge component of MD's success and very impressive at every turn. It's brilliant how so little actually happens in the Club Silencio scene plot-wise and yet it more or less ties the entire film and many of its themes together. Great stuff
Kyle Dick Yes exactly. Lynch is a master at providing understanding without bookmarking it i.e. the plot doesn't have to be in your face all the time but you can still get what's going on. MD is seen by many people as a very complex film but I don't believe it's as complex as people think.
MartianManhunter1987 That's probably true. It can be hard to grasp as it constantly refuses to be pinned down and fully understood by the viewer, but complex isn't necessarily the right word for it. It's elusive and mysterious. That's what keeps us coming back for more
I have the same love that Mark Karmode has for The Exorcist, I remember when it first came out ooh boy it was a movie I just had to see. In 1979 I started work and rented a vidio recorder, The Exorcist was the first movie I brought, it blew me away I even did Linda Blair impersonations. Its up there with Frankenstien. The Bride Of Frankenstien. Dracula (1958) and The Shining as one of the great scarey movies. Paul Bacchus esq
That's how I feel about Excalibur to be honest. Seen it hundreds of times and every time I put it on, it's magical. I've never gone "meh" either. I love it each time. My all-time favourite film. Not the best! But miles ahead as my personal favourite 🥰
I agree. It’s my favourite film of all time and I’ve watched it just as many times, if not more. I was around for the opening, the high school letting out early on the release date, calling it E Day so the teachers could go see it. I laid in bed the night my older brothers came home from seeing it, and discussing it - frozen, literally frozen, in my bed. I couldn’t move. It was the most horrifying night of my life, and I hadn’t even see the film yet (I was 14) - it was an R rated film. I saw it a few weeks later, in early ‘74 and from the moment Merrin gets out of the cab, I could not stop shivering in my seat. I will never forget the impact this film had on my psyche as well as many other people. It still does it to me today. I watch it at least twice a year, last week in fact. It actually calls to me. Watch me! Again! And it’s like a new experience as well. The power of this film compels me!
I've seen the original Tron over 300 times. It's not my favorite film but it was when I was younger, and my living situation in Manila back then prompted repeat Betamax (pirated) viewings over the course of two and a half years.
The Exorcist is by a mile the best horror film ever made. There are genuinely disturbing, uncomfortable, and frightening moments in it. There is no way The Shining is anywhere near as good as The Exorcist.
Mark came out and introduced the film at Belfast when I went to see it! He said he thinks it's the best film ever made and if anyone doesn't agree, "i don't care"
yes exorcist is one best movies ever made its psychologically unsettling, the acting is superb, the set is chilling and the story about good and evil is genius there is just no flaws about this movie in my opinion
I think the original version of the movie is perfect as a psychological horror movie, it was already perfect ... but the anniversary edition was cheapened by the extra spider walk scene (it borders on being a parody of itself) and too many demon faces placed everywhere (how its become a lot less subtle in the build-up like they're shouting to the viewers "we're scary, look at us") ... personally I dislike the anniversary edition, the original is perfect as it was ...
I watch The Exorcist about every 3 years and make it a real treat. I'm pretty sad that the film is so easily available nowadays. I could buy it in Oxfam or at a carboot sale for 50p. About 20 years ago I remember when it was still banned and the local cinema showed it one night. I still remember the gooseboumps I got waiting days before it was on. The best movie made in my opinion.
Though it doesn't have the same effect on me years later, it's the only film that scared the shit out of me. Never understood the shining being scary to some people but the Exorcist was scary back then at least.
One of the scariest scenes for me was when Chris comes home walks into the kitchen & the lights go out. Felt uneasy. In the original this is where there was a subliminal pic but U can't see it. Later release flashes the demons face. I had sensed it. Goosebumps.
I'm not religious but did go to Catholic school K-8. I saw The Exorcist when I was 7. Up until I was 13, the movie scared the poop out of me because, at that point, the idea of "the devil" and possession was very real. But I watched it at every opportunity. Then, in 2000, when it was re-released in theaters, I was able to see it on the big screen and something inside of my shifted. I started seeing the film as beautiful. And at times funny. And then as I got older, every re-watch left me feeling much differently. Now, 28 years after seeing it for the first time on a small TV in my uncle's living room, I think I'm maybe starting to actually appreciate it for everything it is, isn't, and could be. I no longer view it as a "horror movie." And after listening for hours to Friedkin talk about his interpretation of the story and Blatty's hopes and intent, I think I'm starting to perhaps see it from their perspective, too. The Exorcist has been the most spiritually important piece of media in my life despite being fairly agnostic. It's a work of fine art and a story that belongs in any religious text that asserts there is a division between good and evil.
I met her too she was very nice funnily i met Harvey stephens( damien) earlier that day too ( yep a convention) so yay met both my fave horror child stars from my 2 gave films.I didn't have to pay too meet them as I grabbed them coming out of the green room tho both were happy to chat had photo with Harvey nice but happy days
Do you only watch the original cut or do do what the sloppy remastered edition. I wish they would put along cut together using all the parts originally cut out and not just the partly re-done spider walk and the talk on the stairs. Also they should get rid of the added special effects ,as they look tacky.
I get it. My obsession with it is even weirder tho. I have not seen it very many times. Less than a handful and I'm not even sure I've ever sat and watched it from beginning to end completely. But I have been obsessed with this movie for seasons. At a time over the 50-year periods it was released and it is the screen just thing. But I strangely love it. I was only 10 years old when it came out but I love movies and I used to make my own dracula movies dressing the neighborhood kids up with me is Dracula a vocation I still wish I had pursued but continue to variously in my mind at times. I was obviously too young to have any hope of ever getting me to see that movie and as it turned out I think it was a decade or more before I ever saw it after I turned 18 and could go to see it. But without ever going to see it when it was released I think in 1973 it was all I could do to just know it was "out there"! The trailer, the news coverage, the subject, the little girl, something timeless about the setting in Georgetown, and, Exorcist, that poster with the blurred out image of I don't know what in the middle. The original poster that blurred out image of a head of something not fully formed something aborted? And it played and played and played in the old theater, the classical capital theater for weeks and weeks that summer that hot bombing summer of 1973. Tubular bells the sound a bit itself. It was so congruent with the theme. Without ever being able to see the movie at most some of the trailers. I loved this movie. Figure that out. It was greater in my imagination then it could have been for me to see it at least at the time. In my quiet small town in eastern Ontario at the spectral hour and after I would bike down the street. Knowing the capital theater sat two blocks down that old heritage building the capital theater with its ornate plush interior. The smell of the popcorn stand the plush carpeting and the darkness inside that cavernous cathedral that windowless church with its property back on to the actual Catholic church my family had attended for a century, one of the most beautiful cathedral lake churches in Ontario juxtaposed to the capital theater where within it deep in the dark hollows within it exists..."the Exorcist". I didn't even know what the exorcist was at first. To me it was more than a movie. The Exorcist was not the priest. It wasn't even the devil necessarily. It was that entity existing in the middle of that cavernous dart theater that I could not dare be allowed to enter cuz I was too young and the movie was restricted to 18 years of age and older. Would I live to see 18?! Sublime excitement at the prospect. The exorcist could get me somehow before then cuz I'm a little boy and she's a little girl and we're vulnerable. I get on my bike knowing I was approaching that theater and I was going to bike past it. Daring the claw like hand of the creature within to shoot out as I bite past in the dark. I'm not quite street to be pulled into the deep warm theater by whatever that was the exorcist and as I bike by the hair would stand in the back of my neck. My blood pressure would raise and I get past it and the auxiliation was crazy. I survived and I survived it. I bite past that building with the exorcist in it haha omg. It's crazy how a movie can affect the imagination without even ever seeing it. I do think it's more than a movie. There's something more to it. If only at the very least, it is perhaps one of the most finely crafted and contained motion pictures more than a motion picture of all time
Seven Samurai is a monumental masterpiece ... thats undeniable, I'm a big fan of Kurosawa, watched 95% of all his movies .. but The Exorcist is every bit on the same level, personally to me I will give the edge to The Exorcist because the psychological terror never left me ever since the first time I saw it ... every generation has a horror movie that leaves an impression but none has made a bigger impact than The Exorcist, no other movie caused such mass hysteria that forced theatre owners to have ambulances on standby, no other ...
@@88feji Gotta admit that people in the past really didn't know how to handle their horror yet, people today are quite desensitized to most on screen scares, both visceral and psychological. If an exorcist equivalent came out today people would call it a really well made movie, but definitely nothing close to mass hysteria would occur.
The Exorcist is a landmark in movie making. Also in funneling what you have being thought about evil down along a clearly defined movie path. Evil isn't a movie from the 70's, Evil is not giving a f*ck, and being thought it's ok to not care about what happening to other people now.
"The Omen" would never have been made had it not been for "The Exorcist." It's kinda like WB would have NEVER made "The Devils," A Clockwork Orange," "Dirty Harry" without "The Wild Bunch." However, it is a good film on its own.
I can relate to this guy. I haven't watched it anywhere near the amount of times he's watched it...probably not more than six. However, I have found myself recently wanting to learn more about the film because, like the guy said, there's always something that comes up that you haven't noticed before. Needless to say, the screenplay, the acting, the general visual aspect of it all is just superb. It wouldn't be fair to relegate The Exorcist to the horror movie genre. It is, in my opinion, one of the best films ever made.
He mentioned on his podcast that he prefers the longer cut because there were scenes which the author originally wanted and they add more texture to the film.
Yes, it might indeed be a great film but watching it was truly one of the worst experiences of my life and I've avoided it for the last 25 years. Hard to understand why anybody would want to watch it a second time, let alone 100.
That movie scared the poopey out of me. I checked when I got home and I had poopey-diapers. I slept with the nightlight on for about six years after seeing that movie.
Ok I understand thats its a good piece of cinema and to can appreciate others who really like it but watching when I first did over 20 years ago (I was 13) I still cannot grasp the thought of it being scary in any way.
