By today's standard, this movie is slow. In fact my son kept asking for when it was going to get going. But one it get's going, man does it keep going. It is almost relentless, to be honest.
The cast delivers a top notch performance but obviously, the big nod goes to Linda Blair. She ended up nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe and People's Choice award for her role as possessed girl Regan.
There is a lot going on this movie and there is now, of course, an entire "expanded universe", but this is the first, this is the where it started. Directed by William Friedkin and produced and written (book and screenplay) by William Peter Blatty this movie takes everything I remember about the 70s Occult resurgence and boils it down in a crucible over hell fire.
My son, who has grown up on a steady diet of monster hunting shows like Supernatural, did not see the horror. He had at least a dozen ways in his mind that the demon could have been gotten rid of.
In the end, though he still enjoyed it.
Still, scares the shit out of me.
Watched: 1
3 comments:
I think I'm in the same boat as your son. While I really love this movie, it doesn't scare me at all.
I tend to enjoy movies like this much more than "monster-hunting" stories, for that exact reason: without silver bullets or shotguns full of rock salt, an entire feature-length story can be devoted to the process of recognizing and (hopefully) defeating the evil.
I especially like the themes of this movie; while I don't necessarily agree with the Roman Catholic viewpoint, in this case it does make for a very powerful story. It's on of my favorite films.
Re-watched it a few months ago. It still holds up pretty well, although the demon in the book has the edge over the film version: it really comes across as a spiteful, faintly pathetic (if still utterly terrifying) entity. I saw the TV series within the last year and it was mostly pretty cheesy, but fun, and with some really creepy moments.
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