The Exorcist (1973)

[iHaunt]

It was directed by William Friedkin, and it was very good movie!


Regan MacNeil: "What an excellent day for an exorcism".


See vid link below:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpPwC7QRvFQ

[Murfreesboro]

I never saw The Exorcist in the theater, saw it for the first time in the late 1980s, on TV, while I was sitting up late in an old house waiting for my husband to get home from a middle-of-the-night shift. It was creepy to see it that way at first, but I'd already heard a whole lot about it, and the ending (where the demon manifests itself in the bedroom) wasn't too scary to me. Perhaps if I'd seen it the first time when everyone else did, before I'd heard anything much about it, it would have scared me more.

The movie that really does just scare the bejesus out of me is The Exorcism of Emily Rose. That one is so ambiguous; I think that's what gets to me about it.

When I was a little girl, the movie that scared everybody to death was Psycho. I was a child when my mother took me to it (no movie rating system back then), and I actually fell asleep in her lap after that murder in the shower. That was all of it I saw until many years later, after I was grown. Nowadays when I look at Psycho, it seems OTT, very heavy-handed with the Freudian stuff, but there were people who were seriously afraid to take showers after they'd seen that movie.

I'm pretty sure I've read that women fainted in the theater back in the 1920s, when Lon Cheney's Phantom of the Opera make-up was revealed. That is such an iconic horror character that I can't imagine anyone's not having seen it today, at least in stills. Certainly nobody would faint over it now. Sometimes it's just impossible to recover the original context of a movie.

[Spookymufu]

this is the only movie that freaks me out when I watch it (uncut) and makes it hard for me to sleep after, it still does this to me after all these years...

[iHaunt]

Did Father Merrin, the Power of Christ compel you?

[Undertaker]

Pardon me father, can ya help an old altar boy? I'm a Catholic!
Love that line!

Many a day, been by M Street and Georgetown living here in metropolitan area! The famous staircase is a classic sight!

[ramaries69]

It's the only movie that made an impression, on me. Still til this day....it creeps me out!
I first saw it, at a very young age. I slept with the light on for months!!!!!!!!

[ramaries69]

Murfree, when that movie came out, people in theatres, fainted, walked out, vomited, you name it!

[Pumpkin56]

That movie messed me up for YEARS! I had to sleep with my stereo on because I couldn't take the silence because it felt like I could actually hear stuff moving and scratching and banging in the attic. When they re-released it in theaters a few years later, I went to see it with my mom and seriously thought I was going to have to walk out after the "spider-walk" down the staircase

I loved the book, but it's still not a movie I like to sit through.

[ramaries69]

I was very disappointed with the remake! The only difference was, her, "walking down the steps, upside down!" What a waste!!! I gathered 20+ family members to see this, recrap! All the money, we spent on admission and refreshments! We could've bought the movie for a miniscule fraction of the what we spent that day and take turns, watching the <deleted>!!

[Murfreesboro]

Oh, I well remember when it first came out. For some reason I didn't see it. I must have been about 17. I remember all the hype. Just don't know why I never made it to the theater for that one.

Of course, back then, the movie rating system was pretty new, and a whole lot was made of movies that had R-rated language and content. Although I was old enough to go, maybe that is what held me back. I was still living at home with my mother at that time.

I do think it has some really effective scenes. For me, they are mostly the earlier scenes. By the time I actually did see it (on TV in my early 30s), I had heard endlessly about the head-spinning, and about the green-pea-soup vomit.

[ramaries69]

I was about 7 or 8, when I first saw it! I guess it broke me in! Lol!

Funny thing, when you hear about it a lot before you see it, your expectations are so high, that it kills it when you watch it! I kept my boys, from watching it for many years.
I let them watch it, when they were 14 and 16. I kept warning them. They laughed at me and the movie!!!!! Boys!!!

[Pumpkin56]

It wasn't a re-make. It was the original version with the deleted scenes added back in. I guess a director's cut.

[ramaries69]

You're probably right, Pumpkin, it still doesn't change that it was <deleted>! They hyped it up as if you were going to see much more - not!!!!!

[ramaries69]

I guess the word "cr@p" is forbidden, here!

[Pumpkin56]

Yeah I had it deleted out of one of my posts too. Bummer. I think I used that word at least 50 times a day