The Exorcist - The Most Terrifying and Controversial film ever

[onewhosighs]

After reading some things about this movie. I've come to respect it much more. It had a major impact on the world and changed movie history.

The Exorcist to me is the most classic movie I will ever see.

Controversy

-The Exorcist holds the record for most people having heart attacks while watching in theatres.

-Many people were recorded to have running out of the theatres screaming before the movie finished.

-Ambulance were called on several ocasions.

-Many people had to go through psychotherapy after viewing the film because they were so disturbed.

-Some of the people that ran out of the theatres during the movie were reported to have layed down on the ground and pray over and over again.

-2 Woman had miscarriages (gave birth prematurely) in the cinema because they were too terrified.

-The pope requested every copy of the exorcist reel, tape and any other thing to be burned and banned from the entire world.

-The full version of the movie was banned and never released again until 30 YEARS after its release.

-People protested and threw tomatoes at every cinema that played the movie.

-------------------------

I find this amazing. If any movie can do this, it's a movie worth watching.

Respect to The Exorcist.

[Roderick Usher]

-The pope requested every copy of the exorcist reel, tape and any other thing to be burned and banned from the entire world.



He sooo didn't get it - Church attendance across the globe had been declining throughout the 60s and early 70s and this film quite literally scared thousands if not tens of thousands back into the "safety" of Sunday services.

It did more for the Church than Vatican Council II

[Davids]

[QUOTE=onewhosighs;617488]
-Some of the people that ran out of the theatres during the movie were reported to have layed down on the ground and pray over and over again.

When did the pope manage something remotly like that? They could use this for what it's worth. Show The Exorcist in church so everyone starts praying more :D

[Marya Zaleska]

This is the only horror movie that actually put a scare in me.

But I did not pass out or sleep with the covers over my head either.

This was a first rate, classic, chilling horror movie.

[Doc Faustus]

It had the most dramatic EFFECT on moviegoers certainly. But this is one of those horror movies that a lot of horror fans find less scary than mainstream viewers. Not that it isn't scary, not that it doesn't have some of the great shots in film history, but I think it's quite overrated in a lot of ways. It's better as a dramatic film than it is as a horror film.

[onewhosighs]

You have to understand that watching this movie today, will have little to no impact on us.

You have to think about the people back then. They had never seen anything like this before. It started a whole new line of horror movies.

What they saw was shocking to them. Back then nothing like this had ever been done. Which is why it caused so much controversy. But thats what makes it a classic.

It's the King and Father of all horror movies.

[neverending]

Well, I saw The Exorcist back in "the day" when it came out. There was a lot of publicity about people puking and passing out and stuff- but who knows how much of that was planted is anyone's guess. It was a good scary movie, but nobody at the theatres I saw it at (I saw it twice) passed out, ran out screaming, puked or anything like that. There were screams!

There were other films at the time I would have considered more controversial and pushing more boundaries- such as Andy Warhol/Paul Morrisey films and early John Waters.

[massacre man]

-Many people were recorded to have running out of the theatres screaming before the movie finished.

I would love to see that.

[scarecrow666]

I think it was media hype. The Ambulances were plants. You know how it is with the hype bandwagon.
But the film is a really good classic though , and iam just about to watch it again, so i could run out my house screaming, puking my guts up and phoning a Ambulance before i faint. < Just kidding........Mummy!!!!

[mutilator666]

why do u think the exorcist is scary.
i saw it and it was just a bunch of $h!t.
the girl was shouting and throwing green mucus, wats the point.
lets turn to the movies of now.
dont u see there are really scary movies now
well at least they have better effects.
ill list 7 of them
1. hostel
2. hostel II
3. incubus
4. silent hill
5. vacancy
6. the hills have eyes
7. the hills have eyes II
watch them and say what do u see now.
and if u think the exorcist started the horror movies chain, youre wrong.
it started with Psycho, by Albert Hitchcock.

[massacre man]

why do u think the exorcist is scary.
i saw it and it was just a bunch of $h!t.
the girl was shouting and throwing green mucus, wats the point.
lets turn to the movies of now.
dont u see there are really scary movies now
well at least they have better effects.
ill list 7 of them
1. hostel
2. hostel II
3. incubus
4. silent hill
5. vacancy
6. the hills have eyes
7. the hills have eyes II
watch them and say what do u see now.
and if u think the exorcist started the horror movies chain, youre wrong.
it started with Psycho, by Albert Hitchcock.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA!

Wow...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA!

[Dante'sInferno]

I thought it was alright.Linda Blair plays a great possessed girl!









WOOOOOO!MY HEAD CAN TURN BACKWARDS!FUCK YEAH!

[paws the great]

it started with Psycho, by Albert Hitchcock.


Albert Hitchcock?:confused:

[Davids]

why do u think the exorcist is scary.
i saw it and it was just a bunch of $h!t.
the girl was shouting and throwing green mucus, wats the point.
lets turn to the movies of now.
dont u see there are really scary movies now
well at least they have better effects.
ill list 7 of them
1. hostel
2. hostel II
3. incubus
4. silent hill
5. vacancy
6. the hills have eyes
7. the hills have eyes II
watch them and say what do u see now.
and if u think the exorcist started the horror movies chain, youre wrong.
it started with Psycho, by Albert Hitchcock.


i belive this is the first time i've seen somebody calling Hostel scary...
All hail Albert :D

[Dante'sInferno]

Who is Albert Hitchcock?

[Dante'sInferno]

i belive this is the first time i've seen somebody calling Hostel scary...
All hail Albert :DEH????I thought it was just a porno with torture.

[Doc Faustus]

Albert Hitchcock didn't start the chain of horror movies. It was Fredenstein by Travis Edison.

[scarecrow666]

The first horror film was in 1896 Le Manoir du diable (aka "The House of the Devil") which is sometimes credited as being the first horror film. And in 1898 La Caverne maudite (aka "The Cave of the Demons"). Made by Georges Méliès .

[Shadow]

I would probably agree that the Exorcist was mostly hype. Everyone knows what the media is like, a few people leave the cinema and suddenly the world was trowing up green puke.

However I would agree that The Exorcist was a scary film at the time. I remember the first time I watched it when I was a child. It did scare me then but I was a child and it was possibly one of the first horror films I watched. It possibly may have effected those with religious upbringings a little more obviously that is just my opinion.

To be honest I dont think I have watched The Exorcist fully since I was a child because for a long time I didnt want to but then it just went out of my mind lol. I think it is about time I watched it again just to see my thoughts on it now.

[Zero]

technically, the first films called 'horror films' were Dracula and Frankenstein (the first public use of the phrase 'horror films' was in a variety article about the two universal pictures). there are certainly hundreds of silent films with horrific motifs or imagery (often to quite funny effect as in Photographing a Ghost, where the ghost won't stay still for the hapless photographer)- but its worth recalling that early kinetoscopes, etc. were gaining popularity during the great Spiritualism revival of the 1890s - interestingly started in Hydesville, NY (i visited the site but there wasn't anything there these days).

as for controversial - I dare say that there were a fair number of horror films that were more controversial - Psycho, by our good friend Fat Albert, created hysteria in the aisles (so great that Sir Albert himself asked the Stanford University psychology department to do a study to figure out why audiences reacted so hysterically and vocally). also, Psycho is almost single-handedly responsible for making people come and watch a movie at a particular time (prior to Hitchcock's gimmick - "no one shall be seated after Psycho has begun" - films were shown on continuous loops - check out really old movie ads and note there are no times for screenings).

outside horror, there are tons of films that were WAY more controversial - the film of the Jack Johnson-Jack Jeffries championship fight in 1912 had Federal legislation passed banning fight films written specifically for it to be prevented from screening (audiences watching a black man beat a white man was SHOCKING beyond belief). Birth of a Nation practically ripped the country in half - Rossellini's The Miracle went all the way to the Supreme Court, etc. etc.

(who says all i do is make irreverent monkey comments?)

[swiss tony]

so he made a mistake, big deal. i mean, you don't have to be alfred einstein to work out what he meant. on a serious note, movie goers back then were blank canvases. when i watched exorcist at age 10 i like to think my sensibilities were equivalent to the average adult at a 1973 picture house. scared shitless barely describes an adolescent swiss tony enjoying the forbidden delights of the exorcist. prior to that my biggest scares had come from watching michael jackson's thriller video.:)

[LoudLon]

I think the stats listed in the original post are pretty accurate.

That's not to say there aren't films out there which could have caused just as big, if not bigger, a controversy than The Exorcist did. Like maybe some Italian oddities like Cannibal Ferox, low-budget shock/gore fests like Snuff, mondo flicks, indie stuff like Shatter Dead...but those movies aren't given anywhere near the huge, international release like The Exorcist was given. I'm sure if any of them had been given as large a release, we'd be posting stats about them right now and not The Exorcist. On the same token, that's not to take anything away from The Exorcist; it was, and still is, a frightening flick which just pounds the shit out of you.

But Hostel? Hostel 2? The Hills Have Eyes Remake? Silent Hill? Scary??? Maybe...if you aren't among the generation which grew up watching movies like The Exorcist.
:D

[alkytrio666]

why do u think the exorcist is scary.
i saw it and it was just a bunch of $h!t.
the girl was shouting and throwing green mucus, wats the point.
lets turn to the movies of now.
dont u see there are really scary movies now
well at least they have better effects.
ill list 7 of them
1. hostel
2. hostel II
3. incubus
4. silent hill
5. vacancy
6. the hills have eyes
7. the hills have eyes II
watch them and say what do u see now.
and if u think the exorcist started the horror movies chain, youre wrong.
it started with Psycho, by Albert Hitchcock.
Oh wow, yes, very scary.

The point is, The Exorcist digs down deep, scathes your insides, because all of this is happening to a little girl- she's like eleven years old. And they did a brilliant job of showcasing her as that, before unleasing, quite literally, the devil inside her.
This was 1974, and we watch this sweet little girl masturbate with a cross, and shove her mothers face in the bloody remains; we watch her deform into something hideous, something that begins to repulse even her own mother; we watch her innocence stabbed over and over again, and it is horrifying.

Now we watch two horny guys in Europe looking for pussy get killed. You tell me which is more disturbing- but I'll go with The Exorcist every time.

[gracie]

Now the problem for the exorsist is this - time. I didnt watch it untill a couple of years ago with the release of the uncut 30 yr ann edition. But after seeing so many hardcore brutal and bloody movies this was a let down. However in 1974 the idea of a 13 yr old girl doing sexual things with crosses and screaming "fuck me jesus" was pretty full on. I didnt mind the movie, however after hearing all the stories about walkout and heart attacks it was pretty tame. I saw it was rated as the most scarey movie of all time, its far from that. Same with "the shining", I watched a few years ago for the first time and it was just an average horror flick that was dated.

[bwind22]

I thought this movie kinda sucked for the same reason I think most ghost movies suck... If you don't believe that what's happening is remotely possible, it's hard to be scared.


I don't believe in ghosts whatsoever, therefore I think most ghost movies that try to be scary suck. (I like The Frighteners, but that's almost more like a ghost-slasher-comedy sub-genre, so I found it very entertaining. Still not scary though.)

I think the same holds true for The Exorcist. If you don't believe that some unseen demonic entity can take over a person's body, it's hard to find the film scary. And since this film wasn't going for anything but scary, I felt like it came up WAY short. On the flip side of the coin, true believers that DO believe a demon can possess them... Well, hell yeah. I can see how this movie would scare the hell out of them and get them filing right back into church.

[Shazbut]

It is simply more about the era and generation of the time. As a few peeps here have mentioned... for *it's time*, The Exorcist was controversial and scary. People were more *god-conscious* in the 70's and would have felt that superstitious unease of demonic possession. I was young when I watched it and it did scare the shit out of me at the time - because of my impressionable age and upbringing.

But as time went on and after watching hundreds of *scary*, gore-fest movies and becoming more sceptic about the god thing, I am rather de-sensitised to the masterpiece of The Exorcist. And we do know that the youth of today are totally de-senisitised to it, as more and more horror movies/video games get pumped into the mainstream. There is more leniancy on what we are watching.

Look at it this way..... I had to watch The Exorcist over a friend's house (it was her much older brother who got a copy) and we had to wait til all the adults were out til we watched it - with a sense of guilt and butterflies in the stomach in case we got caught - which, of course, added to to the sense of horror!

Sign of the times, an' all!! :D

[Kane_Hodder]

Giallos aside...The Exorcist beats the living hell out of you.
For 2007 it may look slightly dated, but if ever there was a horrific film made in every sense of the word, this was it. And the fact that this happened to a common, everyday family only added to the horror on-screen.
The biggest effect it conveys is, this could happen to you, and when it does, you are f***ed.

[onewhosighs]

bwind22 - Another big factor in the situation is that The Exorcist was based on a true story. Which may play a part in the people on the floor "praying" in the cinema after watching this film.

The greatest horror decade was the 70s no doubt.

We are talking The Exorcist which basically to me is the Father of all horror movies, no disrespect to Psycho. Then came The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which also scared the shit out of many because it was said to be based on a true story, and Carrie, and Rosemary's baby, Halloween, and many others.

Then ofcourse starting the 80s off with another classic and perhaps the best competition for The Exorcist, "The Shining". Then The Evil Dead, and Nightmare On Elm Street series. Then everything got spiced up with horror-comedies filled with gore like dead alive and bad taste.

Ofcourse the 80s had itself a controversial film too, being "Cannibal Holocaust" which showed footage of real human rape and killings, real animal killings. The movie was banned in over 50 countries I believe and there were MANY legal issues.

You have to put yourself in the shoes of the people in 73'. When they went to see The Exorcist, what they saw was far more then they bargained for. It was something new to them. Which caused a worldwide shock.

Such a film deserves the most respect.

Honestly, The Exorcist is almost certain in every list of tv shows or websites you see. The only movie that i've seen put up competition with The Exorcist in overall scariness was The Shining which did outbeat The Exorcist on several lists and Psycho did also few times.

I rest my case, The Exorcist, The Shining and Psycho are the true gran-daddies of all horror movies.

[massacre man]

Why The Shining?

Wouldn't the grandaddies of horror movies be things like "Dracula" "The Wolf Man" and "Frankenstein"?

[Dudeman]

"Cannibal Holocaust" was not real. The animal killings in the film were real, but the human deaths were fake.

The director proved this when he had to go to court by showing them that the other actors were still alive.

[Davids]

Wasen't the dead kid in Men Behind The Sun real?

[LoudLon]

Wasen't the dead kid in Men Behind The Sun real?


Yep. Freaky, huh? :eek:

[Davids]

Yep. Freaky, huh? :eek:

Yes. But i do think it's a great war movie

[Dudeman]

I still haven't seen Men Behind The Sun. Isn't that about Unit 731? I saw a documentary about that one time.

[The Mothman]

i never understanded the hype of the exorcist.
the only effect it had on me was making me chuckle at a couple scenes.

[mordrid]

Besides a handful of horror movies that truly stand the test of time (Halloween, Nightmare on Elm St, TCM, Universal Monsters, and a few others), most horror movies get dated. A movie like the Exocrist had its most power during the few years after it was released. Now if you are a christian person, I am rather sure this movie still has power. My wife still to this day refuses to watch the movie. I still consider it own of my favorite movies.

[Elvis_Christ]

I didn't think it was very scary until I caught it on the big screen when the new version came out. It has a amazingly tense atomosphere in the theatre especially with the weird shit coming out of the surround sound speakers. It totally kicked my ass and is one of my favorite horror flicks.

[pbwriter]

As I stated in my introductory post, I saw "The Exorcist" in the theater when I was 4 years old, and it literally changed my life. It scared the holy bejabbers out of me to the point where I would dread the commerical breaks on TV in case the preview was shone, and I would freak out if I even saw the classic ad (the silhouette of Father Merrin) in the newspaper. Photos of the movie...well, just forget that.

What's weird (I think) is that I seem to remember stuff in the movie that just wasn't in it, like a scene where her tongue rolls out of her mouth and it's black and furry and make-Gene-Simmons-jealous long. And I would SWEAR I saw the ghost of Captain Howdy in a scene. I know it's probably just imagination working overtime, but still...

I'm pretty sure that the whole experience of The Exorcist is what led me down the primrose path of being a horror fan. I've never found another movie that could make me so anxious and jumpy. It still makes me uncomfortable to this day...but it's still one of my favorite movies.