Why is the Exorcist Scary?
 

So I have seen the exorcist several times hoping I will experience what is so scary about it, and i haven't seen what is so scary about it. So if someone could explain to me what makes the movie so scary i would love to know.

Its a rare film that is scary. The last film that scared me was Pet Cemetery when I was about 10 or so. Maybe 12.
Who said The Exorcist was a scary flic?

I know at least one person who thought it was scary because of how uncontrollable the situation is. If Jason is hunting you down you can run, don't go to sleep in case of Freddy, but unless somebody else steps in there's nothing you can do to prevent the possession. You can't avoid "getting" it, you can't yourself fight against it, and you can't escape it. Something enters your soul and takes control. That's what freaked them out.

everyone classifies it as the scariest movie ever made, its on alot of top ten list as being the scariest and the fact that it is one of the very few horror movies that was nominated for an academy award. So their has to be something scary about it even if its subliminal.

That makes sense.

My older brother & sister were babysitting me when I was 3 years old. They had me watch The Exorcist with them that night. It traumatized me so badly that I spent 3 months sleeping with my parents, right in between them. If we didn't leave the lamp on I went into hysterics. I had never seen a scary movie before that. I didn't sit down & watch it again until I was about 21, & it still gave me the creeps. It didn't keep me awake or anything, it was more of a feeling like this still creeps me out..... unpleasant childhood memories. I feel like it's still remembered as "so scary", because there wasn't anything else like it before it came out. To kids today it's probably nothing, but in the 70's it terrified a lot of people who weren't desensitized just yet.

What makes The Exorcist so scary to me is that there are certain images that you can't get out of your head for days after watching it. I've seen the movie maybe 4 times now, and it still scares the shit out of me.

I can say that children of today do have a lower standards on what is scary but I am not like that I find the original The Haunting( 1963) to be very scary.

Partly because of its reputation. Partly because religious sacrament is very controversial. Partly because its a young girl it happens to. Partly because when you first see her being possessed its shocking partly because of the legendary spider walk lick me, and head spinning scenes and partly because that sort of film with an affected kid in was unusual for the time. Personally I don't particularly like the film, it was one of those films where you often here a lot about it a long time before you actually see it

From what I understand, a lot of it has to do with context. Many people that say it was really scary actually saw it in its original theatrical run or a re-run of some sort during the 1970s. Back then, it probably was legitimately scary to them. In my opinion, there are plenty of other examples of films that were both higher quality and scarier even from the same time period or even before.