The Exorcist - The Most Terrifying and Controversial film ever

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.