The Exorcist (1973) vs. Poltergeist (1982)

Time for a heavyweight matchup!




VS.

The Exorcist is an all time horror classic and a great film. Poltergeist is just good, but not great.

The Exorcist is great and scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. Though I have to say when that guy starts tearing his face apart in Poltergeist was really disturbing

Both films are great, imo. But I give the edge to Exorcist for its use of pure terror.

I admit, The Exorcist went exactly how I pictured it to go, and it was a little slow paced. Poltergeist, however, does as good of a job at looking through the eyes of the parents by keeping its little girl cute despite the terror. I know I'm in the minority, but I give the edge to Poltergeist.

I love Poltergeist and this is a deeply unfair question for its sense of self esteem. It might never recover.

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.

__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

The tones of the movies are so different, they're hard to compare.
The Exorcist is dead serious, there is no light-heartedness to it. While Poltergeist has humor, satire, and family warmth.

I almost consider Poltergeist as a family horror movie - not that I'd take little kids to see it, but it has a sense of fun & action to it that is not present in The Exorcist.
Although I was at different ages when I first saw them; The Exorcist scared me in a traumatic way, while Poltergeist felt more like a rollercoaster (a little scary at points, but overall a fun ride).

It's kind of like comparing The Godfather to Goodfellas - much easier to compare as the subject matter was extremely similar, but Goodfellas had a kind of humor to it that was not present in The Godfather.

I like Poltergeist quite a bit, but I love The Exorcist, so that one.

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

The problem is thst you already know what the deal is with the spirit in The Exorcist. But Poltergeist is all about the most feared thing in the world: the unknown.

It's never made entirely clear what was responsible for Regan's possession in The Exorcist.


Unless we want to take the Pazuzu stuff as cannon in the sequel, which we shouldn't.

You do know that was detailed in the book, right? Just checked.

And William Friedkin made the choice to leave the film ambiguous.

It doesn't really count as ambiguous if you see the , and any half-religious person can tell it's a demon and not a ghost, especially if there's gonna be so much talk of hell and holy water. And one more thing: The Exorcist is practically detailing exactly how a demonic possession typically operates. I'd know because I predicted how the possession would pan out without knowing ANYTHING about the movie, not even that the movie had Max Von Sydow, AND it was the first demonic possession movie I had ever seen.

This is one of the easiest polls I've voted on. Poltergeist is a fun horror movie and it does have some creepy moments, but The Exorcist is the one that really manages to scare me on a deeper level. It builds up to the tension and eventual tragedy so well. That we see Regan as a normal sweet little girl slowly getting sick and transforming into an unrecognizable, crass embodiment of a demon is both extremely sad and very frightening. The spider walk down the stairs is one of the most haunting images I've ever seen in cinema.

I have respect for Poltergeist and for what Tobe Hooper/Steven Spielberg accomplished, it's just a more "family-friendly" horror by comparison.

__________________

Poltergeist is an OK film, but I've never loved it. The Exorcist, on the other hand, is my top candidate for the best movie ever made.

__________________

So, a demon qualifies as a known while a ghost qualifies as an unknown? How are either of these two things more 'knowable' than the other?




At least I've got you to keep me up to date.





What in the first half of the Exorcist tells you why the 'demon' is 'mad'? Why is a 'statue' in the middle east tormenting one specific girl in Georgetown? How are these two things linked? Get back to me when you find an answer that is 'knowable'.



Poltergeist, on the other hand, tells us specifically why Carol Anne is needed by the spirits haunting this house. It is just about as knowable a mystery as there can be in a horror film. Yes, it has the novelty of the ghost world abducting a child, and her being able to communicate from the other side through a television set. But everything unknowable about it becomes diffused through explaining absolutely everything to the audience by the time it is over.


The Exorcist, regardless of how much you were ahead of the surface plot points, explains absolutely nothing. What has happened here is random. And for what purpose, it can be only speculated. And what the nature of this demon is, is continually contradicted throughout the film.



By the end of each film, one remains a cypher which gives the audience an uneasy resolution, while the other has been neatly tied up, explained, and can be put aside as 'solved'.







The first people Diane turns to (the psychics) almost immediately supply her with answers. Whereas Chris, is forced to hopelessly move from medicine to psychiatry to religion, ALL of whom reject her (it won't be until she finds a priest who has lost her faith that she finds a tenuous ally). So if we are looking through the eyes of these characters, and are empathizing with their situation, Chris is stranded within and tormented by the 'unknown' for far longer than Diane.

YOu know that's not what I said at all. Pay attention next time instead of basing things in your selective hearing/reading. And I never said the "ghost" was unknown. It's everything surrounding the ghosts that's unknown: the motive, the spirit world constantly noted in the movie without exploring it thoroughly, what's happening to Carol Anne in there, etc. etc.. With demons it's simple: possess someone. You can figure out who the culprit is and the motive on your own with The Exorcist.


I literally just explained that. Why would the movie show that intro unless that's the connection? What other kind of spirit would attack a church that way? AND lo and behold, I was proven right by the delivery of the statue's image in the climax. Duh, duh and duh. Selective reading. You can say "it's still ambiguous" if you want, but we all know it's not considering that the movie is considerably faithful to the book. Even if you don't have the NAME "Pazuzu," it's still the same demon. There is no explanation why it wouldn't be by the time of the climax.


It doesn't tell us that until the last act. That is a completely different level of predictability vs. unpredictability.



It's only random if you know nothing about how demons operate. It's one of the biggest tropes in religious belief: demons possess you, but it's not instantaneous. There have been actual cases of priests being put on trial for potentially harming someone during an "exorcism," and even if demons don't exist, that's how exorcisms operate. Preach the world, sprinkle some holy water, hold a cross and perform a ritual. Maybe a ghost can possess people, but the statue was obviously important, so why WOULD it be a ghost as opposed to an evil spirit once either worshipped or represented throughout history itself as an evil entity? Ergo, demon.

Those ghostbusters barely did anything except get the crap scared out of them. They needed professional help, Tangina. And even then, Tangina didn't fully do her job. The difference between Chris and Diane is that Chris always thought the answer was within scientific reach when Diane was relying on the best she could get her hands on: nerds and outcasts. Seriously, who ever took a ghosthunter seriously?

This is what I know you said


The problem is thst you already know what the deal is with the spirit in The Exorcist. But Poltergeist is all about the most feared thing in the world: the unknown.


Sorry if I didn't immediately glean this was about plot mechanics.



We know the motive.



What was the motive for the demon in Exorcist again? Oh, that's right 'to possess'



I guess we could reduce the ghosts in Poltergeist's motives to 'to haunt' then while we are at it. Except we don't even have to be so glib, since we are literally given the motive.

They are souls who refuse to accept that have died. They have been drawn towards her pureness of spirit. They kidnap her to keep other souls from moving towards the light


This is true. But we can then also extend this to include the internal world of what is happening inside of Reagan. What do we know of this? Only what we are told by her, which we are also told we cannot trust.


You seem to think the Exorcist is a whodunnit. Guessing 'the culprit' might matter if this was an Agatha Christie joint. But it's not



You seem to think the movie doesn't want you to know there is a connection to the scenes in Iraq and the scenes in Georgetown. But no one is under the impression that they aren't related in some way. What you aren't explaining is the nature of the connection. Why this happened, to this particular girl half a world away. How the notions of fate and faith relate to what is happening. Whose interpretations can we trust? Those of the mother? The scientists? The doctors? The therapists? The police? The established clergy or the outliers of the priesthood. Or should we be taking the word of the demon itself? These are the unknowns that remain unknown.


But, yes, you correctly identified that the scenes in Iraq foreshadows the scenes in Georgetown. They definitely occur in the same fictional universe and are related to each other. We are in agreement there.



No. It's not. Like, it's really not.



And it would also be irrelevant if it was. We judge what is in a movie by what is in a movie.





The name Pazuzu is in the movie. But the movie identifies what is happening to the girl under a number of different guises. Not simply Pazuzu.




Unlike The Exorcist, which doesn't explain the nature of what is happening at any point. That is the completely different level of unpredictability.





You mean like that time the demon reacted to tap water as if it was holy water?



Personally, I think it was the butler in the conservatory who was responsible.





Not the one played by Beatrice Straight. She gives a long monologue explaining the nature of the otherside and all of the emotions and sadness that are plagueing the sort of things which are haunting their home.


And then Tangina shows up and explains everything else. No, she doesn't turn out to be successful, but her explanations on why this has happened are never contridicted by the film. They are established as the motive for what happened, even if she does not succeed in ridding the house of its problems.

This wasn't even a difficult choice for me.