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The Exorcist
Horror / English / 1973
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Never seen it. There's a movie I want to watch called Late Night with the Devil that looks like it may take some inspiration from The Exorcist, so let's watch this first.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
To get my first and greatest complaint out of the way, this movie takes much too long to get started. The actual exorcism is only like the last 30 minutes of the movie. The first 15 minutes could be cut out and nothing would be lost, and the possession doesn't even really begin until 45 minutes in.
All in all, it's just too slow, and there are more than enough scenes throughout the movie that add literally nothing of substance to the plot.
Even Lee J. Cobb makes a surprise appearance as a detective whose only contribution is to communicate to Mom that Regan killed Burke. Beyond that, all of his screentime is wasted on smalltalk and insinuations that he wants to bribe the other characters for information.
I obviously give zero shits about the religious angles of this movie and that probably doesn't help my opinion, especially knowing that the director has gone on to make a clown of himself, asserting that exorcisms are real, but even setting that aside, there's a lot of little issues with this movie, apart from the tedium between scenes involving Regan.
A recurring complaint is that the doctors in this movie ale just genuinely ****ing retarded, and considering the director has since gone on to misrepresent the professional opinions of scientists on this topic, it feels rather deliberate.
For one, the doctor Mom first talks to asserts that the possession is a "nerve disorder", whatever the **** that is, and recommends Ritalin, while fully acknowledging that it's a stimulant, and then claims that "we don't know why it works, but it works". Spoiler: It doesn't work.
Wonderful to hear that medical education is getting put to good use.
Mom eventually gets a room full of medical staff to herself to scream at, which seems like the sort of meeting that would never take place, and to really seal the realism; three separate doctors knowingly advocate she see an exorcist.
We don't even ever find out when or why Regan is possessed. It's suggested multiple times that Regan "did something" or would feel sufficient guilt over something to make her vulnerable to The Devil, but we're never told what. The "onset" of the possession is also very sudden. We have some weird events going on around the house here and there, but the sudden shift to Regan speaking in a different voice or spinning their head, or floating, or vomiting, or crawling backwards all comes on very sudden.
There's also a recurring issue with scene transitions not clearly communication passage of time, it'll often just hard cut to another shot and we're just supposed to be jumpscared with the news that days have passed. Not-Exorcist Guy's mom is scene transitioned into a psychiatric ward and then scene transitioned into a grave offscreen. We only learn about this information secondhand from a third-party delivering it to a fourth-party, what the ****? It was just a few minutes ago this woman was alive and she just randomly died offscreen of chronic Old Person Disease?
I do get the impression that this movie was intended to be shocking for the time period. The sort of stuff Regan does and says is pretty extreme... but fairly tame by the standards of a Post-Saw Universe. There's a bunch of jumpscares, but really nothing in this movie spooked me.
I'm sure some people view the characters' protagonistic Christianity as a plus, or the vivid curses, slime, and blood as cool or something, but not me.
There's a line in this movie where The Exorcist tells Non-Exorcist Guy not to speak to The Devil, because he'll try to deceive them.
I think that's shooting down the most interesting thing you can do with a Devil character. The Devil conventionally works through people, he's supposed to be manipulative and tricky, and that's why talking to him would make for interesting material! It's not so different to the premise of movies like The Seventh Seal, where trying to outwit Death (or The Devil) is the entire point.
You don't need him gagging Nickelodeon gack on you or doing his best impression of an owl, or just ****ing ranting Bible verses at him... that's just not interesting, and the lead up to the whole ordeal wasn't terribly interesting either.
I've recently been listened to Pantera and learned that their album, Vulgar Display of Power is a direct reference to a line in this movie, where Regan states that they won't free themselves of the bedstraps because it's "too showy", essentially. I feel like that naturally begs the question of whether that's true, and if it is true, what's to be gained by possessing people, but not exorcising (pun unintended) your full powers?
It's probably just a cop-out line in the writing department, but I'd like to think that there's a greater reason for it that the movie simply fails to explore.
Also let's ignore the fact that by the end of the movie 3 separate people have died just from being alone in the room with Regan. Nice to see nobody learned from anyone else's mistakes.
Final Verdict: [Meh...]
The Exorcist
Horror / English / 1973
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Never seen it. There's a movie I want to watch called Late Night with the Devil that looks like it may take some inspiration from The Exorcist, so let's watch this first.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
"That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras."
To get my first and greatest complaint out of the way, this movie takes much too long to get started. The actual exorcism is only like the last 30 minutes of the movie. The first 15 minutes could be cut out and nothing would be lost, and the possession doesn't even really begin until 45 minutes in.
All in all, it's just too slow, and there are more than enough scenes throughout the movie that add literally nothing of substance to the plot.
Even Lee J. Cobb makes a surprise appearance as a detective whose only contribution is to communicate to Mom that Regan killed Burke. Beyond that, all of his screentime is wasted on smalltalk and insinuations that he wants to bribe the other characters for information.
I obviously give zero shits about the religious angles of this movie and that probably doesn't help my opinion, especially knowing that the director has gone on to make a clown of himself, asserting that exorcisms are real, but even setting that aside, there's a lot of little issues with this movie, apart from the tedium between scenes involving Regan.
A recurring complaint is that the doctors in this movie ale just genuinely ****ing retarded, and considering the director has since gone on to misrepresent the professional opinions of scientists on this topic, it feels rather deliberate.
For one, the doctor Mom first talks to asserts that the possession is a "nerve disorder", whatever the **** that is, and recommends Ritalin, while fully acknowledging that it's a stimulant, and then claims that "we don't know why it works, but it works". Spoiler: It doesn't work.
Wonderful to hear that medical education is getting put to good use.
Mom eventually gets a room full of medical staff to herself to scream at, which seems like the sort of meeting that would never take place, and to really seal the realism; three separate doctors knowingly advocate she see an exorcist.
We don't even ever find out when or why Regan is possessed. It's suggested multiple times that Regan "did something" or would feel sufficient guilt over something to make her vulnerable to The Devil, but we're never told what. The "onset" of the possession is also very sudden. We have some weird events going on around the house here and there, but the sudden shift to Regan speaking in a different voice or spinning their head, or floating, or vomiting, or crawling backwards all comes on very sudden.
There's also a recurring issue with scene transitions not clearly communication passage of time, it'll often just hard cut to another shot and we're just supposed to be jumpscared with the news that days have passed. Not-Exorcist Guy's mom is scene transitioned into a psychiatric ward and then scene transitioned into a grave offscreen. We only learn about this information secondhand from a third-party delivering it to a fourth-party, what the ****? It was just a few minutes ago this woman was alive and she just randomly died offscreen of chronic Old Person Disease?
I do get the impression that this movie was intended to be shocking for the time period. The sort of stuff Regan does and says is pretty extreme... but fairly tame by the standards of a Post-Saw Universe. There's a bunch of jumpscares, but really nothing in this movie spooked me.
I'm sure some people view the characters' protagonistic Christianity as a plus, or the vivid curses, slime, and blood as cool or something, but not me.
There's a line in this movie where The Exorcist tells Non-Exorcist Guy not to speak to The Devil, because he'll try to deceive them.
I think that's shooting down the most interesting thing you can do with a Devil character. The Devil conventionally works through people, he's supposed to be manipulative and tricky, and that's why talking to him would make for interesting material! It's not so different to the premise of movies like The Seventh Seal, where trying to outwit Death (or The Devil) is the entire point.
You don't need him gagging Nickelodeon gack on you or doing his best impression of an owl, or just ****ing ranting Bible verses at him... that's just not interesting, and the lead up to the whole ordeal wasn't terribly interesting either.
I've recently been listened to Pantera and learned that their album, Vulgar Display of Power is a direct reference to a line in this movie, where Regan states that they won't free themselves of the bedstraps because it's "too showy", essentially. I feel like that naturally begs the question of whether that's true, and if it is true, what's to be gained by possessing people, but not exorcising (pun unintended) your full powers?
It's probably just a cop-out line in the writing department, but I'd like to think that there's a greater reason for it that the movie simply fails to explore.
Also let's ignore the fact that by the end of the movie 3 separate people have died just from being alone in the room with Regan. Nice to see nobody learned from anyone else's mistakes.
Final Verdict: [Meh...]