On the day after Christmas in 1973, Oscar-winning director William Friedkin followed up the tremendous success he enjoyed with "The French Connection" (1971), with the most daring horror film ever made; an adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel "The Exorcist."
Blatty, a devout Catholic had been motivated by a 1949 Washington Post article entitled "Priest Frees Mt. Rainier Boy Reported Held In Devil’s Grip." Blatty carefully crafted his book around the area in Georgetown where he had attended Jesuitical Georgetown University.
Although the movie barely escaped an "X" rating by the MPAA ratings board, it was treated as an "X" movie in cities like Boston and Washington D.C. where children under 17 were not admitted into theaters showing the film.
By 1974, Blatty’s novel was on every bestseller list. The movie was a blockbuster before the idea of "blockbusters" existed. It was a classically compelling American Gothic legend that set up an earth-shattering physical and religious battle between good and evil over the possessed body of a young girl named Regan MacNeil (unforgettably played by Linda Blair). Regan’s possessed entity was, and is, the closest vision of sheer evil to ever appear in fictive film. It was only fitting that the two exorcists attempting to save Regan’s life, by expelling the demon within her, offered up, and ultimately sacrificed, their own lives.
Many were outraged that 12-year-old actress Linda Blair was allowed to make a film in which she spewed obscenities like a satanic sailor, and abused her genitalia with a crucifix before shoving her mother’s face into her blood-soaked crotch. But that was just the beginning of numerous terrible episodes of head twisting, levitating, and bile-vomiting that attracted curious spectators in droves.
Little did audiences realize that Friedkin had already severely pulled the reigns on the film’s terrifying effects by cutting out 11 minutes of [what he considered] "excess footage" to bring the film in just under two hours. William Blatty was furious over the cuts, believing that the movie had lost its moral center, and was upset that audiences might think that the demon had won in the end.
Friedkin’s signature gritty documentary quality is retained in all of its stark, natural beauty. The contrast of scenes shot in low light and overcast skies pitted against special effects lovingly nurtured by Marcel Vercoutere and make-up wizard Dick Smith, express burly qualities. Ever surprising too are the pitch-perfect performances of every actor in the movie. Ellen Burstyn shines as Regan’s atheist mother Chris. Her tough yet sympathetic character carries a well of emotional weight that grounds the otherworldly narrative however far it threatens to deviate from the human realm.
Regan is not the target of the evil, but merely the most effective device the demon can use to achieve its sinister goals. The demon might not win by the terms that Father Merrin explains to Father Karras, but in the end there is no evidence that the evil that tortured Regan and those around her has been annihilated. Indeed the supernatural incidents are resolved in the closing scenes of the movie, but the potential for evil to grip mortal humans is a ghost that lurks in the memories of every audience that sees "The Exorcist."
Rated R. 122 mins.
