This is just one film that was lost on me. I didn't get the fear it invoked and if you really look at the film, you'll see how terribly acted it is, and don't even get me started on the editting.

i give it an A+ and dont feel the need to defend this film. there is so much more to this film than spinning heads and soup barfing, and apparently a lot of the naysayers just dont get it, its really sad.

I must be one of the few who still thinks it's more effective than every horror movie released in these past years (not to say decades) - that I've seen, at least..

Terrible acting? WTF? Are you really trying to say that movies like Freddy vs. Jason, Alien vs. Predator AND Saw have better acting than The Exorcist?

Oh well...


A

I agree, for me when it comes down to it the film is about faith, its ironic that its the demon that gives back father karras his faith back isnt it? and the possesion to happen to a family of atheists is another plus, the mother described herself as one but like she said, she knows that thing is not her daughter, you can say she's the first one to believe in the film.Hey Baumer, if you didnt like the film you should read the book, its even more shocking and disturbing, maybe as a book it will connect with you, its happened to me, with the shinning, i absolutly hate the film but when i read the book it became one of my favorite books ever.

I just watched a double feature of Dominion and The Exorcist. I'm pretty confident at this point in calling The Exorcist my favorite film of all time.

We can go on and on about this til the cows come home, but in the end, it's mere focus was religion and how such a term like "Possession" could occur and the consequences brought on by being possessed.. That in itself is more frightening than the imagary but also, it was the Sound FX in this movie that really made the movie more than the makeup FX.. I recall one time reading abut Washington University doing a study on this film and they showed it to an audience without the sound, then they showed it with the sound and the results were that watching the movie without the sound wasn't nearly as unsettling as watching it with the Sound FX thrown in..

Its well acted, great premise, and great thrills. It definitely creeped me out, but not sure if it scared me. I saw it at an older age and 30 years after it was released, its an A- for me.

I actually really loved this. I saw it once when I was 12 or 13 and I wasn't a huge fan. Watching it now as a real movie fan was a really special experience. It's really a perfectly made movie. The direction, cinematography, performances and score are all perfection. Ellen Burstyn is fantastic here. She gives such a real, painful performance. Linda Blair is really good too. I can only imagine what it was like for a young girl to be doing the things she had to do. I also really liked how the horror scenes cut quickly and didn't go on and on like most movies that are released now. I didn't find it particularly scary but I'm sure back in the day it would have been. Great movie.

A

This is such crap. F

Friedkin did indeed pay close attention to the sound in The Exorcist.

Also, I imagine that some modern viewers have difficulty with the deliberate pacing of the film since it was made before the ADD plague had decimated the population.