William Friedkin directed The Exorcist in 1973, a classic horror film starring Linda Blair and Max von Sydow.
A masterpiece of horror
The Exorcist was the movie that haunted many and that they will remember forever. The scenes, for their time, were brutal and caused more than one faint in theaters. A great work that started a whole cycle of exorcism movies.
It has become, on its own merits, a cinema classic.
Time flies…
Story of a Possession
Based on a true story (yes, believe it or not, it happened in Washington in 1949), The Exorcist tells the story of Regan, a girl who is supposedly possessed by something evil (the Devil himself, no less). The girl has strange symptoms (it won’t surprise anyone at this point: she speaks Hebrew, she spits blood… those little things that the rest of us only do with a couple of drinks too many, and the girl seemed to have no problem with the booze.
Worried about the situation, her mother decides to give her all kinds of check-ups until she has no choice but, fictitious or not, to submit her to an exorcism so that the girl will feel a little better.
The Movie
A true masterpiece of suspense, a classic work that any director should know by heart for its rhythm, script, and editing (yes, when you have the novelist himself as the screenwriter things go smoothly). William Friedkin (who remained active until 2017, no less) shines in his best film, a work that will be remembered as the one which set the standards for horror films for years.
A certain aspect I’d like to comment on: it’s also a classic film in terms of pacing and its narrative formulas. It doesn’t rush when introducing the characters, it gives us different points of view of the conflict and saves the best for last (nowadays they would have done it quite differently). It’s a film for a special audience, perhaps for viewers less prone to ‘gore’ stuff, it takes us exactly where it wants to… and we’re happy to go along with it…
Our Opinion
Rhythmically, it’s still one of the best horror films ever made.
Great script.
Well performed.
As for the music score, since it has become a standard of horror themes, we need not say anything else.
So… We have a classic here.
Five stars (not four or one: five).