The Exorcist (R)
Trendsetting shocker about a possessed child.
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Seen the movie?
Movie details
- Studio: Warner Home Video
- Directed By: William Friedkin
- Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair
- Running Time: 132 minutes
- Release Date: 12/26/1973
- Video/DVD Release Date: 03/26/1997
- Genre: Horror
- MPAA Rating: R
- MPAA Explanation: horror elements, violence, profanity and intensity.
Parents need to know
Parents need to know that this is a mature horror film, not aimed at (or paced for) kids. No rock-music soundtracks or look-out-the-killer-is-behind-you scares, but rather an awful sense of corruption as demonic possession takes over an adolescent girl like a loathsome progressive disease. The infamous makeup effects of projectile vomiting and blood, blaspheming, and gutturally obscene language were meant to disturb the viewer as nothing before seen in movies, and they still convey solid shocks.
Families can talk about the film's religious and scientific overtones. Does Father Karras regain his religious faith in the finale, and how does he become almost Christlike? What do you think about the novel's suggestion that this might not be a "real" demon but rather some terrible but explicable mental disorder?
Families can talk about the film's religious and scientific overtones. Does Father Karras regain his religious faith in the finale, and how does he become almost Christlike? What do you think about the novel's suggestion that this might not be a "real" demon but rather some terrible but explicable mental disorder?
Message
Social Behavior:
Technically the plot is about the redemption of the doubting Father Karras, who sacrifices himself to save a life, but it's the sense of evil in the film that stays with you. The "good" characters seem bewildered and powerless. Regan's mother refuses to even tell the girl's father what's been happening.
Consumerism:
Soft-drink signs, movie-company logos.
Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:
Social imbibing, and a character is drunk at a party. Mention of pills and pot.
Violence
The demonic Regan punches her mother and other investigators and (offscreen) brutally murders a man. She also mutilates herself, vomits blood, and in a famous moment, rotates her own head completely around. Another character falls fatally out a window and down a flight of steps.
Sex
Nothing seductive or titillating, but still intense, as the possessed girl lewdly propositions men, talks about oral sex, and is briefly shown rubbing a crucifix in her groin.
Language
A little girl taken over by the devil doesn't hold back much in the cursing department.
Common Sense says
What's the story?
Reviewed by Charles Cassady, Jr.
Linda Blair plays Regan MacNeil, the bright 12-year-old daughter of successful actress Chris (Ellen Burstyn), who can afford to raise the girl in a nurturing atmosphere with live-in cooks and nannies (Regan's absentee father is written off as self-absorbed and oblivious). The first signs of trouble include Regan playing with a Ouija board and claiming she's communicated with a ghost she calls Captain Howdy. Then the girl begins behaving abnormally, urinating in front of party guests and foretelling death for Chris' film-director boyfriend. While Regan suffers grueling medical exams and gets progressively worse, the story line simultaneously follows Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller), a Greek-American Catholic priest with some doubts about his religion. When medical science fails to cure the howling, obscenity-spewing, uncontrollable Regan, doctors point Chris to Father Karras, whose background in psychology includes the now-rare rite of exorcism. Karras summons another priest to help, the wiser and older Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow), and together they begin to do battle with Regan's occupier.
Is it any good?
Thanks in part to Linda Blair's wrenching, Oscar-nominated performance, The Exorcist was a huge hit, earning back 10 times its $10 million budget (a then-lavish sum, outrageous for a "mere" horror flick). Movie historians cite it (along with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) as the conclusive end of old-school spook shows featuring Dracula and Frankenstein and bobbing rubber bats. If you think your teen is ready for this shocking film, keep in mind that audience members in the '70s reportedly fainted and, in some extreme cases, required psychiatric care after seeing Dick Smith's grisly makeup effects on Blair and director William Friedkin's matter-of-fact way of presenting them. Also, the moans, snarls, and profane utterances from Regan (most are actually the dubbed-in voice of a well-known older actress, Mercedes McCambridge) amount to some of the most chilling audio ever done for film.
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Parents and kids say
All Reviews
There are 10 reviews.
Posted on 05/26/08 by Anonymous Kid contributor, age 12
Age 8+
Posted on 05/23/08 by Anonymous Adult contributor
Posted on 06/03/07 by Anonymous Kid contributor, age 13
Adult Reviews
There are 4 reviews.
Age 8+
Posted on 05/23/08 by Anonymous Adult contributor
Kids Reviews
There are 6 reviews.
Posted on 05/26/08 by Anonymous Kid contributor, age 12
Posted on 06/03/07 by Anonymous Kid contributor, age 13
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