Film: The Exorcist
Director: William Friedkin
Country: USA
Released: December 1973
Runtime: 122 minutes
Genre: Horror
Studio: Hoya / Warner Bros
Influenced: John Carpenter, Ari Aster, Jennifer Kent, Jordan Peele, Robert Eggers, Julia Ducournau
After breaking into the mainstream with gritty crime thriller The French Connection (1971), William Friedkin was lined up to direct The Exorcist, another film that blends fiction and reality in a gripping way. Based on the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty (who also wrote the film's screenplay), The Exorcist was inspired by a 1949 case of an alleged demonic possession and exorcism that caught his attention while he was a student at Georgetown University. The so-called "real" exorcism was performed on a young boy, known by the pseudonym Roland Doe, which was widely publicised at the time, resulting in a significant cultural and social panic. The film's plot revolves around a 12-year-old girl, Regan McNeil (Linda Blair), living with her mother, a successful actress named Chris McNeil (Ellen Burstyn) in Georgetown, Washington D.C.
The terror begins to unfold when Regan starts behaving oddly – levitating and speaking in tongues. On one level, The Exorcist is a commentary on the (over)medicalisation of society, especially in America, illustrating the struggle of the medical establishment to explain, and then to treat, Regan's symptoms. Despite the extreme and supernatural nature of her condition, the doctors and psychiatrists insist on finding a rational, scientific explanation, resorting to increasingly invasive and desperate procedures, like the cerebral angiography. It is only when all other options have been exhausted that the idea of an exorcism is even entertained. Desperate and frightened, Chris consults Father Karras (Jason Miller), a local Jesuit priest who is dealing with a crisis of faith following the death of his mother. Karras is skeptical about possession and exorcism but agrees to evaluate Regan. Eventually, he becomes convinced that an exorcism might be the only way to save the girl.
Karras seeks permission from the Church, which is granted, and he and the elderly and experienced exorcist, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), perform the ritual of exorcism on the girl. Merrin tells Karras about the importance of not speaking to the demon, as he's a liar, and how the demon mixes lies with the truth in order to attack and confuse them, a prescient comment that foreshadows the dirty tricks of psychological warfare used by the likes of Trump and Putin. The scenes that follow are some of the most intense and shocking in the history of horror cinema, leading to the deaths of both priests, while Regan survives, apparently freed of the demon. Things would go too far into gore and violence the year following with Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and that, quite honestly, is where the horror genre loses me. The Exorcist somehow walks the tightrope between horror and more profound existential concerns such as the nature of good and evil.
As well as Friedkin's direction, of special note is Marcel Vercoutere's contribution in terms of special effects, which were a game changer for the industry. Vercoutere was responsible for developing the complex mechanical systems that made many of the movie's supernatural occurrences appear real, including the famous bed shaking scenes, the levitation scenes and Regan's 360-degree head rotation, all of which required elaborate rigs and mechanisms. One of the most notable pieces of equipment he created for the film was a custom-built, articulated dummy for the infamous head-turning scene. Makeup artist Dick Smith's work on Linda Blair and Max von Sydow was also revolutionary, making Blair look truly possessed, while the sound design was also highly innovative, utilising dissonant noises and disturbing vocal effects to create an aural atmosphere of terror, along with musical pieces by Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells) and Jack Nitzsche. The Exorcist was the first horror film to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, which it lost, but it did pick up the awards for Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay.
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