Classic Movie Review: The Exorcist
By Josh Spiegel
October 30, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Do not, by the way, take any of that as an insult to The Exorcist. I know, people get freaked out by the movie, and the image of poor young Linda Blair speaking with the Devil's voice is admittedly quite creepy. However, this is also a movie where a girl named Regan, while possessed by Satan, jabs a cross into her nether regions while shouting about letting a certain well-known religious figure...have its way with her mother. Yeah, I've diluted that line to its bare minimum, but even though I'm not a very religious person, I have a hard time even considering typing that phrase. When I watched the movie, I had to laugh, partly out of shock. For such a mainstream film, the adaptation of William Peter Blatty's novel likes to push buttons.
The plot, as you well know, is simple: a 12-year-old girl named Regan gets possessed by the spirit of a demon named Pazuzu, but by all other names, Regan got possessed by the Devil. It's up to two priests to exorcise the demon from her body before she gets killed and her mother loses what's left of her fragile mind. Aside from the stylish, well-paced direction from William Friedkin and the sterling, you-are-there cinematography by Owen Roizman, the best parts of The Exorcist are the quirky supporting performances. The shining stars here aren't Linda Blair or even Ellen Burstyn, as Regan's mom, an actress filming a role near Georgetown University. No, the best performers here are Jason Miller and Lee J. Cobb, as Father Karras and Lt. Kinderman, respectively.
I know what you're thinking: a movie like The Exorcist isn't about the performances. Still, I want to heap a bit of praise on Miller and Cobb, who decided to go the route of naturalism for their roles. Miller, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, is the heart and soul of the film, a conflicted man of the cloth who constantly questions himself for the way he's treated his elderly mother in her dying days. Once she passes away, his guilt becomes so heavy, you can almost see it weighing him down in the latter half of the film. Though his final act of sacrifice is almost ruined by the slightly cheesy special effects involved, Karras is a character you root for and sympathize with, even if you've never donned the garb of a priest.
Cobb, who was always a solid performer in such classics as 12 Angry Men and On The Waterfront, has a smaller role, as an elderly cop investigating the mysterious death of the director of the film Regan's mother, Chris, is starring in. Still, his down-to-earth, shrewd, and humble character makes a dent, even before he somewhat shyly asks the actress for an autograph. In his first scene, as Kinderman calmly and slyly interrogates Karras, Cobb lets the character transcend from being just another cop breathing down the wrong necks into the slightly nosy neighbor down the street. Though he doesn't get to catch the killer (because how could he?), Kinderman never feels like a caricature of the two-steps-behind cop.
Ah, but what about the damn exorcism? To be honest, I wasn't expecting the climactic scenes that I know so well (the demon's verbal excoriation of Karras' mother, the split-pea soup, the power of Christ compelling the demon, and so forth) to happen so far into the movie, which only lasts two hours. It took quite a while for things to kick-start into action; frankly, the prologue of the film highlights the major flaw I found with the film. In the prologue, we're interested to, technically, the title character, Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow, sporting some not-so-phenomenal makeup, if you ask me). He's in Iraq, in the middle of an archeological dig, when he is introduced to an old enemy in the form of a statue: the demon Pazuzu. Of course, Pazuzu will soon find itself inside Regan's body, and how? She uses a Ouija board and summons it, inadvertently.
Right. Now, I realize that this movie is a work of fiction, and all works of fiction require the audience to suspend disbelief. Honestly, I'd have almost preferred it if Regan got possessed because...well, because the script demanded that she get possessed. I suppose it's from my normal skepticism and a few too many episodes of Penn and Teller's Showtime program, but give me a break. Yes, I'm willing to buy possession, but try to make the reasoning behind said possession at least a bit plausible. If anything, I felt a bit offended as an audience member that Blatty, who also wrote the script, couldn't come up with anything better. That said, once Regan gets possessed, what's best captured isn't just her newfound craziness, but Chris's rising anxiety.
Burstyn is, of course, a great actress, despite the fact that these days, she's relegated to pap such as Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Sure, The Exorcist isn't high art, but it feels a bit more high-toned than something with the word "Ya-Ya" in it. Either way, Burstyn is quite good here, despite not having a lot of depth to her character, who's simply a mother dealing with a unique trauma. As she grows more and more frustrated with the doctors who can barely believe that the problem with Regan isn't something proven and medical, Burstyn appropriately lets the anger seep out of her very being.
This is what saves The Exorcist from being a few flashy images spread out through the final half: the actors, who manage to deliver serious performances without seeming self-serious or pretentious when dealing with such an overbaked premise. The manifestation of the Devil within Regan is still relatively scary, despite a few of the special effects having shown their age long ago. The film has flaws and takes a bit too long to get going; however, the pace of the final hour along with some well-acted tension managed to salvage the film for me. But scariest ever? Psycho still gets that crown.