THE EXORCIST (68)

Directed by: William Friedkin (1973)

Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Max Von Sydow, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb

The Pitch: 14-year-old girl is possessed by the Devil.

Theo Sez: Never mind the "scariest movie ever" hoo-hah : certainly a nail-biter, but this has more in common with 50s Biblical epics like THE ROBE than the video nasties it's often lumped together with, standing for the power of faith in a godless world (only spiced up with nasty effects for a nastier audience, and of course replacing decadent Roman times with our equally benighted modern age). Broken homes, student demonstrations, a mention of Nazism and of course a general attitude that religion is irrelevant and anachronistic all contribute to a picture of a world in crisis - as in ROSEMARY'S BABY, the true villain isn't the Devil at all, but the various doctors and scientists who refuse to accept the obvious conclusion, talking of lesions and X-rays while the child suffers. The film is about denial - exorcist Von Sydow is the only one (as per the prologue) who stares Evil in the face - and its true subject is that Good and Evil are a part of ordinary life, as omnipresent (though we choose to deny it) as the religiously-derived expletives that fill its dialogue ; which is why easily two-thirds of the film are taken up simply with acknowledging the need for an exorcism (once the penny drops, everything moves much faster), and why it's structured in such an odd, stop-and-start fashion, smothering the intense bits with scenes like the long, pointless conversation between Cobb and Burstyn. The point is that 'normal' life doesn't stop because the girl has been possessed, that in fact the two are closer than we like to think - which is also why the much-ridiculed ending of the (so-called) "Director's Cut" actually makes sense, with the car driving off and Cobb sighing "Well, back to business". Not really all that scary, esp. for a person who's already religious, since it merely confirms the existing order (something like THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE is much more disturbing), but skilfully made and certainly more than just a 'product'. Probably the most po-faced, serious-minded movie in the list of (inflation-adjusted) Top 20 money-makers of all time ; along with BEN HUR, I suppose...