logan j. fowler revisits a classic horror film, one that he may not ever watch again …
I’m not a big fan of the horror genre. You could say that I’m don’t enjoy being scared. I won’t lie or hesitate to say it. Some people really find fun being in suspense, screaming, yelling, seeing blood gush, or what have you. Me? No thanks.
That’s not to say I haven’t seen my fair share of movies in the category. I’ve viewed some real classics in the Hollywood pipeline. But one that’s always, always, ALWAYS freaked me out is The Exorcist.
I didn’t see the movie in full until I was in college. My friend/roommate Pete has every incarnation of the film on DVD, the book, etc. He is a prize collector of anything having to do with the film, so needless to say he holds it in high regard. One October evening, he invited me and some friends to watch it in our dorm room, and I was forever changed.
Most people laugh in my face about being freaked out about the movie (I secretly hate them). They have been so desensitized by Hollywood horror and thrills that they didn’t see what was so scary about it. See, I haven’t been raised seeing those movies, or even had an extensive background in seeing flicks that scare people for fun, or to get inside their head. I hadn’t had any of that “training.”
I was freaked out beyond belief, and I base my lack of horror movie watching on my reasoning behind not being able to dismiss the images so easily. I was legitimately scared.
Or maybe it was my Catholic upbringing. After all, the devil is the main antagonist in this movie. I was always told to “be wary of the devil, he’s bad, etc.” While I wasn’t the religious (no pun intended) church attendee I used to be when I saw the movie, something about all the possession featured in the film got inside my head, and my religion may have played a part in the whole process. Maybe the subconscious suddenly got activated again due to all the demon talk.
In any case, the movie affected me. I couldn’t sleep at night; seeing the image of a possessed Regan (played by Linda Blair) got inside my mind and clung to it like a deranged, messed up spider. I spent days digesting the material, constantly thinking about it, even though, like I said, I couldn’t sleep at night; my inner thoughts were having a civil war, I had the inability to sleep because of the movie, but when I was awake I was thinking about the movie. It messed me up, man.
The plot is fairly simple; young girl Regan gets possessed by the devil, does some crazy messed up stuff like vomit green liquid, pleasure herself with a small crucifix, and spider walk down the stairs. She spouts vulgar terminology like a trucker, and when two priests (Max Von Sydow and Lee J. Cobb) come in the Regan’s room to put an end to the madness, they have one “hell” of a task before them.
Will I ever lay eyes upon The Exorcist again? As of right now, for my own personal benefit, I’ve sworn not to; this movie bugs the crap out of me and not in annoying way, but in the way that it has had SUCH an affect on me, I won’t go through the pain of losing sleep and having my mind be warped by the film. So I might not take the chance to watch it again.
For all those out there who are probably thinking this is hysterical, a 28-year-old adult male who is afraid of a out dated possession film from 1973 featuring hokey special effects and an infamous vomit scene, let me defend myself with this statement; up until the point that I watched The Exorcist, I had never seen anything like it, and for that matter, haven’t seen anything like it since.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDGw1MTEe9k&w=560&h=315]
That’s why it’s an incredible. It’s a powerful movie. A terrifying movie. And one that I deem so scary, I think it’s one of the greatest films of all time, because it is the epitome of a horror film that movies in the same genre should pay attention to.
