Taking Sides: William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" vs. Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining"

The Shining is a great movie, but the finale of it, though tense and scary, is basically just another crazy-guy-chases-woman scenerio. The reason that The Exorcist was so great for me was because I had never been scared like that before. And not since, either.

That all said, I can't look down long hallways in old hotels anymore without thinking of the two girls, blood coming out of the elevator, or Bob Geldof sitting in the next room.

Yeah, The Wall starts out with a long hotel hallway shot, complete with maid turning off her vaccuum cleaner from the pedal's POV.

The supernatural can spook me - I saw The Eye last week and parts of that were terrifying - but religious, specifically Christian, themes don't. The evils and horrors are too specific.

"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" or "Night of the Living Dead" poos on either from a very high height.

"The Exorcist" and "The Shining" pretend to be superior, intelligent horror films when they are nothing of the sort. I would argue - as would many critics - that "The Exorcist" revels in the sort of low budget shock tactics that would make HG Lewis proud. There's none of that sort of thing in either "Chainsaw" or "Night".

Alex - they are only entirely different films if you're using budget as a way to measure their seperation. "Chainsaw" was released within a year of "The Exorcist" and the two films were grouped together in the UK and the US as examples of the widening gap in screen violence. I would say the main difference between the two is that "Chainsaw" is umpteen times better made ("The Exorcist" has some of the most appalling editing ever seen in an Oscar nominated film, especially during the ending) and features superior set ups and shocks.

Very good point, actually.

"The Exorcist" and "The Shining" pretend to be superior, intelligent horror films...

I don't think they pretend to be anything,....Blame critics and fans who make them out to be possibly more than they're worth, but don't blame the films.

they are only entirely different films if you're using budget as a way to measure their seperation

Well, you say 'budget', I say 'production value'. Despite still being very scary, both of your two films still look fairly cheap.

I would say the main difference between the two is that "Chainsaw" is umpteen times better made

Well here's where we'll disagree. While I love both of your choices, I'd still suggest that both "the Exorcist" and "the Shining" are better WRITTEN than "Night" and "Texas". But hey, that's just my opinion.

"The Shining" is very well made, but it is visually bland. In terms of which films do more for me, visually, I would say "Night" and "Chainsaw" by far, but I was picking just two random examples. "Halloween" is better made - on a skid row budget - than "The Shining" and "The Exorcist" put together. Other much better/ more effective and topical 70s horrors ("The Shining" is 1980 I know);

Martin/ Dawn of the Dead/ Suspiria/ Deep Red/ Alien/ The Hills Have Eyes/ The Last House on the Left...

to get back on topic: i voet for the exorcist. has been some time since i last saw it but from waht i remember the exorcism scenes had a very surehanded cold and bleak strung-out-on-lsd-at-4-in-the-mornign feel to it that i havent seen in any other film realy. shining looks nice and all but it tries too hard and is not scary.

If you give a damn, I suggest renting The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen which fills in your "gaps".

Also - considering the spirits all encompassing power (managing to transform into Jason Miller's mother in a terrible bit of sudden, choppy editing) then it does do a pretty good job of staying tied to a bed and washed away by fake holy water.

You're such a literalist.

And Captain Howdy is the Devil, by the way (how you missed that is beyond fathoming).

But as far as big-budget hollywood horror films go, The Shining and The Exorcist are about as good as it gets. C-man also forgets that those films have socio-cultural as well. The Exorcist is from a time when religion had faded largely from public conciousness, and when church attendance was lower than it had been before. The religious themes and the priest's struggle with faith in the film reflect this. In some ways I think the Shining might be Kubrick's oblique comment on TV and media saturated culture. There's a lot of references to movies and television in the film ("here's Johnny," "i know all about cannibalism, i saw it on tv" "my wife is quite the horror movie fan"). Notice also that the horror scenes are very subjective and hallucinatory, the line between fantasy and real supernatural events blurred (especially the bartender scene). danny torrance may truly be psychic, but who's to say that he isn't seeing his father's drunken hallucinations and his mother's horror movie- inspired ones?

(BTW that dog-man in the Shining is a remant from the book version. In the novel the man is the ghost of the hotel owner's lover. He's wearing a dog costume because the party in the ballroom is a costume party. In the movie they left out all that and the inclusion of the dog-man is made inexplicable, which i think actually makes it creepier than the novel.)

Oh SO OTM. That one particular scene more than scared the bejesus out of me -- I suppose just because of the sheer incongruity of it all. I always thought Wendy must be thinking: "WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?" when she gazes down that hall. Still, in terms of single images that STILL give me the fear, nothing compares to.....

http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:17XuHEhL5SgJ:http://www.qtf.info/captainhowdy/wallpaper/EXORCIST_Howdy_800x600.jpg

http://www.texaschainsawmassacre.net/DannyLloyd.jpg

The Exorcist may be an even more extreme example of this syndrome -- all of its performances, considered without the central, extreme horror that powers the movie, are ham-fests. Watch it a scene at a time, or twice in a row, and it's laughable. Oh! the tortured mother and oh! the tortured priest and oh! the other *really* tortured priest... if it weren't so scary, it would be the most lampooned movie in history.

But it's not; neither of them are. Both of them depend so purely on an indefinable psychological element -- call it "horror," call it "style," call it whatever you like -- that they both work in spite of their clear drawbacks.

I pick The Exorcist as the scarier of the two because it preys more on my religious upbringing. I know people who are far more scared by The Shining, and I can't explain why any more than they can. "Scared" is a really complex and person emotion.

Muahahahahaha!

On the surface though, it seems to me that (haunted hotel aside, the end result is the same) someone being holed up in the wintertime and getting cabin fever, going completely insane and trying to kill his/her family is more likely to happen than actually being possessed by the devil. But I've never been religious so Kenan's probably right about that one. I guess it depends on how you look at it.

Kermode alludes to several signifiers in the film that make use of the islamic call-to-prayer popping up at seamingly incongruous points in the film (most prominently in the very beginning scene, at the Iraqi archaelogical dig, and at the very tail end of the film), allegedly meant to imply the universality/cross-faith struggle between 'good' and 'evil'.....y'know, if ya buy that sorta stuff. But would someone of a different faith be as affected? Probably by the imagery and horror aspects of the film (a demonic little girl stabbing a bloody crucifix into her vagina while speaking in a scary voice is pretty jarring, regardless of your particular faith, I'd reckon), but possibly not by the much-debated moral/ethical/theological message of the film.

The Exorcist was partially based on an (alledgedly) true case from the forties surrounding the "posession" of an adolescent boy.

Hmmm... that's an excellent thought, and it makes me rethink my question. The horror of The Exorcist is rooted in religion, for sure. The Catholic Church endorsed the movie when it came out, and encouraged people to see it to witness the horrors the devil can bring. Sadistic? Of course. Catholic? Sincerely. But good and evil does cut across cultures, doesn't it?

-- latebloomer (posercore24...), July 17th, 2004.

The MT.Ranier case.
-- Alex in NYC (vassife...), July 17th, 2004."

indeed:

ihttp://www.rameysrealm.com/exorcist.htm

That's certainly the implication. After all, the demon Pazuzu (seen in the form of a grinning, priapic stone idol in the beginning scene) is in Iraq and is of Sumarian origin, I believe (side note: I wonder if that location is still there? Or was it bombed into infernal smithereenies?)

http://www.qtf.info/captainhowdy/wallpaper/EXORCIST_pazuzu800x600.jpg

Anyhoo... be extra sure to put your headohnes in for this site.

http://theexorcist.warnerbros.com/cmp/thefilm-fr.html

Even so. Isn't a cabin fever scenario still more likely to happen, or am I being obtuse?

blah blah. Obviously I know the hotel was haunted etc. Did the ghosts pose as much of a threat (or any at all) compared to the Jack Nicholson character once he lost it? People going crazy and killing people happens ALL THE TIME. I'm not just talking in the context of The Shining, here. Possession, well maybe it happened sometime in the 40's...humor me here, I'm only being half serious!

Don't mean to be splitting hairs, but just for calrification Cthulu is a demon from H.P. Lovecraft's fiction.

When the Exorcist was re-released the scene in the Iraqi desert was incredible on the big screen.

excuse me, "Elder God", not "demon". now i am splitting hairs.

Yeah, I wonder why Kubrick added that (it wasn't in the book). I'm also a little curious why a couple years later Stephen King used that as the plot device for Pet Sematary. Hmmm....

and yeah, the Indian burial ground - some scholarly Kubrick-fanboy types have actually used this one line to argue that the whole movie is a parable about the extermination of Native Americans.

(that's in regards to the bunny clips)

some scholarly Kubrick-fanboy types have actually used this one line to argue that the whole movie is a parable about the extermination of Native Americans.

I've heard that too....often referencing the color of several red rooms as evidence.

and, if so, we're arguing a point against itself. Both films seem to be about a kind of possession, no? To me though, the type of possession(if you want to call it that) that makes a man want to kill his family for no reason
(and this is something that has actually happened in my family IRL, not to be a downer here, but my great-aunt and cousin were murdered four years ago by another relative who was talking to thin air (ghosts? imaginary friends? Who knows?) and suddenly snapped and stabbed them both and then according to witnesses proceeded to tell the thin air "There! I've finally done it!", no joke, he's currently in a mental institution.)
is much more common than this literal "she's possessed by the devil, better call a priest" type thing. It's closer to home for most people, I'd say. That's kind of what I'm driving at.

Then again.. that exorcism was supposedly based on a real event...

but now you've made me feel bad for arguing.

The Exorcist is just silly. As I mentioned, unless you really, honestly believe the devil can lie strapped to a bed with holy water keeping it down then the film is farce.

But it's not the devil, C-man, it's a litle girl possessed by the devil.

Also, Kim Cattrall from Sex in the City. She was in PA.

The Mt. Rainier possession case sounds more like a classic "poltergeist" (supernatural manisfestations usually surrounding an adolescent) case than a "posession".

But these things don't exist....or do they? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

-- Alex in NYC (vassife...), July 17th, 2004.

Is it ever proven to be the devil though? For all we know it could be just a random evil spirit. Maybe throwing up and making Linda balir curse is his way of saying "Howdy".

The Omen and Rosemary's Baby. The former just seemed like a cheap cash-in after the success of the Exorcist, whereas Rosemary's Baby (which predated the Exorcist) never seemed to deliver the goods. It was creepy, but more about a wacky conspiracy than anything else. Also, you never get to see the child.

I always thought the Omen was overrated. I remember my dad said that movie actually scared him, probably because he's a pretty devout Catholic. An antichrist taking over the world is something that is conceivable in his worldview I guess.

Especially at the end: all those people yelling "Hail Satan!" is classic.

"He has his father's eyes".

I'm not knocking Rosemary's Baby, but I just didn't find it as compelling (although it's a stressful ride). I don't mind certain films not "paying up" with the visuals (I think Blair Witch Project scores highest there), but it in Rosemary's Baby, just a glimpse might've been nice.

TS: Blatty's "The Exorcist" VS King's "The Shining"

"The Exorcist," however, I'd love to read. I haven't, of course, but some day.....

Rosemary's Baby is also bollocks. The Omen is the better of the three. It has nice cinematography and a couple of pretty strong shocks.

I don't HATE The Excorcist by the way - even in spite of itself it has some genuinelly good scares in there. The Shining on the other hand is a bore. So in answer to the question, Friedkin's film wins.

The Exorcist is still scarier. Some would argue that it's not so much the holy water that burns the devil as much as it is the faith behind the holy water.

Anyhow. I'm still voting for the Democratic ticket this year despite the alarming similarities behind this:

http://www.ibiblio.org/samneill/pictures/omen3/s-office.jpg http://www.insideedition.com/images/investigative_images/j-edwards.jpg

By which you mean the elevator scene.

Anyway, I find The Shining to be the more terrifying of the two. Because if the events in The Shining really happened it would mean that ghosts exist and they might kill you, and there's really nothing you can do about it. And you might become a ghost too, which doesn't seem fun. Whereas with The Exorcist witnessing the devil possess somebody means God certainly exists, in which case why fear ghosts and/or death?

In other words, while both would involve a catastrophic shift in worldview, The Shining just adds to the horror of death while The Exorcist confirms good and evil as forces external to humanity which gives you a plan of action... be good and God will look after you.

Shouldn't you be composing a thread about Wendy James' undercarriage by this point instead of showcasing your low standards?

This makes the movie for me. Especially the two dogs fighting under the Pazuzu statue. Isn't the new Exorcist film that Renny Harlin directed supposed to about young Father Merrin?

Or have you perhaps not even seen the thing?

My comment was more a flippant aside about your input to ILX as a whole, not about "Zombie Flesh Eaters" (which, though a classic it may indeed be, has a title that would suggest otherwise).

Seeing Zombie Flesh-Eaters doesn't make me feel more superior at all, but your dismissal of a film because of its title (is it really any more garish than - say - "Night of the Living Dead" or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"?) is rather ridiculous. Especially since you were attempting to place two films above it based on this alone.

Indeed, Zombie Flesh Eaters is the most anticipated DVD release of the year for horror fans. It's coming out in a two disc set which has been years in the making. You should pick up - the American title is just Zombie.

As far as "Day of the Dead" goes, I'm sorry to say that I simply didn't find it that compelling. Moreover, I don't place the opinions of "horror fans" (i.e. those who read "Fangoria" et al.) on an especially high pedestal.

That all said, your description of "Zombie" and/or "Zombie Flesh Eaters" does sound promising, and I do promise to check it out at some point. I think the basis for my initial comment (the one about you composing a thread about Wendy James' undercarriage) has more to do with your tirelessly negative comments. Fine. We get it. You don't like either "The Exorcist" or "the Shining". What more needs be said, then?

From The Kubrick Site ( http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/ ):

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0052.html

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0021.html

The original, famously banned 1973 trailer for The Exorcist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u15h02Y0MDY

Still one of the scariest things ever.

By the way, I don't really get the opposition made upthread between The Exorcist and movies like Night Of The Living Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
All these films truly belong to the golden era of the American horror - intelligent, cold, brutal, terrifying.

Agreed.

I was surprised to read this thread and find my 5-yrs-younger self so invested in it.

The original, famously banned 1973 trailer for The Exorcist

Banned for what? Giving Japanese children seizures?

Apparently it was considered too scary and excessive.
I still find it somehow disturbing.

admittedly i'm coming from a position of thinking the movie's the most terrifying thing i've ever seen - but yeah that trailer's pretty fucked up.

The trailer needs more of the sound. The movie borderline sadistic toward the audience, but the sound may be the cruelest thing of all. And the best thing, obv.

I'm surprised, but the site I linked upthread is still online. It's filled with movie sounds, in all the most unnecessary places. I've still never come across a website that's better to not only annoy your roommates, but actually make them feel like they need to call their parents to tell them they love them, for reasons they cannot explain.

http://theexorcist.warnerbros.com/cmp/thefilm-fr.html

"The trailer needs more of the sound. The movie borderline sadistic toward the audience, but the sound may be the cruelest thing of all. And the best thing, obv."

Great soundtrack: Penderecki, Webern, it also includes a short track from one of the weirdest album of the 70's, Wind Harp's "Songs from the Hill". And that Tubular Bells excerpt, of course.

From that site, a very interesting page. Presented here without the frame, and so without the sound, which otherwise plays on a random loop forever, and never gets less unsettling.

http://theexorcist.warnerbros.com/cmp/silencebottom.html

Considering that Mercedes McCambridge had also one of the scariest faces ever, everything comes full circle!

http://flattland.com/images/giant_6.jpg

Can't find any picture of her demonic uncredited cameo on Orson Welles' Touch of Evil.
She was an incredible actress.

Especially when tied to a chair, apparently.

it also includes a short track from one of the weirdest album of the 70's, Wind Harp's "Songs from the Hill".

wow thanks -- some quick googling makes this record sound totally fascinating

I find the exorcist pretty hilarious. Impossible for me to conceive of it scaring anyone. I'm catholic btw.

do you find any movies scary and if so which ones

wld love to front but exorcist scared shit out of me, and prob still would.

shining doesn't tho.

i love the exorcist so much it hurts

best thing about the exorcist is the old cop tho.

shld have been him and von sydow in the bucket list for ultimate win

I occasionally find films scary. More usual for me to find a film a little creepy. The shining has its moments in that respect.

Holy crap that page with the looped sound effects. DISTURBING.

I enjoy the Exorcist, it's a great movie, but I've never found it particularly frightening/scary, even as a kid. I dunno if this is just because I don't identify at all with all the Catholic/Satan silliness (I'm Jewish) or what. The Shining, on the other hand, is truly menacing and seems to resonate on a deeper, more profound psychological level. Like, there's nothing in the Exorcist for me to be afraid of - this is the worst the Devil can do? Make a little girl levitate and vomit guacamole? what's so threatening about that? Satan's kinda a pussy if that's all he can manage... by contrast, the Shining is about a building that basically eats people, about family members becoming murderous nutjobs etc.

Agree that the music in both of these is really key to their effectiveness tho.

Hey I've never seen the Exorcist. I know there are a number of different versions out there. Which would you recommend watching first?

They're both kind of shit, The Shining isn't a patch on the novel, I quite liked the song at the end though. The Exorcist is hilariously dated to watch now. If you want a horror film that is dated and still has the capacity to fuck with you long after you've watched it, check out Brian Yuzna's Society.

xpost to Shakey:
The theological stuff doesn't really get me either (or seem terribly important to the movie as much more than a plot device), but not being a Catholic or religious I can't really say anything about it. I'd love to hear/read more from a Catholic perspective though. But what does work for me is the psychological angle- seeing someone you know and love become a totally different person is some seriously frightening shit. Anyone who's ever lost a loved one to mental illness or Alzheimer's can tell you that. And it works on a lot of parental anxieties as well; even though I'm just as far from those as for the religious stuff, the hospital scenes are heartbreaking, and the bit at the dinner party ("You're going to die up there") is somehow way more upsetting than the overtly Satanic stuff (mother, cocks, hell etc).

Plus, Friedkin's way less patient than Kubrick and more willing to OH HOLY SHIT BEHIND YOU IN THE THEATER BLARGH

note to self: thesaurus. "stuff" three times, jesus H

Oh and Society! Yes! Nice to see someone else remembers that movie, it deserves way more attention than it ever got.

Hell yes! Seriously couldn't eat anything wet looking for days after I saw that.

by contrast, the Shining is about a building that basically eats people, about family members becoming murderous nutjobs etc.

Exorcist is also about family members becoming murderous nutjobs tbqf. Little girl straight-up murders Burke (director of mom's movie) by throwing him out a window.

I'm completely a-religious, but you don't have to believe in the devil to find some kinds of evil scary, and to me the movie is just incredible in the way it shows a personification of pure, distilled, absolute and absolutely terrifying evil. And Shakey if one of your family started levitating and vomiting guacamole i'm willing to bet you'd be pretty terrified. The things that happen are not just a bit weird or unnatural, they are an absolute violation of the natural order of things. Ya cannae break the laws of physics - but this entity can. Admittedly for it to just focus on a suburban family rather than fucking up the whole world seems a bit odd - but even that oddness, that unpredictability, is disturding in itself.

Damn it's bedtime now and i've got this film in my head ;_;

"Do you know," he said, "you interest me immensely? You think, then, that we do not understand the real nature of evil?"

"No, I don't think we do. We over-estimate it and we under-estimate it. We take the very numerous infractions of our social 'bye-laws'--the very necessary and very proper regulations which keep the human company together--and we get frightened at the prevalence of 'sin' and 'evil.' But this is really nonsense. Take theft, for example. Have you any horror at the thought of Robin Hood, of the Highland caterans of the seventeenth century, of the moss-troopers, of the company promoters of our day?

"Then, on the other hand, we underrate evil. We attach such an enormous importance to the 'sin' of meddling with our pockets (and our wives) that we have quite forgotten the awfulness of real sin."

"And what is sin?" said Cotgrave.

"I think I must reply to your question by another. What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?

"Well, these examples may give you some notion of what sin really is."

(Arthur Machen, The White People)

GODDAMNIT I just had to clean my teeth turned away from the sink 'cause I was too scared to have the door of the bathroom behind me! I saw this movie once! When I was 21! 15 years ago!

despite a background of a kind of piecemeal protestantism / agnosticism, The Exorcist hits me right in the fear core like The Shining doesn't. I thank an obsession with books on 'true life' paranormal activities from age ~10-13. The tale of the possessed guy who had to stop his car in the middle of nowhere because his personal demon was urging him to kill himself by crashing it gives me a funny little tingle still.

The Overlook Hotel is not really populated by humans. Everyone in the movie feels a bit spectral. There's no one to latch on to.

I know, I know... rote criticism of Kubrick. He's too cold, he disregards the actors in favor of his screenplays, and yada and yada. But The Shining is probably the best argument for this POV that is so often blanketed over all of his films.

OTOH, seen from a detached POV, The Exorcist is hilarious. The acting is so hammy, it should be glazed in honey and served at Christmas.

that, and the fact that we're secretly all crossing our fingers that shelley long gets the axe before the movie's even half done

The Shining is great. Always found The Exorcist sorta boring.

They're both kind of shit

I mostly agree with this :/

burstyn's over-acting grates a little, but all in all the performances in the exorcist are pretty good imo.

I suppose it's hard to fuck with Max von Sydow. Agreed.

Then again, putting him in it in the first place seems like a cheesy move. Like Friedkin assumed (correctly) that he would be automatic gravitas.

Hey I've never seen the Exorcist. I know there are a number of different versions out there. Which would you recommend watching first?

The original theatrical release. There's also "The Version You've Never Seen", which came out in 2001 I think, but don't see that first. It adds a couple of good scenes, like Megan in the Drs office and a theological conversation on the stairs between the two priests. But it really blows the ending.

Friedkin assumed (correctly) that he would be automatic gravitas.

well, y'know- casting is casting is casting

Casting Hackman as Popeye Doyle took a lot more stones.

casting popeye's girlfriend in the shining bringing us back full circle.

HA!

just wanted to echo the love for Society - amazing movie

The Overlook Hotel is not really populated by humans. Everyone in the movie feels a bit spectral. There's no one to latch on to.

This is the key to the real horror of this movie, something overlooked by people that just see a relative lack of gore and murders. The scary part of this movie is the atmosphere it creates; it's otherworldly, it's surreal, it's kind of displaced from time and space. The Physical Cosmologies write up painstakingly details all the visual themes - subtle and infamous - that come together to create an atmosphere that is truly supernatural.

http://www.mstrmnd.com/log/802

http://www.mstrmnd.com/files/PDVD_076.jpg
http://www.mstrmnd.com/files/PDVD_102.jpg

Saw The Exorcist in a theatre tonight. Thirty-eight years after first seeing it, I still have to cover my eyes a lot of the time. What I like more and more is the between-scare-scenes stuff; Ellen Burstyn walking around Georgetown while Mike Oldfield plays is excellent. It was Friedkin's recut tonight, which I don't like as much as the orignal, spider-walk excepted. The extra inserts are clumsy, and I seem to remember a quiet, atmospheric ending--more Oldfield--instead of the title coming up right away, underneath thunderous music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u15h02Y0MDY&feature=share

The Shining is the great film of the two, but I can think of few other horror film performances that pin me down as much as Ellen Burstyn's in Exorcist.

She's great. I love her awkwardness and embarrassment, and the way she phrases the question, when she asks "How do you go about getting an exorcism?"

https://soundcloud.com/i-was-there-too/the-exorcist-with-eileen-dietz

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/boogeymenslashers/images/1/14/Pazuzu.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120816194312

Face of Pazuzu was interviewed this week on I Was There Too.

otm re burstyn but all the performances far better in exorcist, but as stated upthread Kubrick wasn't making a human movie

nobody needs more of me on this, but duvall hugely underrated by boys with a narrow frequency tolerance. kid good too.

(i've never seen the exorcist, but that last perlstein book practically had a shot-by-shot)

I was trying to figure out what tacky-looking ripoff of The Exorcist the gay bar was showing with the sound off last night.

After about 10 minutes I realized it was The Exorcist.

lmao

I prefer it to The Shining tbh but that's probably cuz catholic

I lol'd a couple times, esp at BVM statue w/ monster bosom

"la plume de ma tante"

Still used as an epithet amongst the bros mac

The Exorcist again (posted about it above 12 years ago). Packed theatre, which was nice--part of a horror series, not the Friedkin series I mentioned in a different thread. When introducing the film, the manager asked if anyone was seeing it for the first time; surprisingly (university town), 20-30 hands went up.

I'm sure I must have realized this during some past viewing--it's so obvious--but Karras is Greek Like Me. Even says "Ti kanis" at one point (or his mother does). Performances all excellent, although I've always been on the fence about Jack MacGowran, the guy who plays Burke Dennings (dead by the time the film was released). Not sure if he's egregiously hammy or perfect. Probably both.

I think I'm finally immune to being frightened by the film, but something did spook me on the way home. Twice the GPS told me to do something, even though I'm quite positive I never programmed it to do so (no need to). It was like the clock stopping when Merrin's in Iraq. I thought, "God, what if it comes on again, only this time it's Mercedes McCambridge's voice?"

The Exorcist is currently on BBC iPlayer, after a screening on BBC1. Just struck me as amazing how a film that was long banned for home viewing of any kind in the UK is now streamable on the beeb's major online platform, and nobody gives a toss.

It's amazing in general that both The Exorcist and Taxi Driver have dodged the movement of history and continue to be shown on TV.

Maybe ... at the end of the day The Exorcist is a clearly pro-God, pro-church movie in a way that may as well be Going My Way

Isn't it??

If it comes to that The Passion of the Christ, say, is more in the Buñuel vein than The Exorcist.

The Exorcist is a clearly pro-God, pro-church movie

Oh, it definitely is (why Robin Wood hated it--which I don't think is ultimately the best way to evaluate horror movies), but it also has a 12-year-old saying things that would make Joe Pesci blush.

"I lied - you look like Sal Mineo"

I love Lee J. Cobb's banter--he's so different than his Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront.

And Taxi Driver is, ultimately, about all the things that Americans worship just as fervently as God: guns, misogyny and sociopathic individuality

didn't Kaufmann or Kael say it's the best recruitment tool the Church ever got?

(Yeah, Burstyn aside, Cobb's my favorite performance. A very leavening presence.)

I think Jason Miller is excellent. I saw him in another movie years ago--possibly The Ninth Configuration?--and he wasn't nearly as good...I think he was primarily a writer, no?

idk as a dude who outright hates religion I still enjoy watching the film. I brought my Pazuzu figurine with me when I watched it at the theatre the other night.

I hate possession horror in general, I think it's only a step above "torture porn" in the horror movie ladder. I think this one works because it creates such a sinister atmosphere.

the funny thing is the demon possession in these films never seems to have a goal above terrorizing everybody around the possessed person. real life beliefs of possession were more that demons could control weak-minded people and win them to their side, not have them throw up green shit and murder everybody that comes into their room.

Just checked that--yes, a playwright--and learned he was once married to Jackie Gleason's daughter! (And Jackie Gleason gets mentioned by Lee J. Cobb in one of his fake movie-castings.)

this movie, as a kid struggling with his faith as a teen when he watched it, did little to move me otherwise. granted, I wasn't Catholic, but all I could think was "it's pretty fucked up that demons can just do shit like this and the process to get them out takes like two hours and kills the people performing the ritual", like, shouldn't God have an emergency phone number ors omething to deal with stuff like this

The emergency phone numbers are things Chris M. doesn't allow in her house ... crucifixes, a father figure, etc.

film should always be paired with the exorcist iii bc i don't come away from watching both thinking they're pro-church, i come away thinking they're about the failure of systems to actually address the problem of "evil," and this includes the church, no matter how much more they're tapped into the source of regan's ills than like doctors or the cops or whatever

the exorcist on its own, yeah, definitely rhymes with the moral panic of the '70s where all these evil forces in society were seeping into our innocent children and only the church can save them!!!! but i also find the way this is conveyed in the film to be much more ambivalent in that absolutely everyone around regan is lost too

idk, i might be reading between the lines too hard, it's been a while since i've seen the first. the third one however is constantly being projected in my memory palace

I love miller in iii as well, he holds his own in the “monologue” with dourif

The book 1973 Nervous Breakdown posits the first one as an example of the inadequacy of systems.

is there an anti-exorcist where the horror comes from the church and/or its exorcists? that has the potential to get into some really dark shit that the original film can't touch

I hate both of these films but the exorcist is worse for boosting the church's flagging image and setting the stage for the satanic panic

come to think of it these are both films about women / girls being tortured by men (with or without supernatural forces) what's up with that why do people like these stories so much

Once scene made me laugh last night. (There was some laughter over Blair's language and gyrations...understandable, but for someone older like me weird.) It was when the two older priests meet to discuss who they want to pair up with Karras for the exorcism. You could take that scene, change the dialogue just slightly, and drop it into The Dirty Dozen or Reservoir Dogs.

think burstyn's is the performance i like the least tho tbh there's a certain amount that is simply baked in from the novel

I'm still surprised she earned a Best Actress nod.

is there an anti-exorcist where the horror comes from the church and/or its exorcists

maybe if jean rollin had ever gotten around to filming story of the eye

I'm still surprised she earned a Best Actress nod.

is there an anti-exorcist where the horror comes from the church and/or its exorcists?

Have you seen Witchfinder General?

I watched this a couple of weeks back (it's streaming on Max in the US) and the scene where Burstyn meets with the panel of doctors for the last time and one of them says, "You know, Catholics still believe in demonic possession...you could try that, I guess" as the rest of the doctors try to stifle laughter was great.

Apropos to many loose threads weaving throughout this latest revive:

“I guess the priests didn’t let me watch my daughter’s exorcism because of the patriarchy.”
Idk lady. I’d be a lot more thankful towards the priests who literally died saving your daughter. pic.twitter.com/w7zKx7yoWv

— Rolo Spooky (@PoorOldRoloTony) October 7, 2023

You didn’t happen to review who actually won the award that year, did you?
― insert nothing here (Eric H.),

I'm so sorry. Eve Harrington.

The Exorcist horrified me like no other film before or since. Even before I saw it, the idea of demonic possession (which was very much in the air at the time) would keep me awake and scared at night. It competed with nuclear war for top billing on my list of anxieties. So, it's hard for me to separate out my general feelings about the topic and the experience from the film itself, which, tbf, is terrifying.

The Shining feels much more like a set piece and a vehicle for Jack Nicholson, which is not a bad thing, but it doesn't reach the depth of fear that The Exorcist does, at least not for me.

agree with all that

I maintain that the fear engine of The Shining is that of a self-destructive failure both indulging in his own spiral and all too ready to blame his own family.

Although, even in saying that I recognize I’m positioning it as the flagship elevated horror

isnt it equally as easy to say similar about familial failure guilt but perhaps destruction is through proxy in the exorcist tho

I had a big fear of demonic possession when I was a kid. The posters for The Children of the Damned to me represented a movie so evil that kept me awake at night (I never did see it)

I watched The Exorcist with a first-term college friend in 1973 who was visiting me for Christmas. It was right around the time I was giving up my faith in religion. It was scary at first and then kind of hokey, but I thoroughly enjoyed it

The Shining was much colder, more mysterious and more frightening to me, with Danny's psychic visions of the past seeming like a foreshadowing of Jack's eventual madness

isnt it equally as easy to say similar about familial failure guilt but perhaps destruction is through proxy in the exorcist tho

Saw The Shining on my 12th birthday in 1980. It was terrifying and I remember that at the time the only other film that had frightened me as much was The Elephant Man with John Hurt. Which is odd, I guess. I don't think it was only Nicholson that scared me about The Shining, it was also the little twin girls and the general idea that the hotel was a haunted freak show.

I caught The Exorcist a few years later but I could more easily write that off as a Catholic paranoiac fantasy, and thus not as deeply disturbing.

The twins were, in my experience, the most terrifying part of The Shining. The first time I saw it, the flashes of their murdered bodies really chilled me.

I don't think the idea of possession is limited to Catholics, tho.

Maybe not, but it didn't have anything to do with anything I was familiar with growing up

You have to be religious for that to be scary, is what I'm getting at

I wasn't particularly religious as a kid, certainly wasn't raised with anything approaching religious regularity, but the idea terrified me. I think I accepted the idea of malevolent beings and, probably more relevant, the idea of loss of control of oneself.

First time, soon after release, at a drive-in in the States: me, my mom, my cousin, and my aunt. My cousin Glen and I were 12. I'm quite sure our moms weren't quite prepared for what we saw.

You have to be religious for that to be scary, is what I'm getting at

― Josefa, Saturday, October 7, 2023 8:19 PM bookmarkflaglink

I brought a Pazuzu action figure to my showing and pretty much am Team Satan and I find it terrifying as hell

Thing is horror films don't have to be relatable to be scary if the film is framed right

yeah its simply not a true statement imo

maybe if you go in ready to demonstrate yr atheism cool and make a point of not getting into the movie but otherwise its as scary as any other horror concept

xps im curious as to the parts of the shining that arent explicitly supernatural by the end of the movie tbh

I think you will probably find The Exorcist scary if you believe in God or know anything about exorcisms - but the possession is the thing, right? The loss of bodily autonomy is a big theme in horror, that it happens to an innocent child is another, that it’s fully gloves off in the approach is another.

I grew up hearing about exorcisms and how scary they allegedly were so it certainly struck that chord for me. But it’s a scary fucking film outside that!

For an exorcism film which is anti-church (iirc just utterly corrupt and inept) this might be the one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_(2006_film)

Not sure why that link doesn't work but a Google should bring it up

It's amazing in general that both The Exorcist and Taxi Driver have dodged the movement of history and continue to be shown on TV.

Wait, you think the movement of history has gone in the direction of LESS tolerance towards profanity on TV??

I saw Scorsese speak last weekend and he chuckled about how the first TV edits of Taxi Driver in the 70's were like 40 minutes long.

The idea of children being involved. Those films could not be made by a major studio now.

I would say that classic movies can get ushered into the present with plenty of "you could never get away with that today" allowances but, as Left's posts consistently remind, that moment may also be passing. (Caught a Letterboxd review of Sunrise that more or less burned it to the ground at the very idea that Janet Gaynor went back to George O'Brien.)

and Margo marries Bill and foregoes her stardom.

Well if there was any testimony from either of the actresses in those two films that they felt uncomfortable I'd understand that they could become out of vogue but as things stand I think you're imagining more pearl clutching in the world than there actually is.

Likewise while it's by no means an uncommon ocurrence for younger movie fans to come across the gender politics of old timey classics and be horrified (and tbh there's lots to be horrified by!), thd vast majority of reviews of Sunrise on LB, regardless of age group, are still five star raves.

I do prefer my college days in the late '90s, where we all agreed that Singin' in the Rain's Don and Cosmo were definitely sharing a bed on the regular

The idea of children being involved. Those films could not be made by a major studio now.

Isn't there a new Exorcist spinoff either coming out or released already that features two adolescent girls?

yes and it sucks apparently

Poltergeist was way more terrifying to me as a child than the Exorcist or the Shining, because it was set in a house exactly like mine

also at age ten I'd read a ton of Daniel Cohen books about the supernatural and knew next to nothing about Christianity, let alone Catholicism

I love in Poltergeist how they're watching a football game that is moving at what appears to be 0.05 speed

that cuz they’re stoned all the time, remember coach rolling that j

Just rewatched Poltergeist and, yes, the scene of Steven and Diane rolling joints in bed and doing Donald Duck voices as foreplay is a small miracle of a scene