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!

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