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

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