“The Exorcist” (1973): Horror that Holds Up

Here's the thing with "The Exorcist" for me.  The script, performances, production quality and story telling is so thoroughly first-rate that the Film exposes lesser "horror stories" (which is almost all of the rest ever made) as little more than weak-ass "wannabes".  

William Peter Blatty's screenplay (based on his original novel), chronicling the commandeering of a child's soul by abject evil, is at once jarringly disturbing as well as genuinely thought-provoking.  

Director William Friedkin gradually and purposefully ratchets up the shock and terror by several degrees with each successive scene.  And as he does so, you are increasingly convinced that what you are watching depicted on screen could actually happen.  It is this most unsettling element of "The Exorcist" that caused me to delay for some 40 years until finally summoning the wherewithal to watch the film in it's entirety.  

I know.  What a scaredy cat.  

I remember seeing the very first trailer for the film when I was a kid in 1973.  The male voiceover delivered in unsettling monotone the following declaration, "Something beyond comprehension is happening to a little girl on this street in this house."  My friend and I thought that the movie would deal with a sexual assault.  At the time we were not familiar with demonic possession.  

"The Exorcist" made damn sure that those who dared received an unflinching, and unforgettable, introduction.

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