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Bookmark this pageThe Exorcist (1973)
Director: William Friedkin
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Friedkin's film about the possession of a 12-year-old girl works as an essay in suspension of disbelief and on the level of titillatory exploitation. Although harrowing, its effects depend entirely on technical manipulation, and with Friedkin's pedestrian handling of background story and supporting characters, we're left more or less willing the film towards its climax. Sure enough, during the act of exorcism the girl obliges with a spectacular levitation. It would all be forgiveable, somehow, if the film was at all likely to alter anyone's perceptions one jot. But all The Exorcist does is take its audience for a ride, spewing it out the other end, shaken up but none the wiser.Author: CPe
User reviews of this film
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- Thomas Noctor said...
- Posted on Dec 11 2010 10:13 This is nowhere near the scariest film ever made, but I've seen worse, saw it when I was 9 first, I snook it in and watched it, didn't see what the fuss was about, maybe in the 70's it was a big thing! Not the worst film though!
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- Godfrey Hamilton said...
- Posted on Mar 29 2009 22:59 Chris Petit's review, above, misses the mark and is very much an example of the oddly indignant and sanctimonious tone TO critics took in the 1970s when writing about horror. Time has favoured The Exorcist, and as another reviewer has said, the movie stands as one of the creepiest, and scariest, horror extravaganzas ever made (and Petit's 'Radio On' is worth a revisit. too!)
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- kirk said...
- Posted on Mar 03 2008 19:15 I still rate it as one of the scariest films ever made- certainly and easily the most frightening of its era.It traumatised more people than any film I know. Brilliantly conceived and produced with an effective soundtrack
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Cast & crew
Director: William Friedkin
Producer: William PeterBlatty
Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Lee J Cobb, Kitty Winn, Jack MacGowran, Jason Miller, Linda Blair full cast
Genre(s): Horror
Duration: 122 mins
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