The flash face shots in the Exorcist.

Got to remember. When released it will have been scary . Most folk were scared of . Who's the swamp monsters. That pesky janitor in Scooby Doooo. So this film will have been massive shift change in scare tactics on general public . For what it's worth . I think it's a great film ...
 


SAFCOldie said:
Reported at the time that folk fainted and some ran out of the cinemas. Not quite sure how true that is mind.
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Absolutely true. I was 18 when I went to see it with a mate in Newcastle. There was screaming and people leaving. At the end we can out and went to the pub a few doors down and didn’t speak to each other for half an hour.
 
Harry Gates said:
I've seb, the only film that caused me dad to put the light on when he went for a mid-night piss.
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I had to escort my ex wife to the toilet in our student house for about a week after we went to see it when it was re-released in cinemas at the end of the 90s. Daft cow was sure ‘the exorcist girl’ would be in there to greet her.
 
JD73 said:
Got to remember. When released it will have been scary . Most folk were scared of . Who's the swamp monsters. That pesky janitor in Scooby Doooo. So this film will have been massive shift change in scare tactics on general public . For what it's worth . I think it's a great film ...
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I mean that's just nonsense. Adult moviegoers- the only people who could see it- wernt watching Scooby Doo. Lots of the most unsettling films ever made were being produced in that era. In very socially uncertain times as well.

Plus there's very few things scarier than a person you love- especially a child- out of control or under threat from something that you cant do anything about, that medical staff and other similar supportive professionals cant help, and the hopelessness that brings. That's really what it's about. Plus the triumph of hope and good over evil and despair.

The Demon jump scare stuff is the easiest part to deal with and that's aged the worst, but the sense of helplessness and violent confusion and trauma of something nasty happening to your kid in your own home is still incredibly hard to stomach in my opinion.
 
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sonson said:
I mean that's just nonsense. Adult moviegoers- the only people who could see it- wernt watching Scooby Doo. Lots of the most unsettling films ever made were being produced in that era. In very socially uncertain times as well.

Plus there's very few things scarier than a person you love- especially a child- out of control or under threat from something that you cant do anything about, that medical staff and other similar supportive professionals cant help, and the hopelessness that brings. That's really what it's about. Plus the triumph of hope and good over evil and despair.

The Demon jump scare stuff is the easiest part to deal with and that's aged the worst, but the sense of helplessness and violent confusion and trauma of something nasty happening to your kid in your own home is still incredibly hard to stomach in my opinion.
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Barry Norman must be bricking it ...
All about opinions . Scooby doo pesky janitor was tongue in cheek . Long live jaws . Great film
 
EchoMan said:
Absolutely true. I was 18 when I went to see it with a mate in Newcastle. There was screaming and people leaving. At the end we can out and went to the pub a few doors down and didn’t speak to each other for half an hour.
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I've bored people with this story before but when I were a lad the only way to see The Exorcist legally was a midnight show at The Prince Charles Cinema in London on a Saturday night. The tubes were stopped before the film started, let alone finished. My recollection is the film was scary but not as scary as the night bus home

I do remember thinking it wasn't full of scares the way Evil Dead or The Shining was, there's no creature or entity lurking in corners taking out the cast one by one. But it is very intense and it goes to a lot of trouble to make it seem believable. Both in the creepy build up and the effects, which haven't dated. On multiple watches I've yet to see the join when her head spins round or any wires when the girl and the bed levitate.

It also felt differently watching it later when I had kids of my own. Ellen Burstyn's helplessness while her kid suffers is pretty dark stuff in that respect
 

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