The Exorcist

The Exorcist is a classic horror film, and seems to be the one that most people ‘break their horror duck’ with. It was hugely controversial when it was released, and continues to be very scary to this day. Although the parts of the film which provide the background and set the scene are beyond dull in my eyes, the actual action of the film is wonderfully chilling, scary, uncomfortable and imposing.

The Exorcist was the first horror film to be nominated for the Best Picture award at the Academy Awards. This is unsurprising when you consider that in the context of 1973, this film would have been absolutely groundbreaking. There’s quite a lot of backstory to the movie, but it basically focuses on a little girl who has been possessed by a demon and the attempts to exorcise her of this demon. There are some unforgettable scenes, some chilling moments, and some amazing special effects (for the time) which all add up to create the film which arguably first brought horror into the consciousness of the general public.

Ellen Burstyn plays the mother who is the focus of the initial part of the film. She is an actress and doesn’t believe in God. I have a feeling this might have changed somewhat by the end of the film though. Her character is fairly mundane to be honest. One day she notices her daughter is behaving oddly and so she tries to find some answers from neurosurgeons, psychiatrists and then, when all else seems to provide no solution, an exorcist. She does manage to convey the terror that a mother, or anyone, would experience in the situations she finds herself in perfectly, and this is to her credit. The exorcist she calls is played by Jason Miller. Miller does very well, and considering that Jack Nicholson was the original choice for the role, I think Miller brings something to the role that Nicholson wouldn’t. If Nicholson was cast I fear the film would have focussed too much on him and would be less of a classic. As it stands, all the cast perform on a level playing field, and this contributes to the overall success of the movie, at least in my eyes.

Max von Sydow plays the other priest at the exorcism, and does so marvellously. His character is depicted in a manner very faithful to the novel by William Blatty. His character, Lankester Merrin, had previously encountered the demon featured in the film many years ago. This means that naturally, he is the only one who knows enough to defeat the demon. However, during the exorcism Merrin dies, and so it is up to Miller’s character to complete the exorcism himself. Von Sydow is a fantastic actor and his casting in The Exorcist can only have been a good move. The little girl in this film, Regan, is played by a young Linda Blair, who is phenomenal. I’m not sure how much of her performance was actually her, but she is incredible throughout the film and is genuinely terrifying in the scenes where the demon has a stronger hold on her.

As with any popular horror film though, there is always a series of ill-advised sequels, and The Exorcist is no exception. Now I haven’t seen these sequels, but a quick search on IMDb tells me that The Exorcist sequels were a bad idea as well. The original film has a rating of 8.0, and Exorcist II: The Heretic has a rating of 3.6. One to steer clear of I think. The Exorcist III is rated at 6.0, and Exorcist: The Beginning is a 5.0. Personally, I’m not going to make any great effort to watch the sequels.

There are so many aspects of The Exorcist that make it an absolutely classic film, and the music is definitely one of them. The Tubular Bells score is so chilling and the film was so iconic that it took what was a piece of music by Mike Oldfield and turned it into one of the most recognisable pieces of music in cinema history. For me, it is the horror equivalent of the James Bond theme. Anyone who has seen The Exorcist will know how chilling the score is, and this contributes massively to the general atmosphere and experience of watching the film. I've searched for it on YouTube in an attempt to link it here and within seconds of the piece starting I have chills, it’s that imposing!

Another reason why The Exorcist is so popular is the number of ghost stories and legends around the film. The author of the original book has said that there were a number of ‘strange occurrences’ during the filming. There was a fire in the studio, and on several occasions a priest was reportedly brought in to bless the set. On one occasion the crew was blessed. There were a number of accidents around the harness used to film some of the ‘hovering’ scenes, and shortly after one actor has finished filming he died of the flu. While these are probably simple coincidences that can occur on any film set, the nature of the film in question is such that everyone is looking for an extra chill to make The Exorcist a little bit more terrifying.

The Exorcist is an absolutely classic film, and one that any horror fan simply has to see. It’s success is not only measured in terms of its reputation, but also on its box office takings. It had a budget of around 10.5 million dollars and since its release in 1973 it is estimated to have made 441 million dollars! Now that’s not bad for a horror film. If you do watch this, and I can only recommend it, make sure you have someone there with you, because there are scenes where you will be horrified.

Friday the 13th

*May contain spoilers*

The 'Friday the 13th' franchise is one of the most popular horror film series ever! The hockey mask has become an iconic symbol of the spooky villain, Jason Vorhees. Everyone has seen the image, and even if people aren't aware of its significance, they generally know the hockey mask. The first Friday was released in the era when horror films really started taking off as a genre of films. Don't get me wrong, some of the old horror films are fantastic, but in the 1970s and 1980s they became more widely popular. This 'slasher' film provides the typical combination of suspense, gore and sequels which only get worse.

The first instalment in the Friday the 13th series is, in my opinion, very good. When I first watched the film, I came into it with the idea that every film was haunted by this 'Jason' guy who has some reason to kill everyone who every has the misfortune to go to this one campsite. I was pleasantly surprised. The first film is, as many horror films are, stalked by an unknown killer who is killing the teenagers preparing Camp Crystal Lake for opening. When this is revealed to be some woman whose motivation is to avenge her son who drowned because the old camp workers were not paying attention to him it's quite a surprise. However, its a pleasant surprise. Dramatically more pleasant than the ending of the film, which you'll know what I mean if you've seen it, and if you haven't I'm not going to ruin it, and instead encourage you to watch it!

The second film sees the first appearance of the iconic villain. He stays around the camp featured in the first film, intending to stop anyone ever going there again. Naturally, people do turn up with the intention of reopening the campsite to the public once again. As you can imaging, murder, gore and suspense follow. When Jason's shrine to his mother is revealed, complete with the head that is removed in the previous film, I was revolted. This was a good revulsion though, because it was genuine, and very few horror films make me genuinely revolted. However, I didn't think that the second film was as good as the first. It was good, don't get me wrong, but the first one was better, and here begins the slippery slope that every horror film finds itself on.

The third installment was laughable. It was filmed in 3-D, and in today's age of 3-D films I much prefer to see a film in 2-D instead. 1982 3-D is ridiculous, though I'm sure was quite spectacular when it was first released. There is one scene where one of the unsuspecting teenagers is killed by Jason, who squeezes his eyeball out of his head before 'finishing him off'. When his eyeball pops out it is complete with an extension from the back of it which projects it forwards. However, despite this large obstacle, I did quite enjoy the third film.

The fourth film is entitled 'The Final Chapter' and for those of you bored of reading this, I'm sorry, but it's not the end of the franchise yet. Despite being 'killed' in the previous installments, Jason returns in this one and decides that the kids renting a house on Crystal Lake will be his next victims. He then moves on to the kids next door, one of whom kills him. At this point, given the title of the film and the seeming finality with which Jason was killed I found myself reflecting on a very good quadrilogy of films which, while not being amazing, have to be viewed in the time they were made, and are iconic. However, I already had ordered the next installment and found myself wondering how Jason could feasibly come back in the next one.

The fifth 'Friday' is the weirdest for me. I don't think I can talk about how bad the fifth film was without giving the twist away. However, I don't feel too bad about it, partly because I did warn you that there'd be spoilers, and partly because it's not that shocking anyway. By the time you get to the fifth film in a horror series I don't expect many people are watching for the intricate plot twists. The character of Jason doesn't actually appear in this film. The film follows the young boy who killed Jason in the previous film, Tommy, who is know grown up and living in a halfway house following his confinement to a mental institution. Tommy is continually stalked by dreams of the masked killer, and so when people around the halfway house start being gruesomely killed he gets a bit freaked out. The hockey mask appears in this film, but the man behind it is just a worker at the house who's son was murdered by one of the patients. As a result of this he decides to take on the persona of a serial killer one of his patients is haunted by, and kill everyone at the house, despite none of them actually murdering his son personally. This takes 'going too far' to a whole new level.

By the time the sixth film rolls around I was getting a bit sick of the franchise. Certainly there were many murders, and lots of blood, but there were just too many of them and as far as I could tell they were all pretty much the same. Tommy features in this film again, and starts off by visiting the grave of Jason, naturally resurrecting him in the process. This is the stupidest move ever. If you were haunted by someone who tried to kill you for a large period of your life, the last thing I'd do would be to go back to, and open up his grave. Jason goes back to Camp Crystal Lake, kills everyone there, and then Tommy appears to kill him. Blah blah blah, you get the idea.

This is exactly the same as what happens in the seventh film. Jason is resurrected, kills everyone at the camp and is returned to the bottom of the lake again. By this point I was completely bored of the films. Some people really like the sixth and seventh films, but I'm very ambivalent. I thought that the eighth film, 'Jason Takes Manhattan' might be better. I was wrong. While it was quite cool to see one of the most iconic villains in cinematic history wandering through New York, and actually hearing Jason speak for the first time, there were some utterly ridiculous elements in it. Apparently now Jason can teleport. This is quite impressive for a guy who has been killed and resurrected in nearly every film so far, and this film was definitely made to try and bleed as much money out of an immensely successful franchise.

The ninth film is the last Friday film in a way. It was intended to be the last one, and was meant to set up a fantastic climactic battle between the two greatest horror villains of cinematic history, Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger. We don't ever get told how Jason is resurrected in this film, and while being hunted by the FBI manages to pass his cliched black heart through one officer to the next. Jason manages to get his own body back but is then killed and a gloved hand with knives on the fingers drags him down to hell.

Jason X sees Jason resurrected again, and apparently the best way to stop him is to freeze him. Unsurprisingly Jason doesn't remain frozen for the length of the film and kills people 400 years later. In space. This was ridiculous.

A remake was released in 2009 with Jason witnessing his mother's death and then deciding to kill everyone at Crystal Lake again. I had high hopes for this film as it had the potential to be a refreshing take on the classic film. I wasn't expecting it to be better than the original, but I was expecting to enjoy it. It wasn't as bad as I was afraid, but it didn't grip me in the same way that the original, or the second one did.

As a franchise, there is no denying the success of the 'Friday' films, and the icon of Jason will live on as long as horror is popular. For many Halloweens to come there will be someone in a hockey mask and a machete. However, film by film the series goes downhill in my eyes. It starts out as very good, and then falls off to the point that sequels are being made for the sake of it. Definitely watch the first film. If you like that one a lot then watch the second. You should then watch the third and fourth, but unless you're a hardcore horror fan then do not go beyond that.