Reception
Upon its December 26, 1973 release, the film received mixed reviews from critics, "ranging from 'classic' to 'claptrap'." Stanley Kauffmann, in The New Republic, wrote, "This is the scariest film I've seen in years—the only scary film I've seen in years ... If you want to be shaken—and I found out, while the picture was going, that that's what I wanted—then The Exorcist will scare the hell out of you." Variety noted that it was "an expert telling of a supernatural horror story ... The climactic sequences assault the senses and the intellect with pure cinematic terror." In Castle of Frankenstein, Joe Dante called it "an amazing film, and one destined to become at the very least a horror classic. Director Friedkin's film will be profoundly disturbing to all audiences, especially the more sensitive and those who tend to 'live' the movies they see ... Suffice it to say, there has never been anything like this on the screen before."
However, Vincent Canby, writing in the New York Times, dismissed The Exorcist as "a chunk of elegant occultist claptrap ... a practically impossible film to sit through ... It establishes a new low for grotesque special effects ..." Andrew Sarris complained that "Friedkin's biggest weakness is his inability to provide enough visual information about his characters ... whole passages of the movie's exposition were one long buzz of small talk and name droppings ... The Exorcist succeeds on one level as an effectively excruciating entertainment, but on another, deeper level it is a thoroughly evil film." Writing in Rolling Stone, Jon Landau felt the film was "nothing more than a religious porn film, the gaudiest piece of shlock this side of Cecil B. DeMille (minus that gentleman's wit and ability to tell a story) ... " Author James K. Morrow disliked the movie on similar grounds:
"From the first frame to the last, The Exorcist serves up a feckless Manichean attack on the Enlightenment, rigging the discourse at every turn. On one side we have the forces of darkness: clueless physicians in lab coats, blinded by their materialism, blithely torturing a demonically possessed child with their diagnostic instruments... What I find most exasperating about this movie and the novel before it is Blatty and Friedkin's stupefyingly unimaginative notion of radical evil. You know, Radical Evil, that phenomenon we secular humanists are continually told we fail to appreciate. In the world of The Exorcist, the Devil's agenda comes down to one thing and one thing only: the sex act. For Friedkin and Blatty, human reproductive organs are the sine qua non of chaos, depravity, and filth.... Not one of the 'obscene' utterances spewed forth by Pazuzu touches on historical or social evils. Pazuzu files no briefs on behalf of war, slavery, misogyny, anti-Semitism, homophobia, or pedophilia. Can it be a coincidence that, at certain points in its ragged history, the Catholic Church has acquiesced to all six of those institutions?... The wife of the police inspector, played by Lee C. Cobb, no longer enjoys watching movies with him—get it? When The Exorcist isn't busy wagging its index finger at secular reason, it gives its middle digit to anyone who would presume to find redemption in the erotic."Over the years, The Exorcist's critical reputation has grown considerably. The film currently has an 85% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website, based on 47 reviews the website collected. Some critics regard it as being one of the best and most effective horror films of all time. Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel placed it in the top five films released that year. However, the movie has its detractors as well, including Kim Newman who has criticized it for messy plot construction, conventionality and overblown pretentiousness, among other perceived defects. Writer James Baldwin provides an extended negative critique in his book length essay The Devil Finds Work. Director Martin Scorsese placed The Exorcist on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time. In 2008, the film was selected by Empire Magazine as one of The 500 Greatest Movies Ever Made. It was also placed on a similar list of 1000 movies by The New York Times.
Read more about this topic: The Exorcist (film)
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