The Exorcist (1973)

“It’s topped countless lists of the greatest horror movies ever made, but William Friedkin’s 1973 supernatural shocker has always struck me as one of the greatest of all religious films — a movie in which unbelief and spiritual despair are enemies as dangerous as the devil himself.” — Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times

Rarely do movies affect us so deeply. The first time I saw Cries and Whispers, I found myself shrinking down in my seat, somehow trying to escape from the implications of Bergman’s story. The Exorcist also has that effect–but we’re not escaping from Friedkin’s implications, we’re shrinking back from the direct emotional experience he’s attacking us with. This movie doesn’t rest on the screen; it’s a frontal assault.” — Roger Ebert

SYNOPSIS

Director William Friedkin’s most famous film transformed William Peter Blatty’s controversial bestseller, loosely inspired by a purported real-life exorcism case from the 1940s, into a cultural phenomenon that shocked audiences and, following the success of Rosemary’s Baby, further legitimized horror as a vehicle for Hollywood prestige. Ellen Burstyn stars as actress Chris MacNeil whose twelve-year-old daughter, Regan (Linda Blair), begins exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior, prompting a desperate search for answers that leads beyond medicine and psychiatry to the ancient rite of exorcism. Often interpreted as a profoundly Catholic film, The Exorcist applies Friedkin’s trademark stylized realism to an increasingly fantastic scenario, grounding its supernatural horrors in a tangible world of procedural detail, emotional authenticity, and spiritual uncertainty. Amid that realism, Friedkin creates some of horror cinema’s most enduring images, none more iconic than Father Merrin’s nocturnal arrival, a composition that recalls René Magritte’s The Empire of Light. Simultaneously intimate and apocalyptic, The Exorcist has proven to be one of the defining achievements of American horror.

The Exorcist will screen in a gorgeous 35mm print courtesy of Exhumed Films, presented in the 2000 Version You’ve Never Seen recut. This expanded edition restores approximately ten minutes of previously deleted footage, including the infamous “Spider Walk” sequence.