"The Exorcist" Scared The Living Daylights Out Of Me
Published on HivePostify by @epicenterdefacto · Mon Aug 31 2026
How many of you have seen the 1973 movie titled The Exorcist? Probably most of you have done so, even those of you who had not even been born yet in 1973. It was even more frightening than Rosemary's Baby was in my humble opinion.
What made The Exorcist excellent is that it did not use virtual reality or any computer-generated images throughout its production. The film crew had to work with what they had back in 1973 in order to produce the visual effects that scared their audiences. Movie technology wasn't as sophisticated back in those days as it is now.
Horror films have been reduced to virtual-reality images and computer-generated images representing demons, monsters, and other evil entities since then. The Exorcist did not use any of this bogus technology that we see in these genres of films nowadays, which makes The Exorcist a genuine cinematographic masterpiece in the horror genre of movies.
I understand that the author of the book (the late William Peter Blatty) upon which this movie is based got his idea for this story in 1950 and spent many years trying to get his book published without running into censorship. In any event, breakthrough books and movies are usually the ones that do the best.
My mother once told me that she was quite intrigued when she read the book to the movie Rosemary's Baby in the 1960s, because she had never come across any book like it back during that time period. The book to The Exorcist movie was published in 1971. I haven't had the occasion to read the book to this movie, but I have heard only good comments about it.
I can say that whatever the book to The Exorcist movie is like, if it strongly resembles the movie, it has to be a far cry from the conventional vampire plot or other scary books that may have been on the shelves of bookstores and libraries at the time of its publication. If any of you have read this same book, then feel free to comment about it below.
As for the movie The Exorcist, by 1973, people were ready for something different from Christopher Lee in vampire makeup or Vincent Price terrorizing his house guests in a creaky, dark castle. The Exorcist gave horror fans something new to digest.
Hilariously enough, some people I know who saw The Exorcist said that they thought that it was a sincere account of a parent dealing with pre-teen hell with their 11- or 12-year-old daughter, who can be more terrifying than Linda Blair was in The Exorcist. Oh, well. It was an exceptional movie in any event.
Would you believe that the late Anissa Jones tried out for the role of Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist? The late Anissa Jones used to play the role of Buffy Davis in the sitcom Family Affair back in the 1960s and the early 1970s. Regan MacNeil was the 12-year-old girl in The Exorcist that became demonically possessed. Linda Blair played her part in that movie.
The Exorcist also gave us the instrumental titled Tubular Bells as the movie's theme. It was a smash hit, and it was the only major musical success that Mike Oldfield ever had. If you haven't heard this instrumental before, you can listen to it in the video below.
The Instrumental Titled Tubular Bells By Mike Oldfield From 1973 https://youtu.be/8c-hUWNiG8A?si=uS87IaVT2pYuknmp
Wow! Even the instrumental in the video above gives me the shivers while I listen to it. This instrumental made it into the American Top 40 with the late Casey Kasem. If you search for it online, you will come across different versions of it. I like the above version of it the best.
Did you know that the late William Peter Blatty was a devout Catholic? He was intelligent in every way unlike a number of religious people most of us have known about. I once saw the late Mr. Blatty get interviewed, and his religious convictions were among the reasons that he came up with the ideas for The Exorcist.
Even if you're agnostic like me or even an atheist, you will still find The Exorcist entertaining to see. You don't even have to believe in the devil or demons to find this same movie convincing. It stays with you for a long, long time as in forever. I give this movie a rating of ten stars out of ten possible stars, which is a perfect rating that it so deserves.
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Tags: #cinema#the-exorcist#horror#movies#demonic-possession#satan#demons#exorcism#william-peter-blatty#linda-blair