The Exorcist: Critic Reviews

The Exorcist is not an unintelligently put-together film, which makes one all the more impatient with it.

If movies are, among other things, opportunities for escapism, then The Exorcist is one of the most powerful ever made.

This 1973 horror thriller is highly instructive as well as unnerving.

An expert telling of a supernatural horror story.

There is nothing dated about The Exorcist, which remains an effective excursion into demonic possession more than a quarter of a century after it was first unveiled to the public.

Friedkin and Blatty seem to care nothing for their characters as people, only as victims-props to be abused, hurled about the room, beaten and, in one case, brutally murdered.

There's something elemental about The Exorcist.

But, is it just me, or is Karras's the only story that's really compelling?

It just never gets un-scary. That's the best part.

Trendsetting shocker about a possessed child.

An unforgettable horror film that doesn't just get under my skin - it stays there.

...the movie is right up there with the cinema's better chillers.

If it failed on all other levels (which it doesn't), The Exorcist would nevertheless be an excellent family horror story.

From the day of its first release in 1973, "The Exorcist: was the greatest horror film ever made, and it remains so to this day.

... a crude religious exploitation piece (although poor Linda Blair - required to urinate, swear and vomit on cue - is exploited more than anything else).

The overall film has a well-developed sense of atmosphere that most films of today are missing.

It stimulates and rewards, time and time again.

A story whose archetypal pull and sheer visceral power can't be negated by even the worst audience behaviour.

The film is an intense rollercoaster ride, a marvel of audience manipulation, with director William Friedkin pushing all the right buttons to make this a genre landmark.

This is the dark frightening place where modern horror cinema began.

Totally ludicrous.

One of the few horror films that hold up well, The Exorcist is still scary due to the visual and sound effects, but it's also well-written by Blatty, well-directed by Friedkin, and well-acted by Ellen Burstyn as the mother and Linda Blair as her daughter