Quick recap: A young girl undergoes a personality change and after several tests, the doctors conclude she is possessed because that’s how medicine operated back then, I suppose. A priest performs the exorcism and everything returns to normal. Or does it???

Yes. Yes it does.

Fun (?) fact: In order to give the actors genuine reactions of fear, director William Friedkin would shoot a gun into the air right before filming.

My thoughts: Although I stand by my last post, I feel sort of silly for being so afraid of The Blair Witch Project. I’m proud to say that my fear only lasted until daybreak and then it was gone completely,so in order to make up for my scaredy cat ways, I decided to go and watch The Exorcist on the big screen, arguably one of the scariest movies every made. This is the movie that many people flat out refuse to see for fear of,I don’t know, being possessed themselves? Or maybe these people already have a phobia of split pea soup and have no desire to sit through two hours of scenes featuring it. Whatever the case might be, I was ready to scare myself silly and live to brag about it.

….And I wasn’t scared. Like, at all. I’m not really sure I believe in people being possessed to begin with, so that might have something to do with the lack of fear. Or it could be because when I look back at Regan’s transformation into demon, the first word I think of is gross, not scary. Honestly, the scariest parts for me were the hospital scenes when Chris is trying to figure out why her daughter’s personality has changed so much. As a parent, that’s a top fear of mine (no, not demon possession), that my son could get sick and I would be powerless to help him. Beyond that, though, I just don’t get the hype.  Torture Porn (think Hostel and Saw) has been a big thing for awhile, meaning the more gore, the better. A girl projectile vomiting is gross,  but not an image that would keep me up all hours of the night. After about an hour and a half of The Exorcist, I sort of became desensitized to the whole thing. I knew that even if I dwelled on a scene too much, it wouldn’t matter because it would soon be replaced by an even more horrifying scene.

Even though The Exorcist wouldn’t make my top 5 scary movie list, it’s hard to ignore its impact on society. There is such a stigma to this movie, to the point that people feel they are committing blasphemy by sitting down and watching it. If anything, however, this movie is a champion for the Catholic church, who stepped in and saved a little girl’s life. There are several scenes that would offend most people and that’s what causes the stigma, but as a whole, the movie is rather hopeful since it shows good triumphing over evil.

I’d also like to add that, minus all the gross out/blasphemous scenes, the movie is fascinating. It made me want to research the history of people believing they are possessed as well as the Catholic Church’s stance on exorcism. I loved the character of the priest Demi and his crisis of faith. I believe that alone would be a compelling enough of a movie. On the other hand, the gross scenes are an art of their own, showcasing techniques that no one had ever done before. I was absolutely shocked to see that The Exorcist came out in 1973 because it seemed so modern, compared to other films around that time.

Final review: 4/5. I watched the director’s cut at the Alamo Drafhouse and I have to say, I disagree with putting the ‘spider walk’ scene back in. It doesn’t fit and just seems to be thrown in there for one last scare.

Up next: more Horrorfest

Quick recap: After escaping from a mental asylum, a psychotic killer roams through his hometown searching for more helpless, busty teens to kill.

No wire hangers! I mean…..yes wire hangers! ALL the wire hangers!

Fun (?) fact: Apparently everyone knows this but me (Thanks, second rate American education) but Janet Leigh (of Psycho fame) is the mother of Jamie Lee Curtis.

also, I thought Curtis was like 30, but really she’s the only one who was actually a teenager

My thoughts: In a quest to scare myself before the end of the month, what better movie to watch than Halloween? And unlike Jaws, I distinctly remember watching the original back when I was a kid. Actually, I think I watched it several times when I was younger but I don’t remember it scaring me all that much. Back then I had a very sophisticated system where I was able to rank all movies by their scariness, called the ‘It test’. The test consisted of one question: Was I watching the Stephen King movie It? If I was, then the movie was deemed ‘scary’ and if not, ‘not scary’. Like I said, very sophisticated. And although this movie had scary elements, it ultimately failed at scaring me then…….or now.

So first of all, this is the mother of all horror films. Most would argue that that title should be given to Psycho, but what I am referring to is the sort of horror film teenage girls watch at a sleepover and then spend all night staying up and scaring each other even more. The whole plot of the movie revolves around Michael Myers (back then referred to as The Shape) stalking teenage girls and murdering them. He had a town full of potential victims but all he wanted were the busty teens.  Therefore, this is a perfect movie for a 16 year old but for a 30 year old woman, not so much. I’ve been a little sad about getting older but after watching Halloween, I realize that I’m out of the demographic for Michael Myers murdering me. Hooray!

Halloween never really had any moments that surprised me, either. Thanks to the music I knew exactly when The Shape was going to show up. The death scenes themselves were also campy, especially with the fake blood. The scene with the tombstone creeped me out, but that was about it. What ruined it for me was the end when The Shape is stabbed with knitting needles, a wire hanger, shot several times and also fell out of a two story house, only to walk away seemingly unscathed. Leaving it at ‘psychotic killer’ would’ve been frightening enough but to turn it into a supernatural element of evil just made the whole movie seem silly.

Final review: In terms of scaring me, I’d give it a 2/5 but for the horror film it is, I’ll bump it up to a 4/5.

Up next: Horrorfest!

Quick recap: A young socialite goes out of her way to play a practical joke on a lawyer. And also something about murderous birds but that’s like the C plot so it’s not really important.

Fun (?) fact: A group of crows is called a murder. 

This one is just being a jerk

My thoughts: Welcome to Horrorfest 2014! I made the decision last year to only review the horror movies on my list during the month of October and it was loads of fun. I plan on doing the same this year, the only difference being that I’m going to actually try and scare myself this time around. Seeing as how almost everything frightens me, it shouldn’t be too difficult a task.

First up on my list is The Birds, which didn’t seem all that scary to me when I put it on the Netflix list. I want to be scared, mind you, not traumatized. The beginning of the movie seemed to justify my choice because it was all very silly. Now, it might just be that humor was different back then, but I didn’t find the ‘joke’ of Melanie buying the lovebirds, driving out to Bodega Bay and sneaking into Mitch’s house to leave the gift for the little sister all that funny. Psychotic perhaps. OH MY GOD. Maybe Melanie is really psychotic and goes on a murderous rampage after Mitch fails to get her lame joke. In a moment of clarity she realizes the horror of what she has done and blames it on the birds. It even explains Annie’s death because it was really done out of jealousy, not lousy crows pecking her eyes out. Then again, this movie could’ve literally been about birds. Probably that.

Ultimately, the question comes down to if I was scared or not and the answer is….kind of? I mean, the scene where the birds attacked the children was suspenseful but also kind of funny because it was obvious the birds weren’t real. Also because birds aren’t all that terrifying. Now if this was a pack (?) of man eating spiders, I’d totally get it. With that being said, the final scene when the birds descend on the house was scarier than I expected. The horror comes from hearing all the awful noises and having nowhere to hide, not necessarily that they were birds. Also,the scene were Melanie hears sounds upstairs and goes to investigate made me nervous and I was reminded of it as I walked up my own stairs that night. Hitchcock is the master of suspense after all,and in the end does a fine job making something ordinary turn seem utterly terrifying. Kind of.

Final review: 4/5. Maybe not ‘horror’ in the traditional sense but I enjoyed myself, nonetheless.

Up next: Horrorfest continues…..