The Exorcist Analysis

The Exorcist (1973)

Directed by: William Friedkin
Written for the Screen and Produced by: William Peter Blatty

I'm not a big fan of horror films - I love the sub-genres of slasher, like Hush, or even horror films with interesting concepts like Quiet Place, Don't Breath, Purge etc.. or the recent horror films like Get Out, Us and The Platform which make social statements in the disguise of survival horror films. I have somehow never enjoyed the conventional supernatural horror genre, the anticipation they create before a jump scare always puts me off - it feels like a prank by a friend, and most of the times I tend to look away from the screen or close half of my face, haha. The most cliche way of doing a jump scare is, making us and the character expect a jump scare and the music goes up, the character gets tensed, the music goes up and up and the character is shit scared now and somehow they muster up the courage and take a peek, there's nothing - hoof...the character is relieved and as they turn back to go, BAMMMM! A jump scare which is absolutely unexpected, and done only once or twice in a film would fascinate me like the one in Game Over.

This film, The Exorcist, doesn't have jump scares - it mostly banks on gore, and they show us the reaction shot first before they show us the horror footage - this increases the anticipation in us. It's a tool often used to create cliffhangers in novels, they write about a character who enter through a door and get flabbergasted by what they see inside and end the chapter there. I understand that my reaction to this film won't be as good as the film, because I've seen a lot of bad derivative work of this film, and have become tired of it - hence I have immense respect for this film for being one of the first popular horror films and to start a trend.