When I was really young, my mom used to watch that show UNSOLVED MYSTERIES and every damn time the theme song started playing, I would completely freak out and cry like a maniac, begging her to change the channel. It wasn't even the show itself that scared me because I never actually watched any of the episodes at that point. It was just that stupid song that gave me nightmares. At this age, I had already been watching plenty of horror movies and loved them so I don't know why this particular song had that kind of affect on me.
Eventually I ended up catching the middle of an episode one night and unwillingly got hooked by the creepiness about a haunted house. When a ghost inevitably appeared and frightened a little boy, my dumb child mind randomly thought the ghost was Jesus (I guess because I was already scared of Him to begin with) and it totally traumatized me. From then on, I developed an intense fear of Jesus and would stay up nights thinking that he might come visit me while I slept. I even had a panic attack while at church a few years later for a relative's baptism. To this day, I still feel uneasy just thinking about him.
Believe it or not, I'm a really sweet person and I don't worship the devil. I'm NOT the antichrist, as this would suggest. Well, at least I don't think I am…
Thin skinned, quivering watercolor enthusiast Marjorie Worden (marble-mouthed SANDY DENNIS) and her work-obsessed, ad executive hubby Paul (KOLCHAK's DARREN McGAVIN, who not only exudes Captain Carl level machismo, but is also notably one of the few people who can truly pull off wearing a hat) trade city rats for country rats when they move into a rural Pennsylvania farm house. Along with their two children, a tow-headed Carol Ann Freeling prototype and seventies ginger staple/sea monster advocate JOHNNY WHITAKER, they discover that the devil is not only in the details, but is also residing in the barn. Marjorie is the first to suspect something hoofed is afoot when she wakes to the sounds of a baby crying and discovers an apparently long expired jar of glowing red jelly is the source. The jar proves to be as difficult to shake as one of Paul's commercial jingles as it reappears in various parts of the house causing Marge a great deal of anguish. Oldster Harry (ROSEMARY'S BABY alum RALPH BELLAMY) the lone person not chalking Marge's erratic behavior up to hysteria, is quickly dispatched via a swooping demon P.O.V. shot. What may have been a standard seventies occult pastiche is elevated to classic status by the talents of a still-hungry, young STEPHEN SPIELBERG, fresh off the crashing success of DUEL. Incorporating inventive camera moves and creeped-out sound effects, whilst always taking full advantage of the charismatic cast, this made-for-T.V. movie rises far above the chaff and delivers an eleventh hour switcharoo truly worthy of preservation.
INDELIBLE SCENE(S):
This may sound crazy but when I was a little girl I was terrified of E.T. I remember seeing it with my brother and cousins when it first came out. My crying was so bad that we all had to leave the movie. A couple years later at my first sleepover my friend Rachel had a picture of E.T and Michael Jackson on her wall. I did not sleep a wink that night. I just stared at that picture, scared out of my wits. I still have not seen the whole movie and I'm always worried that one of my kids will want to watch it some day.
P.S. The part where E.T. dressed up as a woman scared me the most!
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to get trapped inside a pop-up fairy tale book, this may be the closest equivalent. STUART GORDON the director responsible for breathing life into the dead with legendary results in RE-ANIMATOR grants the same favor to the creepy little playthings that line many a child's bureau. In an early fantasy sequence, Judy's beloved teddy bear shows his true colors when he splits apart at the seams and begins mauling the deserving adults. It not only sets the stage for black humor and pre-adolescent revenge wish fulfillment, but also perfectly captures the movie's being as a whole, a cuddly charming toy with hidden claws.
INDELIBLE SCENE(S)
There's no earthly way of knowing
which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowingIs it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a-blowingNot a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowingYes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing
INDELIBLE SCENE(S):
Most horror flicks are satisfied with the humble goal of tossing about a few chills. The more ostentatious may even try to snatch a good night's sleep from the viewer. This Titanic beast wants the whole bag of marbles and it's not going to rest until every inch of peaceful space in your brain is demolished. THE EXORCIST has extracted not nights, but years of sleep deprivation from its ill prepared audience. It has given rise to vomiting, fainting and perhaps most frighteningly, church attendance. Who can explain the mystery of its power? It's indisputable that all involved, director, writer and cast were all at the top of their game, but it almost seems as if the film built its own damn self with bricks forcibly pried from our collective unconscious.
It's about a little girl who's possessed by the devil, a scary idea for sure, but many other films have attempted this plot and delivered nothing. (I'm looking at YOU, many other films!) Why won't this movie step down? Why won't it behave? After decades you'd think it's power would have waned some or at least by now we could laugh at it like so many other bugaboos from our past and say, "I was scared of that? What was I thinking?" No such luck. This baby won't budge.
It may be because it's about so much more then just that little girl. It never flinches juggling ideas about good, evil, guilt, morality, life, death, and the simple truths about human existence that most popular entertainment beats back with a stick. Above all else though, this shit is scary. The enemy is not the begrudged victim of a prank gone wrong but evil itself. I'm talking old as time, famine, cancer, Auschwitz, JENNA ELFMAN type evil. I have heard atheists claim to be immune to the horrors found here. If that's the case, then that's their best selling point and it should be used more often as a recruitment tool.
Director WILLIAM FRIEDKIN and writer PETER BLATTY are often busy trying to convince us that the film closes on a happy ending that reveals good's triumph over evil. I'll allow that the book does succeed at making this point, but as far as the film goes I'm not buying that haunted swamp land. I get that Father Karras (a supernaturally natural JASON MILLER) sacrifices himself to save Reagan (irreplaceable traumagod LINDA BLAIR) and that's no small shakes or anything, but for this viewer's psyche, it's too little too late. Evil can levitate, spew pea soup, twist it's head fully around and make aspersions towards good's mother's recreational time in hell, and good's snappy comeback is jumping out a window? It doesn't comfort me. It doesn't comfort me one bit.
INDELIBLE SCENE(S):
God, do I really have to bother? Head spinning, pea soup upchuck, the staircase, MAX VON SYDOW's Magritte inspired arrival, frickin' Captain Howdy all over the place. Pazzuzu waltzing around, Karras's freaked out dream about his mom. That horrible hospital head machine. Masturbation with a crucifix? "The sow is mine!"…the whole damn thing. The whole damn thing is indelible.
This review is part of the Final Girl Film Club, join the pow wow here: Final Girl Film Club
