The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted by William Peter Blatty from his 1971 novel of the same name. The film deals with the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl and her mother's desperate attempts to win back her child through an exorcism conducted by two priests.
The subject matter is about demons and Satan and contains a lot of foul language toward God, which consequently caused controversy with the Catholic Church with preachers like Billy Graham, who claimed a real demon was living in the film reels. The film had courted much controversy in the US where it had supposedly provoked fainting, vomiting and heart attacks in cinemas. The X rating had provoked significant outrage, however, the film was a huge success at the box office and the public as a whole didn’t seem overly concerned. However some local authorities did ban the film in their areas, which only added to the reputation of the film, with "Exorcist Bus Trips" being organised to take people to watch the film in nearby towns.After the Video Recordings Act (VRA) the young age of the protagonist became problematic as it might therefore have significant appeal to under aged viewers, which couldn’t be prevented from watching the film at home as easily as they were stopped in cinemas.
The special effects used in the film were used on set, so they weren’t added in post-production. At the time, they were ground-breaking. Scenes including special effects like the shaking bed, the projectile vomit, the 360 degree head spin, levitation, spider walk down the staircase, the words "help me" dug into Regan's belly, the moving furniture and objects and other effects. A major part of the scariness of the special effects is the demonically possessed face of Regan, which was achieved with makeup. There is very little blood or gore – one of the worst bloody scenes was the crucifixion masturbation scene.
The dark, desaturated colour palette and low key lighting across many scenes is so dark that it’s hard to make out figures and objects in these scenes, which creates tension and unease in the viewer’s towards the climax of the scene. The dark, ominous colour palette also reflects the dark and eerie demonic narrative themes in the film.The film is largely set in ‘a normal American, middle class family home’ with many of the film main scenes taking place in Regan’s house (e.g. the bed scene, and the spider walk down the stair case) which reinforces the fear behind possession and demons, as the film is portrays possession to happen to relatively normal people, like the viewers.
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