The Exorcist — The Version You've Never Seen

As part of the series of re-releases designed to bring studios extra money without actually having to reshoot anything that also brought us the re-release of "This Is Spinal Tap," "The Exorcist" is back, 27 years since it was first released. Unlike "This Is Spinal Tap," "The Exorcist" features actual recognizable changes, both in the gorgeously digitally remastered score and in 12 minutes of restored additional footage. These changes have inspired Warner Bros. to give this re-release the official name "The Exorcist--The Version You've Never Seen," which is a monstrously uneuphonious appellation. Besides its monstrousness, though, you'll also notice that this new version is not called a "director's cut," for reasons which will become apparent. Regardless of its incidental flaws, though, we needed "The Exorcist" on the big screen again, after a summer which featured both a film which claimed to be set in Washington but was shot in Baltimore ("The Replacements") and one of the more horrible rip-offs of the present film ("Bless the Child"). "The Exorcist" is real-deal horror filmmaking.

The basic problem with calling your film "The Exorcist," as the careful student of film will realize, is that all the time Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) spends looking into psychiatric treatment for her daughter Regan (played, of course, by the intrepid Linda Blair) is basically wasted. We're just waiting for the exorcist to show up. This was not so much of a problem with the original version. Director William Friedkin, who also gave us "The French Connection," did such a masterful job creating atmosphere and a sustained, low tension like the plucked string of a double bass that the exposition was comparatively painless. But all 12 minutes of added footage stretch out the exposition, and they seem much longer than they are. What was a nicely modulated structure has now become unwieldy, calling for a little more endurance than many people will be willing to exert. It's hard to imagine director Friedkin assenting to this edit, even though he stands to make plenty of cash from this re-release.

Still, enduring a little extra footage is a small price to pay to see such a masterful horror film on the big screen again. Friedkin attends to every detail; nothing is left to chance. Admirers of Friedkin will no doubt recall how his camera angles and movements, even the most natural-looking, are chosen carefully and with an eye towards advancing the drama. His Georgetown exteriors alternately delight and menace, depending on what is called for. The acting, too, shines as much as it can in a horror film, with Burstyn, Jason Miller and Max von Sydow all delivering thespianic classics of the horror genre. Particular credit must be heaped on Linda Blair, who takes what could have been a thankless role even for an adult and makes it her own. She and the voice of the devil inside her, Mercedes McCambridge, project a feral, boiling hatred and a grotesque sexuality that still has the power to shock after all these years.

But the most important part of "The Exorcist," and probably any horror movie, is the sound. Director Friedkin chose the tremendously effective music by such standouts of shocking modern chromaticism as Krzysztof Penderecki and George Crumb. Friedkin's best decision, however, was to eschew music most of the time, relying on silence disrupted by a carpet of sounds assembled by an enormous team which will have to remain anonymous for reasons of space. The digital remastering showcases the otherworldly power of its ominous rustlings, harrowing screams and occasionally violent outbursts. Even the blunt sound of an X-ray machine sounds like a premonition in this film.

We are in an odd place with the horror genre. Metahorror, that winky-winky "we all know what's going on here" scariness practiced well by Kevin Williamson/Wes Craven in "Scream" and badly in a bunch of lackluster followups, seems to have played itself out. (Anyone really up on seeing "Urban Legends 2?" Thought not.) No one seems willing to invest adequate time and skill in creating a horror film that does not stop simply at scaring, but insinuates itself into your consciousness for days. It is a testament to the power of "The Exorcist" that, even after all the pale imitations and giddy parodies its famous moments have inspired over the years, it can still inspire terror that runs deeper than anything that's come out in the last five years, at least. So if you like horror, and if you're dissatisfied with the current offerings, vote with your dollars and time for filmmakers that (regardless of bad footage additions) do the job right.

Besides, if enough of us go see "The Exorcist" now, it'll still be out come Halloween.

THE NAMES CHANGE, BUT THE GAME REMAINS THE SAME

I am here to tell you: If the events depicted in "The Exorcist" happened today, there would be none of this ludicrous "temporal lobe" business when trying to diagnose Regan MacNeil. Modern psychiatry, with its new techniques and methods, has a million other tests that it can try before it throws up its hands and suggests exorcism as a last resort. (And then they would still find some way to screw it up.) So, theoretically, in a remake the exposition would be about three hours long. Another good reason not to try, IMO.

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