The Exorcist - re:View

well Josh it's October short it is it's time to start watching some spooky movies or continue to watch spooky movies however you want to do but it's time to break out this guy yeah it's sunny here make sure he still works [Applause] alright see you next year okay so in honor of our discussion of the exercise I went in search of split pea soup this was the only kin and the only brand I could find of split pea soup that looks like a Hardy split pea it's got ham in it yeah Wow I mean good for you know a good salty tastiness but not so good for vomiting on to Jason Miller do you wanna know I hate split pea maybe I'll give it to a trick-or-treater oh there you go put it in their bag I got a rock so I mentioned to you doing The Exorcist for the spooky Halloween season it's my favorite horror film okay it's one of my favorite movies in general sure and you had slight reservations very like what else is there to say about the Exorcist there's just been so much there's been so much discussion about it there's been movies and books and and parodies all call the parodies nice doctor [Applause] [Applause] which is why idea was to spice up this review in case we start to get repetitive or say things that people have heard before just occasionally throughout this video I'm just gonna cut the clips from repossessed starring Linda Blair and Leslie Nielsen just break the woman short kind of like in the rerelease of the Exorcist when William frickin just dropped in those Pazuzu faces when you least expect it here's a clip from repossessed boy oh boy I'll only share the funny clips that will severely limit what I have to show [Music] in addition well first of all they call it the extended director's cut it's not a director's cut what's that the version you've never seen when it was released in theaters in 2000 2001 it was called the version you've never spoken which is very I don't know showman showmanship II is very catchy but it's not even a director's cut if anything it should be called the writers cut yeah because the director's cut is the theatrical version yeah the the version you've never seen is William Peter Blatty being like put the stuff back in please yeah you took out these things that I think are important to the film some of the things I think like the spider walk yeah spider walks fun the interesting thing about the spider walk is that like you know it wasn't in the original film so I'm in the movie for like 25 years they released the movie and that's in there and that is like an iconic scene in its own right now when people talk about this movie they talk about the spider well I guess so yeah no but yeah for me it was like it's okay it's it's not a mind-blowing thing I think the most important thing that got put back is the discussion between Jason Miller and Max von Sydow on the stairs doesn't make sense I think the point is to make us despair to reject the possibility that God could love us I like that scene I also like the theatrical cut where they're just sitting there yeah exhausted and then it comes away I think they're both worthwhile and I think that their reasoning is not either because bladezz reasoning it's like well that's that gives the audience forgiveness to to enjoy some of the more brutal things and like you know as like you don't have to give them forgiveness it's it's fine well that that's that's the I think the key to this movie is that relationship between William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty yeah because if you watch theirs again I'm gonna just say that this blu-ray this particular release is a testament to the importance of still having physical media mmm there is so much to dig through on this and for a movie made in 1973 there's so much behind the scenes footage but what luck that the DP just was shooting 16 millimeter behind the scenes just like all the time yeah but I love there there's interviews with them on this the two of them at like a round table and they have the relationship of like an old married couple yes the way they bicker is so fun to watch I know well the problem is the audience is there long suspected I know Bill and what we what we should try to do on the re-release is is have the audience pass by you know know like I said that's the key to making the movie work is that William Peter Blatty comes from a religious background he wanted the book to be the book that the film was based on but he also wrote the screenplay for he wanted it to be grounded and respectful of she has what priests and religion and all that stuff and I don't think William freaking gives a crap about that no he just wants to shoot it as realistically as possible yes so I think those two perspectives together it's like lightning in a bottle it's one of those like we've talked about like Ghostbusters or something movie where you have the right people working at the right time on the right project and it's I the Exorcist in my mind is one of those movies that I would call a perfect movie yeah absolutely in either version honestly yeah the only thing I don't like in the version you've never seen or the director's cut or whatever you want to call it are the subliminal phases I don't like those who this one they're not subliminal two they look silly they look like they were slapped down there in five seconds and there's a couple like there's one part where Linda Blair's face like digitally turns demonic for a second and little things like that yeah get out of here like that sucks but it was better it was it was nice that they were able to use the tech to make the cut with Jason Miller at the ends yeah that makes sense as opposed to just a hardened cut but we can talk about everything that's in this movie is practical yeah and that's amazing and that's that's I really think there's there's a moment in the movie when they go into Linda Blair's room and there's [ __ ] just flying around the room it's like records and sheets yeah furniture is moving and it's all really there and you contrast that with something like it's a few years later but like poltergeists there's a sequence where shits flying around the room and it's like clearly optical it's like that hard matte optical you know lying around the things that are composited in yeah and I think yeah well in freaking comes from a documentary backgrounds he did the French Connection before this a lot of the best horror films ever made are made by people that weren't primarily known for horror yeah you have like Ridley Scott doing alien Stanley Kubrick doing the shiny and I think it and then William freakin doing this and it's like I don't know they come at it from a different perspective well I think this one in particular was the awareness of laddie from the from the go was like he wanted somebody that had a documentary I yeah and so specifically sought out Friedkin because he knew that he could make it up he could take this fantastical idea to most people and had make it appear flat and real basically because it's really not it's shot fairly flat and just normal right you know it's it's it's not shot like a documentary but it feels like a document yeah it feels very like fly-on-the-wall especially when you get to the hospital stuff cuz people say this movie's not shocking or scary anymore all the stuff with them doing tests on Reagan to try and figure out what the [ __ ] is wrong with it is the most chilling stuff in the movie and it's all just shot so matter-of-fact yeah it's almost it's almost like some of the contemporary sci-fi body horror kind of stuff like um but coma there's a lot of that in the 70s oh it's like 70s medical drama that's all shot super flat super real yeah and that kind of I feel like that's kind of the same thing but even more real because again freaking being the documentary guy wants to shoot it as real as possible it's not a film about Dracula it's not a film about the alien it's about a real street in a real town and upstairs on the third floor of this house is a real little girl who happens to be possessed by a demon so it's again it's a flat matter of fact and it's terrifying because that's where medical science was in the seventies or hits but I think it's been interesting to see the kind of perception of the movie shifts over time because the the big thing it's almost like the movie is a victim of its own notoriety whereas for the longest time people just called it the scariest movie ever made scariest movie ever made where someone watching it now oh let's see how scary this is it's not that it's the scariest movie ever made if you're looking for a scary horror movie it's scary and how grounded and real the whole yes I didn't see it initially until I was in my 20s oh wow yeah because again it had this reputation of being so scary ya know so it was it was there were two movies it was that and Texas teen Chainsaw Massacre okay that I was like okay so it's gonna be like a sunny Saturday afternoon I'm gonna watch this - this isn't [ __ ] with me calm and both of them have a certain reputation as well in terms of being very realistic Texas Chainsaw Massacre still holds up that way where it's just like there's a bunch of crazy people that made this [ __ ] movie yeah yeah it feels like it was made by crazy it feels like it was made by the family that's in the movie yes and The Exorcist feels like a documentary but even still it was like it was it was it was it was presented in such a way that was just like here are the events you know bladdy had heard this in in college was just like that sounds like a good story yeah a son based on a true story of a kid that was supposedly possessed I think in Baltimore somewhere nearby yeah yeah you get the sense obviously from from bladdy that he believes in it yeah but you get the sense that freegan who doesn't give a [ __ ] about any of the supernatural religious any of it he buys it to me that's what makes the movie scary because that's there's three complaints that people have about this movie one it's boring which we'll get into - it's not scary which is subjective and three if you're not religious that's the reason it's not scary mm-hmm I am NOT a religious person Norma what makes the movie scary to me is the fact that the Chris MacNeil character the mom is also not religious yeah and the the methodical process the movie goes through of showing her taking every avenue to try and figure out what's wrong with her daughter Lee we mentioned the medical stuff is it a physical thing is it a mental illness [Music] she thinks her daughter's losing her mind without making her losing her mind and out of shirred aspiration she turns to priest looking at into getting an exorcism and even even at that point the priest dies to talk her out of it yeah which Lee thought of my favorite scenes from an acting perspective with Ellen Burstyn they sent me to you now you can send me back to them Jesus Christ when somebody wrong see you don't understand your daughter there's nothing scarier than having a family member or yourself have something wrong and no one can tell you what it is yes and that that's the brilliance of Ellen Burstyn performance yes because she's so beat down by and also adding to that having Ellen Burson's character be an actress mmm and having the fact that they're there living in this house that isn't their own house they're they're away from home they're staying in this house in Georgetown while she's filming this movie one of my biggest fears is something going wrong getting sick or something when I'm like out of town yeah when I'm away from everything I'm comfortable with and so I think the movie plays into that too definitely where it's like it's a very nice house like it's a very comfy house that they're staying in but it's still a still no it's yeah it's still a place they're not as familiar with and on top of that the burden of being a famous actress there's like the scene with kinderman when he comes over to talk to her and he's like I can I get an autograph and she's so like frustrated and emotionally torn from what your daughter is going through and then it's like she still has to put up that front of signing autographs on top of that I think that is something interesting to were is one of the big scenes in the movie the one of the big like the big I guess act one to kind of turning scene is the whole masturbation with the crucifix scene yes Vladdy was so it was specifically trying to figure out what can take this woman who doesn't believe in any of this and push her over that edge it's not gratuitous at all it's but it's so it's meant to take you to that same place yeah it's not like like the movie was so shocking when it came out and there's so many things that feel so tame now because the movies almost 50 years old and we've seen so much since then but that moment is still because it's like a little girl and the fact that she it's not shown in the movie but I know they their justification for the way her face is all [ __ ] up is that you know she sees that crucifix this is crach your face yeah it's still it's not scary fine but it's shocking I think it's scary I don't think it's that scary but it's just like whoa it's something that if you if you experience in real life II wasn't you would have no idea how to deal with it yeah yeah and that's that's what I that's I I love Ellen Burstyn in those movies so much cuz that's why it's scary to me is cuz I'm kind of looking at through her perspective sure and then this voice coming out yeah this is like other voice that's not my daughter anymore [Music] that is scary and the way that they build that stuff up to where like the the disassociation of record from the body yeah you know initially where it's just like you know something's wrong some dive been playing with this Ouija board and you know there's captain howdy which of course we all know from the famous Twisted Sister album is that Twisted Sister album yeah because I know Dee Snider made a movie up strangelands where his character's name captain howdy how about I come over there and beat ya like have you ever seen that movie now it is the most hilariously dated early 2000s he's like going into AOL chat rooms try lure in teenagers his first victim is Linda Cardellini oh my god freaks and geeks holy [ __ ] it's it's it's something like 15 years before that there's a song on the same album is oh we're not gonna take it Oh whoo and all that it's about I should stay away from captain howdy Wow yeah he was really living with that character it really was and that's how I knew it so like when I got to the when I got to the movie [ __ ] you know 15 years after I heard that song like yeah that's how I was with this whole movie because I saw repossessed before I saw the exercise because I liked Leslie Nielsen sure didn't grow up being a you know Naked Gun fan yeah but then I saw Exorcist a few years after watching that and I was like oh [Applause] so how do you like it Linda Blair any shot of Linda Blair throughout like the second half of this movie to me is like the complete distillation of what horror is it's just that that complete corruption of the of innocence yes just yet even the idea that yeah like she's not there she's she's in there yeah with them but she's this you know just the little flash isn't when she actually comes through but that even of itself in the switching of the perspectives and the way that the demon Pazuzu as we find out later yes Pazuzu Azusa this isn't some people think this movie is about Linda Blair being possessed by the devil himself well they talk about that yeah kindly undo these straps look your daughter doesn't say she's a demon she says she's the devil himself now if you've seen as many psychotics as I have you'd realize that's the same thing as saying you're napoleon bonaparte they don't say the name Pazuzu cuz they were smart yeah they [ __ ] that up in Exorcist ooh okay don't say the name Pazuzu it's constantly playing games yeah with with the priests right find the fact that there's probably more than one demon in there right comes out in different voices and that's something they play up in Exorcist 3 yes which we'll get to but there's that in the in the in the scene with the tape recorder he's listening to the voices and they're arguing with each other yeah and that that's a fascinating idea ended of itself just kind of this the the turmoil within her not being just one specific demon being all these different things that have gotten through through the Ouija board or whatever but I like the idea that everything is so like the Ouija board is never it's never like solidified that that's what caused any of this since the thing she's playing with yeah maybe it did maybe didn't might stop you from doing it but uh like that and there's so many things that you don't see in the movie like Burke dennings the the drunk director we don't see his death Burke dennings good father was found at the bottom of those steps leading to M Street with his head turned completely around AC backwards even removed the supernatural elements I don't know how you cannot be affected by the story of this this mother and what she's going through absolutely and the width of the way that the dread is built up to the point where it just like you know something's wrong something's really wrong yeah oh [ __ ] like it's just the way that builds is so well done I can't imagine how you'd find that boring and if I did have a criticism of the movie it would be that the last act is the exorcism and Chris MacNeil kind of takes a back seat for pretty much the entire third act because she for me again as someone that's not religious that is scared because I I'm with this character who also doesn't believe these things but they're happening it's like a George Clooney and from dusk till dawn I don't hear anything about I don't believe in Vampires because I don't [ __ ] believe in vampires when I believe in my own two eyes and what I saw is [ __ ] vampires yeah and I think that I bet I agree with you but I also can see how it would hard to be it would be hard to wedge another person into that three person dynamic yeah really it works narrative Lee yeah well and she's the catalyst for this exorcism to happen usually she gets it to happen so now it happens yeah so her yeah her role is kind of done and shy that I won't have to let them take over and do they got to do yeah and we can talk about the the old-age makeup on max von sydow is possibly the best ever because it just looks like he looks now that's the craziest thing when I first saw this movie I didn't know whom x1co was I just thought it was an old guy and then you see him in like the force awakens that's what he looks like now it's amazing it's crazy and like the fact that the makeup still holds up yeah and in the in the bright Iraqi sunlight yeah it looks perfect yeah it looks like that's all kudos to dick Smith on that one but for me going from both extremes to the subtlety of Max von Sydow yeah to Linda Blair and all the appliances and everything they did and that's another great thing about the documentaries here is they show some of the older like we tried this and like oh that would have been terrible like an evil dead hag nothing yeah I guess the wicked witch like yeah that's not that's not the demon yeah but then the way and then the way he worked with with freaking and they talked about the scars and everything yeah and how those develop as the movie goes on yeah like her face does not alter in the movie and I hide from the lacerations but it all feels like the rest of it could be coming from the inside and we hang out yeah and that's a Brit you know and that's a brilliant very simple like everybody talks about the pea soup we were talking about earlier and that is just a literal just like we put a tube in her face you don't necessarily think about that when you're watching the movie yeah you think about it when you're Washington documentaries and they're talking about it yeah you never think about it during the movie she's acting through all that yes think about that it's amazing you completely buy it yeah the whole and and that's the like the physicality of not just that but again talking about the practical effects there's a part where they have her like this this like girdle thing around her and so they can shoot her up and down in the bed and the lasing came loose and so as I went forward the piece was coming back she started screaming and that kind of leads into some things I don't know how I feel about William Friedkin is like a crazy person yeah and you hear the stories the there's the the fear of God documentary that's on here which is like at this point it's like 25 years old I was Mark Kermode yeah the the Mark Kermode The Critic made it and you hear these stories of like the the act of the place father Dyer talking about freaking slapping him across the face l should be right across the chops and backed off and I went on the scene and if you look at that carefully when I'm given less right my hands going like that and I wasn't making my hand go like that that we're sure nerve juice the thing that kills me about that is if you read Friedkin's book that's an old trick of his oh yeah that was that was a standard thing yeah shooting guns on set oh yeah but yeah I mean I can see like the slap I can see make sense I can you know it starts to get exploitative when you talk about like how the stuntmen really wrenched Ellen Burstyn back yeah she was on a rig with a rope that was supposed to polar towards the wall yeah I'm like don't pull me that hard and so they pull her twice as hard yeah and then the camera [ __ ] goes in just like that feels kind of exploitative yeah when you hear stories like that it's like obviously and even in like it's like the documentary they're kind of like laughing about it yeah like the guy that had to pull the cable is like and I let her have it and he said give it to her this and really if I couldn't stand that he was willing to just get a quick shot of it before they called the ambulance you know I need to think about like even since the documentary was made which was 25 years after the movie was made compared to now and how like perceptions have shifted on behavior like that yeah and it's just like man the early 70s seriously put a Scarlett Johansson a rig like that and pull her back so he thinks she's broken her [ __ ] butt bone that director would be fired the next day gone and I wonder how much of it was part of the tourism of the 70s where it's just like now it's like what a [ __ ] actor act that was freaking though he was a maniac and this is from the era where well the director made him a filmmaker made a movie yeah and there wasn't all like a studio had to approve it of course because this is a studio movie but once he's on set once they're making the movie they're kind of left alone yeah well in the French Connection he's on camera you know he's running the camera in the [ __ ] car there's no permits it was just like yeah endanger thousands of people go yeah cool I want an Oscar what else can I do to actors in those stairs we got to talk about the stall of the stairs I just visited those stairs in real life it's one of those places I had always wanted to go and they're legitimately terrifying known in real life like they're so steep and there's something off about them like they're too shallow or you narrow or something I what about them and they're very very scary yeah it's the kind of thing that seems like design for you to fall that's the cool thing too is like William Peter Blatty you know he conceived of this story in Georgetown he wrote the book with Georgetown in mind the movie was made in Georgetown because again this is when a filmmaker made a film it wasn't like well we got to shoot it here because there's better tax breaks yeah we shot we were in a shoot in Georgetown on these steps that I'm assuming Blatty had in mind when he came up with the entire idea yeah because well this he talks about hanging out and then with the Jesuit priest like right around in that same area yeah obviously he's got those are mine they built an add-on to the house so it would be closer to the the step so in the end of the movie when Karis jumps out the window although really with like movie trickery you didn't necessarily need to do that and it's funny because then I think about like an exorcist ooh they have that house again and they're like oh [ __ ] we got to build that edition again and you get to the third movie there's one shot of that house in the third movie it's just on the side of the frame and they didn't bother with it that's I remember fell apart in Exorcist - it's just all fun oh that's what I'm not even there anymore I always just assumed Exorcist - didn't happen well that's fine there's a fever dream of James Earl Jones that dream that was a leopard a locust I was on Sesame Street that's crazy man six seven and then the opening scene is in Iraq and it's like we're gonna film it in Iraq yeah we're not just gonna go to some desert we're gonna film in Vancouver no we're filming it in Iraq and I like the stipulation that in order to film there they had to hire a lot of Iraqi crew members oh right and then it taught them how to make films it taught them how to make films specifically they wanted to learn how to make fake blood of Ricans like alright we can do sure and one of the things that every it's it still actually does seem comical to me just because of the way that statue is Pazuzu in the beginning just like hey okay because it's because it's the head it's the face first off because he's doing the connection from the small thing he's found yeah and then just seems that - like a oh I love that it's kind of a shot from an old western where he's standing there and the statue is on the other side the face off yeah and it's like okay this is for Bodi and this is going to come back and that the movie never spells out like that statue that's a statue of the demon that is going to possess the girl right like none of that is really stated in the movie specifically but at all it's yeah it just completely sets up the mood of the whole thing shows that father Merrin is I love the idea that he's not only a priest but like a like a world traveler an adventurer he's like an Indiana Jones but at least I guess they say it's the same thing that I get that I feel like it's the same thing that happens and Exorcist - where where yeah they go into that whichever Tron is you know out searching throughout you know trying to find this this demon in this thing here and there I feel like that's kind of the same staff yeah yeah and then the fourth movie the prequel that's what it's all about versions never bothered with those I don't know if I should don't know neither what is worth it it is interesting though when you look at like this series of movies like the first one classic movie huge success and then every movie after that is famous for having either extensive reddit's or reshoots right because the second movie this seems to me like it's got to be unprecedented that the second movie played in theaters for a week John Boorman pulled it from theaters yeah to re-edit it and then put it back in theaters like that's a Kubrick move that's so bizarre except that Kubrick did it on his own yeah not because the movie was bad he was like this whole thing with the with the turn this tennis ball yeah yeah and then X is three which we'll get to he you know they they they had reshoots with that or they're like it's an exorcist movie you got to put an exorcism in it so they reach out the insurer and then the fourth movie Paul Schrader wrote and directed it studio said this is boring they reshot 95% of the movie with a different director Renny Harlin Renny Harlin jmu their reshoot stuff and then they released that movie and nobody liked it this one sucks too so then they released the original version so there's two Exorcist fours which are also both prequels it's very bizarre you I don't like it I'm gonna go home makes my heart beat you five doctors came in and she was and when I guess it was when she was talking to Devils Weiss well what's interesting in general is that and I've been recently listening to there's a podcast called you're wrong about that I had listened to you recently and one of their it's basically like a debunking episode or a debunking podcast it was like here's you know we've we did some research nice tell you about this so one of the reasons one of the recent episodes was on exorcism and how up to the Exorcist it had basically been kind of forgotten things it's like yeah that's something we used to do I mean we mention that in the movie [Music] learned about mental illness paranoia schizophrenia what you were supposed to be an expert there are no experts you probably know as much about possession as most priests and then once the Exorcist came out you had people lining up people that were not even Catholic people that were were you know not even religious we're just like my person needs an exorcism because they had basically been shown another way and been shown this thing where it's just like okay you can you need to do all this psychological work and do this and that the other thing or you can have an exorcism and everything's gonna be better well that one yes way faster yeah and it just it just brought exorcism back into the social knowledge yeah you know something way more common again it had been and you know then it started popping up and you know there were all sorts of ripoff movies of the exorcists yeah I talked about those before we even get to the parodies there were straight ripoffs yeah like there was beyond the door which I actually kind of liked that what it's not good and it's it has a different perspective in that it's a mom that's possessed right has like two kids okay that's a different angle that's it was Italian right yeah that's an Italian movie and then perhaps most infamously William Girdler made the blaxploitation Exorcist call daddy this is apparently like the exact same movie it's haven't seen it apparently it's so close that he's straight of administering to rip off though to the point where now Warner Brothers owns it it got pulled from theaters right because Warner Brothers is like hey you can't you you you just made our movie again after the first beginning of the movie I walked out and they gave me some water I passed out yeah you know it doesn't make me want to get sick like he says it just my legs the manager of the National Theatre in Westwood says that there indeed are at least a dozen people who faint or become ill during every showing but yeah the idea that a movie like that a movie that audiences like now think is boring and not scary the fact that it had the kind of reaction that it did yeah turn to think of anything like posts Blair Witch yeah that's the last one I think that had that kind of like cultural significance to it I'm that large of a scale yeah and Blair Witch also had lots of parodies it certainly did that was an easy one parody cuz he could do it so cheaply yeah just get a camcorder and go out into the woods take that Judge jim wynorski oh god run with it the bear wench project that's the thing is they're a parody of The Exorcist called thus Exorcist they're happy right [Music] one of the other iconic things about the movie that we talked about a little bit previously is the score and it's very the big things tubular bells which i think is a misconception people hear that and they they call it like The Exorcist theme yeah it's so strongly associated yeah with The Exorcist which is weird because it's used in a once in the movie in a sequence that isn't a scary scene at all yeah it's Ellen Burstyn walking home after work I think it's got to be the the trailers because it's in all the trailers thinking the trailers were unique and they were of a band yeah because of the flashing yeah and that was actually face triggering some epilepsy that like legitimately actually causing problems but they are very unique and very very frightening like yeah a lot more scarier than a lot of the movie is and because you're just seeing these flashes of terrifying things and the music is you know tubular bells playing while that's going on so I think that's what really cemented the connection of it and it's such a small part of tubular bells too which is a full length album that Mike Oldfield this crazy obsessive guy like put together by himself the story of this album is fascinating and if you really want to do a deep dive on tubular bells we don't have time because there's so much it's a crazy he's like a weirdo perfectionist because every because he recorded it on like a four track right there's like layers and layers and layers of instruments and so you'd record four instruments on this four-track recorder drop them down to one track and then do more tracks yeah and they're just having to keep adding to it it's this hugely obsessive thing and I don't I don't know if that's the actual album I think that's the way he maybe demo date okay I want to say but still like the way that he constructed it and it's just meticulous and it was also the first hit record on Virgin Records which is like everything from the Sex Pistols to what seal I don't know whatever was in records now just like it's completely dependent on that record and it was like a hit album in the UK right huge yeah yeah but just and then like every time there's some sort of new advancement in recording technology these entry' recorded the whole thing because he wants to get it he wants to get recording what he hears in his head and though he's never been able to do it now he keeps re-recording tubular bells yes it's fascinating he's never gonna get it is perfect because it's too perfect in his head yeah but it's really fascinating to hear how that tiny little 5/4 riff it's just the very beginning of those yeah the song yeah those in so many bizarre directions that you would not associate with horror and a horror film yeah no it's just like a weird like cool project record yeah and then it gets so indelibly connected with the Exorcist in the US and otherwise it's you know pretty standard seventies horror movies and Penderecki well there's very little music there's nothing like and that's another thing when people hear it's the scariest movie of all time people have an idea in their mind of what a scary movie is or what a horror movie is and what like a horror score is [Music] and there's so little music in this it's very stark there's one sequence in the movie that I guess you could say is a jump-scare which is when Ellen Burstyn is looking through the attic with her candle there's no musical sting there's nothing it's just it's just natural sound and the sound design in the movie is fantastic oh good it's so layers it's all kind of just subtly manipulated where it's just like it's all just a little unreal [Music] see the cross of the Lord becomes you hostile power when Jim and I were talking about bone tomahawk we were talking about the sound design in that movie you know it's very dry yeah and very like crackly and I feel like this movie is kind of the same way yeah and just that they talked about one of the documentaries how they hired the guy that worked on El Topo and in the the classic that where the where Reagan's head is turning the 360 degrees it's just a [ __ ] wallet it's that crackling dry yeah yeah cracking sound it's perfect I do want to mention that scene because that's we keep talking about the realism of the movie mmm that's the one moment and it's probably the most iconic thing in the movie but that's the one thing that breaks the reality of the movie for you just because I mean it's a striking image and it's bizarre of course but in reality if someone were to do that with their heads regardless of if they're possessed by a demon mm-hmm it would completely say that their neck and I for me the one where it goes completely all the way around the ad takes out of the movie the one in the other scene where they have the dummy where it goes just a little too far yeah that's creepy as [ __ ] [Music] a part of art maybe part of it in the casting - like Jason Miller I'd never been in a movie before I don't think maximum Seto is not familiar to Americans particularly at that point yeah and the Blair is obviously an unknown like your most famous persons probably all in person at that point yeah and she wasn't even their first choice they well oh god they want a Jane Fonda Audrey Hepburn or there's Robinson Oh Anne Bancroft and Bancroft Audrey Hepburn one it would absolutely accepted the role so you thought it was great but she wanted to shoot in Rome which would have made it prohibitively expensive yeah so they couldn't do that and Georgetown is so important obviously obviously although I could I could really see Audrey Hepburn in that role oh yeah I think and bancroft's had just gotten pregnant so they would had to wait nine months they didn't want to do that yeah and I believe Jane Fonda thought it was commercialized [ __ ] yeah capitalist pigs making this film out of it because Jane Fonda in the 70s everybody starting Barbarella but don't worry about this capitalist Pig [ __ ] that was an art film Barbarella sure was and then Jason Miller who is just so there's one shot of him sitting in a chair in this movie that is how I feel most of the time he looks so like like world-weary and heat down by life yeah just just racked with the whole the guilt throughout the whole movie of just like he didn't do right by his mother somehow yeah he doesn't even really know how yeah it's just like that that sense of it is just like I [ __ ] up yeah there's consistently within it but yeah and then of course the demon using that against Emily yeah yeah and just and just sends a father damien over the top mm-hmm that's that's how you get your ending I know Vladdy was very concerned that people would be under the assumption that the the demon one the demon took over Karras his body and forced him to jump out the window and killed him that's another one I'm just like I can't see how you see that well I can see how you could see that yeah I don't but I do love the ambiguity of it where people could interpret it that way and that's maybe maybe that's why I can't really see it is because it's so key to me that Goodwin yeah it's just like if evil wins in the end it's just like I won't want to [ __ ] what's the point yeah the world is just shitty yeah yeah well then that's that whole scene between max10 and juice and Miller on the stairs anyway yeah it's like well we're supposed to feel despair like if we evil wins we [ __ ] feel despair yeah and then the the Director's Cut version whatever you want to call it where you have kinderman and father Dyer walking away kind of rejuvenating that relationship that he had with father Karras yeah there's a nice moment and it also leads into Exorcist 3 yes those characters different actors but those characters are in Exorcist 3 and obviously you know by today's standards the movies almost 50 years old a lot of it is relatively tame alright the pacing is different than a modern movie and you know if it's you can't say the tempo the temples not for you that's fine there's other movies you can watch yeah it's okay but you're missing out I don't want to pull a if you don't like this and you probably like the conjuring three or whatever no conference reading good it doesn't exist yet oh it might be good again when you hear the scariest movie of all time I think a lot of people when they think of horror movies that's what they think of is you know scary music a lot of jump-scare yeah you know things like that and this is like the polar opposite well that's absolutely a thing because again like it had that reputation like when I was in my 20s when I saw for the first time you know I had been growing up on Nightmare on Elm Street and for 13 more fantastical stuff yeah yeah it's just different it's not bet you know worse or better yeah depending on how you look at it I think it's better but it's it's just different yeah I think the fact that it just all feels so real to me what what makes the the horrific elements much more upsetting yeah it's so matter-of-fact yeah just this is this is what people would act like if this was really happening mhm simple as that [Music] [Music]

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 1,087,109

Keywords: redlettermedia, red letter media, red, letter, media, plinkett, half in the bag, mike stoklasa, jay bauman, rich evans, exorcist, william friedkin, linda blair, max von sydow, jason miller, pazuzu

Id: lb3hIEcRu34

Length: 42min 58sec (2578 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/NorrisOBE]

It's October, therefore I need to do my yearly delivery of Vampire Assassin to one Mike Stoklasa

[u/mk5884]

Okay so Mike & Jay’s list of “Perfect Movies”:

• The Exorcist
• Tremors
• Ghostbusters
• Gremlins

What else am I missing?

Edit: Correct, some of these claims are from Mike, so I added his name!

• Robocop
• The Rocketeer
• Jurassic Park
• Adam Sandler is hilarious in Grown Ups 2
• The Empire Strikes Back (minus tiny Darth Vader)
• The VVitch
• Fargo
• Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

[u/clothing_throwaway]

So this means they're doing an episode on Exorcist 3, right? I want them to talk about the giant scissor scene. That honestly freaked me out so much.

[u/DynamixRo]

Is this a prequel to the BotW classic "Exorcist II: The Heretic"?

[u/MegaYachtie]

There’s a funny story in my family that my gran always like to recall. When the exorcist first came out my dad and his brothers all went to see it... they came home absolutely petrified and crawled into bed with their mum and she had to comfort them all night.

It was only a few years ago I heard the other side of the story... they had all taken LSD before going to see it. Fucking lunatics.

They had St. John’s ambulance staff in the back of theatres back when it was first shown because of how spooky it was.

[u/NoMomItsDubstep]

I saw the rerelease in theaters when I was about 10 or 11 (thanks dad) and the movie absolutely terrified me. Even rewatching it as an adult its still scary and a big reason for that is being relatively grounded in reality. They mentioned it in the review that so many movies are inspired by the exorcist but only focus on the iconic shock scenes. The thing with the exorcist is that out of context a lot of those scenes don’t really work. Hell some of the biggest scenes are flat out silly on their own. So many modern horror movies feel like they’re built around big shocking scares without building up a context for them to have an impact. When a movie is just constant OH MY GOD LOOK AT THAT SCARY THING it gets old and you kind of build a tolerance to it.

The religious themes also made the movie extra real for me since I grew up catholic. The Catholic Church tries to distance itself from exorcism but it was a very real part of its history. One of the miracles of Jesus was exorcising a demon from someone. Nowadays we know that probably everyone who ever had an exorcism was most likely mentally ill (or just dared to speak up against the church) so having the movie address that, but then prove to you that no, there’s something more than mental illness here, made it that much better.

Speaking of, are there any movies about someone getting an exorcism who didn’t need one? That sounds like a pretty good idea, a person who’s just struggling with mental illness and is then subjected to the trauma of an exorcism sounds terrifying.

[u/Supermunch2000]

YES! Jay and Josh, the best pair for any re:View!

Perhaps Mike and Rich talking about Star Trek but for horror or weird movies, it has to be Jay and Josh.

[u/[deleted]]

You just notice something with every re-watch in this movie

For me , it was listening to tape recording scene.

In that scene, on the wall , there is "TASUKETE!!!!" written on the wall , which is a Japanese word 助けて , meaning "Help Me"

Not really that significant , but it made me realize that rewatching a good movie always pays off to some extent.

[u/EauBear]

I was just about to go to bed too haha