Just saw the movie like 10 minutes ago and I will have to say. I am a bit disappointed, and I will say why.
I won't argue the cinematic effect of the movie on its genre, or the idea that the content was more than repulsive in the day, except for the fact that it did have more of a shocking factor back then than it does now. But only because like most things we get desensitized to things like crude language and obscene gestures (masturbation) and gruesome blood squirting and repulsive throwing up (to some).
But that in itself is not the reason why I was disappointed. The hype that was been created over the years is a bit like a snowball, what was once a good movie in it's time has wined down, and there are still those who can appreciate it and look at it from the perspective of its time. I can appreciate the movie and I really do.
But like I said the hype was like a giant snowball but as soon as I watched it the snow ball finally hit something and got destroyed. It wasn't bad, mind you that some people found it to be long and boring, my BF being one of them and I to a lesser extent. I mean I did find the movie had certain parts that were somewhat unnecessary, but I felt that overall it moved well enough. I mean if you come into it with a mind set that it's going to be super ridiculous scary like I somewhat did then it's going to flop for you.
I was excited because I heard such good things about it, and of course even though I had never watched the movie until know I was aware of the more famous scenes, and watched pieces of documentaries on it. But this is what I get instead.
Spoilers just so people know.
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Not much explanation on anything at the beginning to be honest, which I guess I can't really blame them at this point because its the beginning. I will give them the fact that they know who to portray distress quite well even without saying a word. But still a bit of explanation wouldn't hurt. I mean it seems as if the priest is having a series of internal dialogue which we as the audience have no idea about. But like I said I didn't really care much because it was the beginning and nothing really needed to be explained.
Now to the middle of the movie, there wasn't much going on all of it was the mom freaking out over test results and no progression at least not positive in her daughters health. The priest's mom died which a bit later he has a dream where she seems to be asking for help and is walking down to the subway station. But I believe that was a dream that the demon conjured to make him worry about his mothers soul subconsciously. Which was one of the more ingenious part of the movie. Overall the middle was the most boring part of the movie, probably the part that people don't really care for. That being because even though the movie is about 2 hours and some change long, none of the characters are truly developed enough to really care about them, which is just personal opinion, I mean while the movie seemed slow paced it was too fast paced for characterization. Take the cop for instance, he is there and we get what he is doing, but the movie makes him seem like a much more crucial part that he really is. If anything his removal from most of the movie would effect nothing. Which is kind of disappointing, I mean things like that were what caused a lot of the time to be removed from fleshing out the characters. But anyway to the last part.
The exorcism was the most interesting part and I understand that is what a lot of people watch the movie for. Obviously the movie is hyped and talked about more in regards to the exorcism but sadly that is only really like 20 min of the movie. But I had come to expect that from some other movies that involved exorcisms. But when the most notable part of the movie is only 20 min long then some people are bound to be disappointed, heck even the cover picture scene which a lot of people recognize automatically wasn't introduced until the end of the movie. The exorcism itself was good but how it was resolved was a bit weird. I mean the priest dies... But how? I assume that the demon got loose and killed the priest, but then again the priest had an ailment and was old. So the world may never know, and then the priest becomes emotionally compromised and starts chocking the demon... in the name of the father? But in the end the demon was removed from the girl, because the father was screaming asking the demon to posses him instead of the girl, which apparently the demon wanted the entire time. He wanted him, I assume because he was a father of the order, which was losing his faith. (perfect time to strike) but I guess the demon couldn't posses him because as I know the demon has to give you permission and or you have to be "friends" haha. Sorry lost my train of thought. But anyway as soon as the girl possessed by the demon removed the fathers pendant and possessed him which I assume that is the reason he wasn't able to be possessed before. I assume I am not the first to notice that.
Overall like I said before I liked this move, because in the end I took it for what it was. A movie that was more about suffering rather than horror. But so much was left unanswered at least for me. The only thing I found somewhat scary/creepy was the floating face that appeared out of no where like twice, that was interesting and good quick jump scare tactic. But not really horror movie quality, the characters underdeveloped I ended up not really caring much about anybody. Emotional connections don't need to be made for a horror movie, but if you are going for more of a drama/horror, or maybe a different direction with horror where you want your audience to feel like that could be them, then you need more of an emotional connection between your audience and the character, the audience can't just automatically think that could be them, they have to see it from a more emotional/psychological side. But anyway the priest and his mom, yeah we get it his mom died it was sad, but did it really contribute anything to the movie? I mean sure you can argue that his faith was shaken by it, that it was used to kinda prove that the girl possessed knowledge she shouldn't and yeah the demon kind of used it against him, but all of that had no major impact on the story. Just like the cop/detective who had no true place. I could go on but I shall not. the movie was good for its time, and it shall forever be revered that way. Nothing will ever remove that no matter what anyone says, but we have to come to the conclusion that while it was amazing in that time, now it doesn't come to the standards of Hitchcock films, and others that have after it.
But I will say this though, the reason that it was actually so boring, was because it was based (although I don't know how much) on a true story. So if a supernatural occurrence in real life happened, maybe the creators/director of the movie didn't think it needed spicing up, hence the boring nature years later, the felt the reality or truths of the event would be sufficient to scare people, and leave a lasting effect. Which it did, and that is probably the reason it is so boring, we are so used to supernatural stories that are "real" now a days to be scary and hyped, that is why now they say "based on true events" because they change quite a bit at times to make it that much more interesting, because everyday human life is quite boring at times. So I don't blame the movie for that it was trying to be honest from the perspective of people there.
So that is it, I was probably repetitive at times (seeing as I am most of the time lol) but I hope I got my point across, I thought the movie was good and interesting. But as a sole horror genre movie it doesn't cut it. It is gross, and crude, also it takes some things that can be disturbing which don't make a horror movie, but the horror like qualities it did have it only had some of those factors and in a very limited spectrum so horror? no, drama/horror possibly drama/supernatural/suspense yeah pretty much.