The Exorcist

Let me start this post by saying that I have never before this assignment seen the “The Exorcist”. With that being said I have grown up under the impression that the movie was the quintessential horror flick in American cinema. I was told time and time again about how scary it is from my parents and countless television countdowns for the scariest movies. Although I tried to dull my expectations and let the film speak above the all the hype I know that somewhere in my head all this information was there. So when I actually sat down and watched the film I was surprised about how little I was scared. If anything I appreciated the movie for what it was, a great piece of American cinema. I enjoyed the movie but was in no way chilled to my core as I have heard others from my parents’ generation say they were.

Spinning head scene

This got me thinking about what we read in Halls writings on representation, specifically in reference to the section on Foucault’s ideas of historicizing discourse. Here he writes, “Things meant something and were ‘true’, he argued, only within a specific historical context”. As he describes how mental heath was not an objective fact that remained the same in every time period. I believe that the same can be said as far as horror movies. When The Exorcist came out in 1973 it was radically different from what had been captured on film. Although not the first horror film, it set a new standard. For those going to see the movie for the first time when it came out, they hadn’t seen anything like it before. Since then there have been major advances in special effects making some of the images shown to be dated. As well I believe the fact that it was as popular as it was and images from the film have been disseminated through popular culture, has played a role in desensitizing me from being afraid. I think that as time goes on films need to build on what has been done in the past and adjust for a new and ever changing audience.