A real living memory of cinema, because its cinematic culture is truly encyclopedic (“I only know Steven Spielberg who can compete with him” Leonardo DiCaprio would say), Martin Scorsese is too broad for his taste. In this logic, the register of horrors does not pose any problem for him, on the contrary.
The wizard has his totems, of course. For example, Hammer’s horror films, which he discovered at the age of 11-12. “When you saw the Hammer Films logo, you knew it was a very special film, a very special genre. It was usually a surprising, even shocking experience. When you saw it. Frankenstein ran awayWe found that there was a completely unjustified graphical quality, which made it very attractive to us. We really appreciated that.” he will say in the interview in 1987.
“As terrible as the day of the exodus…”
At the top of his pile, in the ranking, he did Daily Beast in 2015It housed a pure masterpiece, Robert Wise’s House of the Devil, followed by Mark Robson’s Island of the Dead, released in 1945. At number seven in his top 10, he placed another pinnacle of the genre, an indestructible classic: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Kubrick made a gloriously creepy film where what you can’t see or hear shadows the characters’ every move. he said.
Directly below was William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, which he described as such “As terrifying as the day of publication.” 52 years after its release in our region, Friedkin’s film remains, indeed, and more than ever, a raw monument of terror.
In the story of this possession, of which the millennial share stands finally On the eternal battle between the forces of good and evil, the filmmaker conveyed a visceral experience that was truly traumatic for the public who discovered it in theaters at the time.
The film shocked and frightened the audience that many of them confused fiction and reality: Linda Blair, who plays poor Regan, would really be possessed, crazy, a servant of the devil… In interviews, Blair even said that journalists of the time asked her with fear what the possession was about…
“The movie deserved more than it got”
We hold ourselves back to believe and yet. Martin Scorsese discovered that The Exorcist II: The Heretic, released in 1978 and directed by John Boorman, “exceeded” The original movie and that this sequel scared him. This is what he wrote Review of movie reviewsIn the September-October 1978 issue. “I like the first Exorcist because of my Catholic guilt and because it scared the crap out of me, but The Heretic beats it. Boorman may not have been able to exploit the theme, but the film deserved more than it got.”
Friedkin’s film was indeed a theatrical triumph, grossing $430 million (or, adjusted for inflation, over $1.01 billion today!!!). The Exorcist II was an absolute disaster with an estimated $30.7 million…
Friedkin had no desire for revenge, so the project for this sequel passed into his hands John Burmanwho gained international recognition in 1972 with the huge success of his film Délivrance, but suffered a bitter defeat in 1974 with Zardoz. Three years later, this Exorcist II was to put him back in the saddle…
Ironically, Friedkin himself was among the fiercest opponents of this sequel, saying ((via Collider) that the viewers were directly outraged when it was shown. Despite its unfortunate reputation, it still deserves to be discovered.
Source: Allocine
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
