What is Exorcism?

Exorcism is a ceremony, present in different religions in different names, by which a person is freed from the daemonic forces he is believed to be possessed. It is believed that Jesus healed people who possessed such evil spirits. While medical science does’t accept this, they say that these behaviors are psychological and behaving like two or more characters can be 'Dissociative Identity Disorder’ , or popularly known as 'Multiple Identity disorder’.  Anyway a there were many cases of exorcism. There was a considerable number of exorcism done during 50s,60s and 70s.

A National Georgraphy Documentry on exorcism:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/YGssW4cMR5s

Exorcism and Medical science

As stated above medical science, obviously, don’t support any ideology of humans’ possessed by evil spirits. They strictly considers it as a brain disorder. There may be many reasons for being ‘possessed’, according to medical science. Epilepsy, Schizophrenia, Dissociative Identity, mania etc. are some the diseases which can influence. Most of the people, who were considered as ‘possessed’ were strictly religious believers and their belief in this can also influence.

In the movie ‘The Exorcist’, the doctor itself recommend the exorcism because, he says, that the belief of the victim in possessing may be the reason for this mental condition and the belief in the power of exorcism may help to heal the disorder. Well, I really don’t know whether it is scientific or not.

Exorcism Anneliese Michel

It is one of the most famous exorcism which is widely discussed. Anneliese Michel was German catholic girl. She later became depressed for so many factors and started to see daemons. Audio tapes of the exorcism of Anneliese Michel. Beware of watching the videos about Anneliese Michel, on YouTube or other sources, as they are disturbing. So I didn’t embed it here.

Anneliese Michel

All About the Movie ‘The Exorcist'

Exorcist is the best ever Hollywood horror flick I’ve seen. No other Hollywood horror flicks matches with the movie. I’ve seen dozens of English horror movies, some of the were good, some of them had a great plot but ruined it all in the end and some of them weren’t scary at all. Anyway Exorcist unlike other horror movies shows all they have to offer directly on the screen. For long I believed if a horror movie directly portrayed the horror figures on the screen for long then it would ruin the movie as a whole. But The Exorcist proved me wrong. I believe it would be ten times more horrific back then when many people believed in exorcism.

Things you should know before watching the movie

I would like to review this movie by each and every elements of it. If you’re to watch this movie be noted that this is a movie of 70‘s and the storyline might be a bit slow. You may not be able to find much horrifying scenes until half of the movie is passed. You may find it dragging in the beginning. But don’t skip any scene, they are all important and have something to add to the movie as a whole.

Also, don’t watch it in daytime. Wait until it gets dark and quite. If possible watch it midnight. Don’t watch it with your friends or family but watch it alone. Watch it on the biggest screen available to you. And if you could get hands on their Blu-Ray disc which was, I suppose, released back in 2010 the better. Get a good headphones too.

Now before I get into the movie I warn you that I may spill some spoilers. If you hate’em make sure that you watch the movie before listening to what I have to say.

The Plot and storyline

The Exorcist is written by William Peter Blatty and directed by William Friedkin. The story revolves around a divorced celebrity woman and her daughter who has a normal mother-daugter relationship and a simple life. The daughter is diagnosed in the very beginning itself and the doctor is not certain about the girls disease. The condition of the girl gets worse day by day and finally the mother consults a Priest doctor to help her kid. Well, that’s all the important ones. Anyway, the movie begins in Iran where another Priest finds some evil possessed stone or figure, which is later found with the girl. Through this the girl is possessed with devil and she behaves like another person in times.

Screenshot from the movie 'The Exorcist'

Girl doesn’t change suddenly to a horrifying figure, but slowly as her condition becomes worse we see more of the devil and less of the girl and in the end she turns to a very scary figure. Anyway, there are other important characters in this movie. The priest doctor is a very important character. Anyway, I’m not telling what happens next. Whether girl will be saved or not? What happens in the end? Whether she dies? Go on and watch the movie yourself to find answers to those question.

The perfection of the movie and it’s elements

The movie unravels in a slow and steady manner. The director is not impatient to display his horrific scenes right away. But he, instead, allows the story to develop slowly giving the foundations to it’s characters. As a matter of fact there’s nothing terrifying for a considerable time after the movie starts. Unlike other horror movies in which the director tries to imply that something is wrong and try to add some mysterious moments from the very beginning of the movie, The Exorcist starts with a perfect life of a mother and daughter.

Now coming to the makeup and visual effects, it couldn’t have done better even if the movie was made this day. In a behind the scene video, they say the makeup was pretty hard to achieve. It’s perfect and doesn’t look  fake at all. Also the scenes where the girl seizures and levitates are done perfectly. The music and the sound effects are beyond the expectations as well. The sound of the girl, when she talks as the ‘possessed’ one, is itself terrifying. Though the music tracks are of normal standards, there is one important track which is simply outstanding. As a matter of fact it’s hard to find any technical flaws in this movie.

The acting of the girl (Linda Blair) is fantastic. All other performed well too. But the girl was the best without a shadow of doubt.

The important thing that one should remember is that this movie was released in early 70‘s and it was the time when many people believed in exorcism and number of exorcisms were carried out. So at the time this movies must’ve been a dozen times scarier.

Other famous movies on exorcism

Well there are many movies based the exorcism nd perhaps the most popular and the best one is ‘The Exorcist’ itself. Anyway, if you want to watch more exorcism based movies I recommend the few titles listed below.

1. ‘Exorcism of Emily Rose’

This movie is based on the true story of   Anneliese Michel, mentioned earlier, who had gone through the process of exorcism. After the death of  Anneliese Michel there were cases against the parents and the priest who was involved in the exorcism. This movie is a court room drama based on the true story of  Anneliese Michel. It is directed by Scott Derrickson and the cast includes Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson and Jennifer Carpenter.

2. ‘'Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist'

It is based on a character, a priest, of the movie ‘The Exorcist’. The priest’s early experiences on exorcism is portrayed here. It is this character who leads the exorcism in the movie ‘The Exorcist’. The movie was directed by Paul Schrader. Though the movie wasn’t able to receive as much reception as ‘The Exorcist’, it is considered as one of the better sequels of the movie.

3.Paranormal Activity

Paranormal activitiy is all about evil spirits and the supernatural things happening in a home. It’s filmed as if we see the whole story through the security cameras fixed in every corner of the home.It’s a notable movie - a different style, that’s the reason I included it here, despite the fact that there’s no process of exorcism in the movie.

Well, these are the movies I’ve watched or know about exorcism and evil spirits. But the list of movies goes on and you could just use Google to find more movies.

THE END.