The Exorcist

Verdict

A landmark possession horror film that’s as much about grief, faith, and parental helplessness as it is about shocks. Its slow-burn dread, clinical precision, and emotional seriousness make it essential viewing even for people who don’t usually seek out horror.

Best for

• viewers who want classic horror with real dramatic weight
• fans of slow-burn psychological dread
• people interested in faith, guilt, and family trauma on screen
• movie lovers curious about a foundational genre landmark

Skip if

• you only want fast-paced modern horror
• you’re sensitive to disturbing imagery and bodily horror
• you prefer horror that stays campy or purely supernatural
• you want a light, easy watch

Overview

The Exorcist endures because it treats possession less like a gimmick than a family catastrophe. Before the horror fully arrives, the film builds a world of illness, exhaustion, and emotional strain, so the supernatural feels like an invasion of an already fragile home. That grounding gives the movie its power: the terror lands harder because the pain is human first.

Worth noting

William Friedkin’s direction is famously controlled, almost austere, and that restraint makes the eruptions of chaos feel devastating. The film’s pacing, editing, and sound design are all doing heavy lifting, creating a sense of dread that keeps tightening rather than simply jumping out at you. It’s one of those rare horror films that feels formally immaculate as well as deeply upsetting.

Bottom line

What lingers most is the movie’s sadness. It’s about faith under pressure, about institutions that can’t fully answer suffering, and about a mother trying to save her child with whatever tools remain. Even decades later, it still feels unusually adult, which is a big part of why it remains a benchmark for the genre.

Top Letterboxd reviews

DirkH (4★) · 8697 likes

I hope when my daughter hits puberty it'll be a tad less eventful.

Peaceful Stoner (5★) · 6433 likes

This review is based on a true story. Last night a human being watched this stoned and almost had a heart attack from fright.

matt lynch (4★) · 5803 likes

Scary, but less scary than heartbreaking, suffused with grief and guilt and dread, with the sense that there's no system truly prepared to combat madness or pain, there's only trial and error, the compromise of barely surviving them.

nico ⛽️ (5★) · 5687 likes

12 year olds are just like that

siobhan (3★) · 4961 likes

the priest kinda cute tho 🤪

Themes

possession, faith under pressure, grief, motherhood, family crisis, dread, bodily horror, institutional failure

Topics

classic horror, possession, psychological dread, religious horror, 1970s cinema, slow burn, grief, family trauma, supernatural, body horror