It is the quintessential horror. Even today, looking at it with the right atmosphere, it's scary. And to think that years have passed: 45, to be precise. The 26 December of the 1974 was released in US theatersThe Exorcist”, one of the scariest films of all time (which arrived in Italy only in October 1974).
Directed by William Friedkin – nicknamed “the director of evil” and already an Oscar winner in 1972 for “The violent arm of the law” – over the decades “The Exorcist” has become a cult film, one of the most imitated, quoted, parodied and plagiarized in the history of cinema . And also one of the most profitable: costing just over 10 million, it grossed about 233 in the United States alone and over 440 worldwide.
The film's success is even more impressive when one considers that a version was released in cinemas around the world cropped (or mutilated) by censorship. The innovative and daring use of special effects – together with the talent of Cute blair, the possessed child, and of Jason Miller, the priest battling the demon – was just too much for the sensibilities of the time. But that's not all: we'll have to wait until 2000 for the publication of an "extended version" with 11 minutes more of demonic scenes.
The impression made by the Exorcist was such that, years after the release of the film, several spread Metropolitan legends on the sets and cinemas that have had to do with the film. One of these concerns our country: according to Joe Hyams, journalist of theAmerican Hollywood, in Rome, in a square near the Metropolitan cinema, which was showing the film, a cross over two meters high was struck by lightning and fell from the roof of a church, where it had remained firmly for the previous four centuries.
In addition to the hundreds of imitations, the Exorcist can be counted two sequels not exactly memorable (one from 1997 and one from 1990) e a prequel of 2004 even worse.
