- Horror Movie - Horror Homeroom

Posted on December 19, 2023

The Creative Vision of Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist (2019)

Guest Post

In recent years horror fans have been treated to high quality releases offering fresh takes on witches (You Won’t Be Alone), mental illness (Smile), and really sketchy basements (Barbarian). But as engaging as these films are, the most fascinating horror-related movie that I saw in 2023 is Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary, Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist. Six days of interviews with director William Friedkin produced an entertaining deep dive into one of horror’s most revered works, The Exorcist (1973). But it goes further, becoming a meditation on the nature of creativity that is both revelatory and exhilarating.

It would have been easy for Leap of Faith to be a typical “making of” project filled with anecdotes explaining production details for some of its most famous sequences and recollections about the film’s seismic cultural impact in the 70’s. As satisfying as that may have been for many, I give Philippe a lot of credit for taking the movie into a markedly different direction, far away from spinning heads and projectile vomiting. He focuses instead on the imaginative processes and creative personality at work that ultimately resulted in the finished film. The reason we are so easily drawn into this discussion is because Leap of Faith has a super power. And its name is William Friedkin.

A young girl, pale and sickly, stares menacingly at the camera

Posted on November 10, 2023

The Devil Inside: Talking The Exorcist (1973)

Elizabeth Erwin/ Podcast

In today’s episode, we are finally tackling the film Roger Ebert called “a raw and painful experience” that “transcends the genre of terror, horror, and the supernatural.” We are, of course, talking about William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973). Based on William Peter Blatty’s novel of the same name, the film is an acknowledged classic trafficking in body horror and demonic possession, scenes of which have morphed into head turning, pea-soup laced pop culture shorthand. But is there more to this story than meets the eye? We’re breaking it all down today with spoilers so stay tuned.

References/Mentioned in this Episode

Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film-Up. Princeton University Press, 2015.

Collative Learning. ⁠The even darker underbelly of THE EXORCIST – film analysis⁠. YouTube, 24 January 2017.

Ebert, Roger. “⁠The Exorcist⁠.” RogerEbert.com, 23 December 1973.

⁠Happy Haunts Library⁠, YouTube, 2023.

Heffernan, Ryan. “⁠The 9 Most Hilarious ‘The Exorcist’ Parodies in Movies and TV Shows⁠.” Collider, 9 October 2023.

Schuetz, Janice. ““The exorcist”: Images of good and evil.” Western Journal of Communication (includes Communication Reports) 39.2 (1975): 92-101.

Williams, Marlena. Night Mother: A Personal and Cultural History of The Exorcist. Mad Creek Books, 2023.

Winter, Douglas E.⁠ Faces of Fear: Encounters with the Creators of Modern Horror⁠. Berkley Trade, 1985, pp. 36-49.

Posted on August 25, 2023

Exorcising The Pope’s Exorcist

Guest Post

The Pope’s Exorcist (Julius Avery, 2023) was released in April to much fanfare and has just recently landed on Netflix. While it performed well enough at the box office, it failed to wow the critics. It certainly didn’t rise to the level of The Exorcist (1973). In fact, the many possession/exorcism movies that have appeared since William Friedkin’s masterpiece have generally fallen short. One of the reasons seems to be the failure to really understand the religion portrayed. Let’s use The Pope’s Exorcist as a test case.

Posted on August 6, 2021

What To Do When the Exorcist Is Absent

Guest Post

The Conjuring franchise, after that of Godzilla, is the highest box-office grossing horror film series of all time. Although this summer’s quiet installment, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) wasn’t received with accolades, it nevertheless follows the trajectory set from the beginning of the series—demons are here and they must be handled by the Catholic Church. Otherwise, the resourceful are left to alternative methods, as the films in the universe repeatedly show.

There’s a good case to be made that demons, as we think of them today, rely heavily on their presentation in The Exorcist (1973). Although demons occurred in horror cinema earlier than that, The Exorcist delineated them as terrifying monsters, based, in large part, on the premise that they really did exist. Many movies took that premise and used it to compel both audiences to watch and demons to leave. Enter Ed and Lorraine Warren. Read more

Posted on June 21, 2018

Veronica: Possession or Psychosis?

Guest Post

The 2017 Spanish horror film, Veronica, directed by Paco Plaza and now available on Netflix, has been described as one of the scariest horror movies accessible on the streaming platform. Based on a true story, the movie follows a fifteen-year-old school girl who is supposedly possessed by a demon. It should be noted that the movie is very loosely based on real-life events. This article only looks at the narrative of the movie itself, and it questions whether Veronica is actually possessed . . . or whether something else is going on.