The Exorcist

The story may seem bland and simple on the surface but there is much more going on inside than just a hidden ghost. Instead it presented to an audience that had grown up in a modern society that their worst fears still had a place. The era for many people was between the modernism of the sexual revolution and the conservatism of a more religious observant past. One part of the population had written off the devil as an embarrassing myth or boggey man, the other part still believe him to be real. The entire first half of this film follows that dilemma before concluding that it is in fact a devil inside her.

The battle that followed was for something that most of society still believed in at that time. It was a battle for the soul of the victim and the fear of the rescuers losing theirs. Most partically the self doubting priest. Note the ending. And if someone as holy as a priest can be dragged in by a devil what hope does the rest of us?

Anyway the fear of eternal damnation is a primal fear and perhaps even an escapable thought. The presentation of a devil that wants the soul only to defile it and torture it is shown by the way it defiles and tortures the victims body.In every way it is horror of the imagination and psychology more than the visual.