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Editorials

50 Years of Fear: A Look Back at the Audience Reactions and the Phenomenon of “The Exorcist”

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Christmas at the cinema has been a long-standing holiday tradition for many families. After a chaotic morning of shuffling around from house to house opening unwanted presents of socks and fruitcakes while dealing with overly loud in-laws, one tends to want to wind down with a good, wholesome film.

Enter The Exorcist, which opened nationwide in theaters the day after “Jesus’ birthday” on December 26th, 1973.

A bit of a stray from good ol’ Rankin Bass entertainment, eh?

When it comes to The Exorcist, you can’t even to attempt to argue that BOTH the 1971 novel and 1973 film are nothing short of a massive achievement in both the horror genre and filmmaking in general. What many people call “The scariest movie of all time” has left its imprint of terror on people. In 1973 when the film first premiered it caused QUITE a stir all over the nation. It was like nothing anyone has ever seen on screen, or even witnessed at a theater. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was the first to bring serious public controversy and horror to movie audiences with the shocking shower scene, but The Exorcist raised the bar far higher than anyone could ever imagine, and audiences were absolutely not ready for this shit. You’ve heard the stories: people fainting in the theaters, vomiting, some bolting out the door like a bat out of hell to their closest church out of fear and to repent.

Goddamn. What a beautiful site. I wish I could have experienced this phenomenon.

The Exorcist opened the same day in 24 theaters in 21 metro areas in the U.S. and Canada on Wednesday, December 26th, 1973 with strategically creating a sense of scarcity by adding new theaters slowly over the course of the following months per the studios. The results made The Exorcist a smash hit, even beating out The Sting which was released on Christmas Day and as far as Holiday theatrical releases go- The Exorcist is only trailing behind TITANIC as far as gross income.

Of course, we have to value the other strategic promotions from the studios, where they really ate up the “getting ill” inside the theater aspect. That alone piqued people’s interest, only making them want to watch it more-as human nature goes, you tell us not to touch something, it makes us only lust after it all the more. This movie was not expected to do well. However, after the news pounced on the rumors of people fainting in the theater, people lined up in droves in freezing temperatures to get in on The Exorcist phenomenon.

Bless those people’s frozen chops for helping make The Exorcist one of the highest-grossing R-rated films of all time and giving the world a Christmas miracle: One where it centered around, ironically, a demonic possession.

Editorials

(VIDEO) That Deleted Scene From “The Fly” 1986 That Went Too Damn Far

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David Cronenberg’s THE FLY is highly regarded by us horror fans as not only one of the greatest remakes of all time but, quite possibly, one of the most gorgeous representations of practical effects in horror films to this very day. In the 35-plus years since the movie’s release, horror fans and aspiring filmmakers look at THE FLY slightly different to the average moviegoer. While the typical viewer sees shock and horror, we see the most tragic love story ever told. Ok, it’s also one of the grossest love fests ever told but nonetheless, tragic as hell. And the following deleted scene just validates that point even further.

The infamous monkey-cat deleted scene most of us have seen already is grotesque in nature and mostly unnecessary. I say mostly because I’m not too crazy about watching animals being mutilated- but it also touches on the absolute desperation at this point in the film for Seth Brundle. You could see the defeat in his mangled face after the terribly gone wrong experiment on the roof, and ummm, ripping off an insect leg that had spawned from his stomach with his mouth. Stating the whole scene is slightly painful to watch would be the understatement of the century- and of course, this deleted scene in particular is no exception to the argument either.

At the height of the end of the film where Brundle ninja attacks Stathis from the ceiling of his now Fly Nest and vomits on the hand and foot of Veronica’s ex, there’s an extended scene where Seth takes the severed foot of Stathis and treats it like the testy morsel he believes it to be. The easy movie-goer in me just thinks this shit is just straight-up nasty, HOWEVER, since I also analyze everything to death, it also demonstrates just how far gone Seth was at the end. This attack had nothing to do with Veronica. It had everything to do with his infamous monologue of “insect politics”. The insect inside him has mostly taken over at this point, with the last moment of humanity in Brundlefly is shown when Veronica asks him to stop before he kills Stathis. Shortly after, he sheds his outer skin to expose the creature it has become.

Don’t watch this while eating lunch, folks. Since the YouTube video is age restricted, just click watch on YouTube in the video box or right here!

Editorials, Horror Nostalgia

Gateway to Horror: How Michael Jackson’s “THRILLER” Tuned Kids into the Genre

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The foulest stench is in the air, the funk of forty years since the universally proclaimed “King of Pop” released the infamous music video “Thriller”, a badass tune on his 1982 album of the same name, nationally to audiences everywhere, smells as fresh as it did since we first saw zombies dance across TV screens in 1983.

I was only a year and a half old when the “greatest video of all time” debuted on December 2nd, 1983 so I have no recollection of any first-time viewer accounts. What I do remember, however, is before the age of five being absolutely fucking terrified of this little short film/music video. The hilarious part about all of it is, I was NO stranger to the horror genre as I, myself, grew up in a household of horror fanatics; being raised on Universal Monsters, JAWS, and John Carpenter’s Halloween on heavy rotation via my father who gave no fucks on teaching his darling daughter early on about the glorious horror genre before I was able to even use the toilet on my own.

That’s some goddamn commitment. Bless that man.

That being said, I was pretty desensitized to a lot early on, and it took a lot to get that kind of fear going via a horror film. However, there was ONE thing I was scared shitless of early on- Werewolves. Thanks to a little movie called SILVER BULLET, my parents and grandparents had rented the film somewhere, I wanna say around 1986, and me being the curious little shit I am, sat in on most of it until I freaked out at the infamous church scene, crying my eyeballs out at the visions of everyone, including kids turning into werewolves. That memory stuck with me forever and induced nightmares for months where I would have night terrors of either me, or my parents transforming into hairy-murderous lycanthropes. A few years later, I turned that fear into comfort being the sociopath I am, and SILVER BULLET was in my personal steady rotation, so much so I went to sleep with it almost every night for months on end. I can’t explain it, but all of that is true. Perhaps it was some sort of way of fighting those fearful feelings. I’m 41 years old and to remember vividly nightmares I had when I was 4 fucking years old, shows you how extreme that shit was. Eh, anyways, this all had to be said for a little context so I can explain the next part: YES I WAS SCARED SHITLESS OF THRILLER AS WELL thanks to that werewolf scene.

But only that part alone, before the actual music video started to take off. I fucking loved the zombies, the dance, everything else going on. Just not the goddamn werewolf scene or the very end stare with those yellow eyes.

Big fat fucking nope for me.

My dad, again bless his heart, tried to soothe my fears by telling me a great big fat lie how he was one of the zombies in the music video. Yep. You read that right. The man claimed to be one of those dancing dead fucks. Nice thought, but the only dance moves I ever saw him do was the robot, so I wasn’t buying it.

While I may have been no stranger to the horror genre before ever seeing the 14-minute masterful music video directed by John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Innocent Blood), for an entire generation of kids who didn’t know Michael Myers from Jason Voorhees, they got their first taste of the horror genre in a wildly popular song turned into a short film that anyone, who is anyone saw. It was groundbreaking to say the very least, and a gateway of curiosity for kids and young adults to explore the genre of horror films. “Thriller” led to a massive interest in renting films like, of course, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF OF LONDON, and George Romero’s zombie flicks like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD by a younger generation and sparked a resurgence, especially of those films mentioned. As for me, “Thriller” was actually my introduction to Vincent Price. While the first part of the video scared the crap out of me, his voiceover was so damn soothing to my anxiety- and I’ve been obsessed with the guy ever since.

40 years later, the land marking video still has a strong impact and on its Ruby Anniversary, Showtime is releasing a documentary that airs on December 2nd, 2023 which takes fans back in time to experience the making of the record-breaking album and the release of the accompanying short film that forever redefined the music video format and introduced a new generation to the world of horror.

Now, let’s roll those shoulders, give a quick head jolt, and celebrate this fantastic piece of horror history!