Taking Sides: The Exorcist Vs The Omen Vs The Amityville Horror

Taking Sides: William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" vs. Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining"

It's real sparring partner ought to be The Wicker Man, another movie about a girl gone lost (so to speak, and I won't say any more to prevent spoilers). It all boils down to orthodoxy vs. relativism... strict dogma vs. "comparative religions"...

And I'd side with The Wicker Man.

The Exorcist did absolutely nothing for me the one time I watched the director's cut, but I'm guessing that has to do with not believing in God, the Devil etc. Just seemed kind of silly and I couldn't suspend my disbelief at all.

Amityville is better than the lot of them but...

The Wicker Man kicks seven shades of hell out of the lot.

The Wicker Man and The Shining owns 'em all.

The Exorcist, meanwhile, is a fuckin' shit-whitener.

The Wicker Man is very disturbing, left me shaking in my bed.

I don't think you need to be a banger of Bibles to be a-scared by The Exorcist. I don't believe the existence of the Suprnatural necessarily has to be intertwined with Christian faith.

Yeah, I'm in shock too.

If it helps, Alex, just imagine how much more upsetting the movie would be if the main character was the pagan and the mob of islanders were raving lunatic Christians. It would be the same movie, from a structural point of view, but I'd bet you'd find it a lot more horrifying.

...according to you, but you do not speak for all (mercifully).

.... which is why something like The Wicker Man - which shows the cruelty humans will carry out without feelings of guilt or remorse on behalf of their faith is far scarier.

I don't have to rent a film to see that, I can just turn on the news.

But, hey, there's a massive cultural difference here - The Exorcist was laughed off screens in the UK when it was re-released in 98 but The Wicker Man is widely hailed as a terror classic.

Well, you're laughed off computer screens here in the US, so we're even.

Incidentally, I don't want to create the misconception that I'm not a fan of The Wicker Man. It's an amazing film, and criminally undersung (here in the States). I just don't find it at all terrifying in the same way as The Exorcist, much less The Shining. They're just entirely different sorts of films.

Well, I'd say you need to be at least familiar with faith. But let's review, shall we? In the film, Father Merrin (Von Sydow) is defeated by the beast. Father Carras doesn't drive Pazzuzu out of Linda Blair via any exhortations of faith, he merely pleads for him to take him instead, and then flings himself out the window.

The point I'm aiming at is that you can still find the film effective without being of a particular faith (or of any faith at all).

Is there any other kind?

Maybe, but you'd have to be watching/reacting to the film in the most passive of possible ways.

The Shining is just dull.

Will you ever shut up on this? You've converted no one, FYI.

That musical number isn't terrifying, but it is effective. Terror is merely one of the emotions that gets screentime in The Wicker Man... unlike The Exorcist, which (as C-Man suggests) completely falls apart if you aren't respecting the film's demands that "YOU WILL BE SCARED, MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

One laugh literally destroys the film for at least five minutes.

(They used a stunt double)

I've covinced no one The Shining is dull huh? How about Mick Garris and Stephen King who remade it as a telly movie in order to try and put right what Kubrick did wrong?

Somehow, I don't buy it, unless you're Satan himself.

The second time I saw it, it was amazing.

The Shining is both (a) brilliant and (b) scary, as is The Exorcist.

Amityvill Horror is just a bad movie from start to finish.

Hell, I'd argue that 1980's Razzie slate was far and away better than Oscars.

Dressed to Kill, The Shining, Cruising, and the guilty-pleasure double shot of Can't Stop the Music and Xanadu

vs.

Ordinary People, Private Benjamin, Raging Bull, and Fame

I'll take the former group any day. (Though, to be fair, Razzie also had The Jazz Singer and Oscar also had Tess, so I'm not talking clean sweep in either direction.)

Anyway, The Shining was not nominated for worst picture. Stanley Kubrick and Shelly Duvall were both nominated, but neither actually won. So the extent to which it was "actually honoured" is surely up for debate.

No it's not.

Private Benjiman and Fame are both above average movies.

No they're not.

Dressed to Kill is Argento-lite.

No it's not.

The others barely warrant passing a mention.

Yes they do.

HAHAHAHA

I said I prefer Dressed to Kill and Cruising (also, incidentally, about the tragedy of masculinity)... which from my mouth is not anything resembling an insult.

And Cruising is merely an okay film.

and dario argento is merely an okay filmmaker.

Is there any one else on ILX who prefers Reposessed to The Exorcist?

Jesus.

Have you seen Argento's Bird With the Crystal Plumage or Deep Red?

Yes. As well as Tenebrae.

Dressed to Kill aint even fit to lick the boots of that let alone Raging flipping Bull.

Wrong. It stands shoulder with the best of the year, nevermind if that entails being compared to Raging Bull or to The Shining or to Inferno.

There is at least one OTM comment on the thread as of late, though. Bass is absolutely right that responding to Calum is just that easy. But calling Argento sub-okay at best is astonishingly wrong. (It is possible to see worth in both Argento as well as De Palma.)

Calling Argento sub-okay is an astonishing lapse in taste, I agree. His best work is superior to virtually ever other foreign filmmaker at the time.

Re: Dressed to Kill and the De Palma vs. Argento angle, I see the surface similarities, and understand that both directors' fetishizing of surfaces does sort of put their similarities to the forefront, but I don't think that even at their most similar (Cain of Tenebrae) they're aiming at the same thing. Argento sees the human body as an extention of architecture, and typically the destruction of the body is parcelled out along with and frequently by the destruction of masonry, windows, so on. De Palma's take on psychology is far more social than Argento. I can't remember where I read it but someone once said De Palma is the strict Freudian and Argento the Jungian. Or something to that effect. I'm not saying I agree with the statement, but do accept it as evidence of the two's stylistic divergences.

Dan, if that's all you said, you haven't said anything wrong yet. I was being flippant anyway.

Cripes, they have nothing to do with each other. I mean, why don't you compare it to Kramer vs. Kramer and a driver's ed film while you're at it?

Ugh. Worst. Night. Of. My. Life. I can't even think of that movie without retching now.

admittedly se7en spawned much worse movies, but then there wouldnt be se7en without argento.

all lucky strikes by hack directors. argento had nothing but misses.

You're a bit misinformed and stupid really.

Calum, IIRC from my childhood, the house was torn down by a suburban real estate developer and built into a new house on the lot, because no one wanted a house that dorky asswads like my ex-roommate kept coming to harrass. I could very well be wrong about this, but if I'm wrong, the entirety of Long Island is wrong too.

I'd definately seek it out.

The other issue being that there's about 10 houses on that block that look quite similar to it so really I have no idea how anyone would find it anyway.

I've covinced no one The Shining is dull huh? How about Mick Garris and Stephen King who remade it as a telly movie in order to try and put right what Kubrick did wrong?

WTF?? You've got to be kidding, right? Steven King as film-maker?? ROFFLE, man. You've seen maximum overdrive?

Dude, bass braille just fuckin' j-pwned you.

The TV movie version of the Shing=teh suck.

I simply pointed out that King and Garris thought so little of the Kubrick movie they went and did it themselves. The TV version is definitely more entertaining than the Kubrick film, but I really like Garris as a director.

It's sort of sad to reconcile his totally pedestrian taste as of late with the list of great horror films as listed in the back of Danse Macabre.

Alex in NYC: "Every once in a great, great while, C-man says something that actually makes sense. this is one of those times."

Eric H.: *begins packing his bags and hightailing it right the fuck out of this demented thread.*

the omen ain't no exorcist, but it's still completely awesome. and the decapitation scene is funnier than anything i've ever seen in any charlie chaplin film.

In what kind of bizarre world is Cruising or Dressed to Kill even fit to lick the shoes of Raging Bull? Have you seen Argento's Bird With the Crystal Plumage or Deep Red? Dressed to Kill aint even fit to lick the boots of that let alone Raging flipping Bull.

And Cruising is merely an okay film.

― C-Man (C-Man), Tuesday, February 8, 2005 5:22 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark

c-man was mostly a twat, but here he speaks the Gospel truth.

i'm with TV Cream http://www.tvcream.co.uk/?p=12585

https://scontent.fman1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/22728887_10154851947335880_5514027347017899825_n.jpg?oh=f8d78eaf4843b9b267381e94aae58333&oe=5A83BB4E

I need to know what wins in the end! Is it the hardcore fucking that takes place in the next panel?

Man, I hated Calum in this thread.