I've never seen The Exorcist.

Re: I've never seen The Exorcist.

Nah. The third stands on it's own.

Frogs is a classic by the way. Great cheese

I've never been able to force myself to sit through a single Giallo flick, so I have no Argento and no Fulci in my horror diet.

and cue Straxboy furiously scribbling me off the Xmas card list...

I once tried to watch THE CHANGELING and turned it off after about half an hour. I've heard so many great things about it, but what I saw just bored me to tears.

Frogs is the most rediculous movie ever made and yet I watch it every time it comes on TV. I love the log balancing competition at the back yard party.

EXORCIST III does indeed stand on its own, however, there are character connections that are important ... so ... You might want to go rent the original, although it's not imperative, and watch that first ...

As for the "classics" ... There have been quite a few times I have tried to sit through STAR WARS, and inevitably I am smothered by that same wave of hokey boredom ....

I second that. I can't stand the Star Wars movies. God damn Lucas for turning sci-fi into nothing but shitty popcorn fair. Especially after THX1138. He really fucking went downhill as far as social sci-fi is concerned.

I haven't seen any of the Godfather movies. But that's just due to laziness.

But why should sci-fi, or indeed any genre, be limited to one facet? We still have good, hard scifi movies, so I don't really think SW changed it much, aside from reaffirming the fact that a lot of people just want to go to the theater to have fun. I love thinking scifi like 2001 and BLADE RUNNER, but also dig the fun stuff like STAR WARS, and to a lesser extent, Trek. But it's like horror. I love the real fucking creepy stuff like CHAINSAW and the hard stuff like DAY OF THE DEAD, but I'd never for the world want to miss out on flicks like EVIL DEAD II, BRAINDEAD/DEAD ALIVE, and THE HOWLING.

Besides, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is as far from popcorn as you can get.

Exorcist III is a movie that I havent seen, nore do I plan on seeing. But you should see The Exorcist. Amazing 70's cinema. But it has one of the wost commentaries ever.

I still haven't seen NOSFERATU - EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUNENS (1922), mostly because there are at least a zillion different versions available, all with different edits, and I just never was able to figure out which one's the best. Time for Criterion to get on that case ...

Also, I've never seen Fulci's ZOMBI and none of the TOMB RAIDER movies. Huh? What do you mean they're not classics?

Any copy of NOSFERATU is good, as long as it's in B+W and not the tinted one.

You haven't seen ZOMBIE/ZOMBI 2/ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS? Wow. You should see it. It's not Scorsese, or even Raimi, but it's a good time at the movies.

Yeah he jumped the shark with A New Hope...

I watched Exorsist with my girl this weekend (she is 20 and never seen it) all she could say was "That was really disturbing"...Think it was the whole fucking jesus thing...WimpS!

Still need to get 2 on DVD and I have 3 which I enjoy alot...

If you've never seen The Exorcist, I personally don't feel you're missing much.
It's not a bad movie, but I was bombarded w/ the film's overall effect on pop-culture before I even saw it, so dilluted reaction is a good assessment of my viewing experience.
It is pretty funny though.

The Exorcist plays totally different nowadays than in it did in the 70ies. I remember when they did the re-release a few years ago people were laughing out loud and making fun of it in the theater. For them it was almost a comedy. but one has to understand that moral and religious attitudes have changed a lot in the past 30 years. Back then a little girl masturbating with a cross and talking dirty was as shocking as you can get. Nowadays we see worse shit on the Jerry Springer show. It's still a pretty powerful piece of filmmaking IMO but it hasn't aged as well as, say, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I realize that, and I agree that TCM holds up far better, in fact it's one of my favorite films.
It's not so much a matter of youth w/ me either, as I'll watch almost any film from any decade.

p.s., the way you summarized my post, leads me to believe that you work for Fox News.

Goddamn giant, man eating rabbits! I love that movie, pure B-Horror cheese!

By big queef comes from the potential Lucas showed with THX, and then lost in his pursuit for big bucks and small thoughts.

I've just been on this anarchist/anti-capitalist kick lately. Star Wars is also going to loose in comparison to Liquid Sky, Born in Flames or Repo Man IMO. Those movies are what sci-fi is all about.

I think Exorcist 3 works best when seen after the 1st movie. While it does stand on it's own there's enough of an important connection with the 1st movie that it's best if you see them both in proper order. HOWEVER, don't waste your time or money with Exorcist 2: the Heretic; it's terrible and irrelevant. Exorcist 3 is based on Legion, the sequel to the Exorcist novel, both written by William Peter Blatty; Exorcist 2 was written by some no-talent Hollywood hack to make a quick buck off the cache of the 1st film. Despite being dated, the first film is still quite good and creepy.

So, to recap:

See the Exorcist (it doesn't have to be The Version You've Never Seen Before).

Skip Exorcist 2.

See Exorcist 3.

By the way, E3 has one of my favorite scares. Ever.

I'm completely with you on Repo Man, though I really think it's much more of a black comedy than a scifi film. But I absolutely can't agree on Liquid Sky, which I saw as an incredibly arty and pretentious musing on heroin addiction and faux-punk sexuality. No slam to you, but I found the film nigh unwatchable due to its own imagined self-importance.

Born In Flames is an interesting idea ultimately crippled by Lizzie Borden's directorial incompetence and drenched in heavy handed Marxist feminism. Judging from this, it's no real surprise that she ended up helming drek like Love Crimes and The Red Shoe Diaries. Not for me, thank you.

If you're looking for interesting, artistic scifi, I nominate The Man Who Fell To Earth, which may at times be a mess, but is continually provocative. This film, along with 2001 and Blade Runner are, to me, what scifi is really all about.

And yeah, I think there's room for Star Wars in there, too, if only to occupy the other end of the spectrum.

Assuming that you aren't joking here, since it's hard for me to imagine anyone hanging out in the Creature Corner who hasn't seen The Exorcist, I would consider taking Frogs back, getting a refund, and applying the money towards a copy of The Exorcist.

You don't need to watch the first movie to enjoy the third, but as someone pointed out earlier, you won't understand the characters, their relationships, or their motivations nearly as well without it, since there is obviously a lot of back-story. Besides, I can't think of any reasons not to watch the first film. I also agree completely with Nekkerbee... The third rivals the first in terms of quality, while the second you could skip without losing any sleep.

And, as far as The Exorcist "not aging well" goes... While a big fan of the film, I have to admit that it hasn't aged well. It does not have any CGI. It does not have any kung-fu. It does not have any cast members from the WB or UPN networks. It does not have Justin Timberlake or Jessica Simpson. It was not directed by a guy who was doing MTV videos last month. It was not scored with the latest track from Drowning Pool. It does not have a cameo role with Coolio or Snoop Dog. It does not have any machine guns. It does not have a compilation soundtrack CD ripped off of TRL. It does not make use of the word "hella" or "shiznit." It does not have a Honda with ground effects and a glowing hubs. It does not use "bullet time." It does not have otherwise stupid teenagers engaging in analytical, Kevin Smith-esque dialogues about culture. It doesn't even have a PG-13 rating. Really, the movie sucks when you think about it.

dmeister

dmeister

That was kind of needlessly smart assed.
It's age doesn't bother me at all, but the film's significant pop-culture ripple effect did dillute my reaction to it.
All of the current trends you mentioned bug the shit out of me as well.

Yeah, but it was actually more in response to other posts, not yours, if it makes you feel any better.

I'm 31-years-old, and grew up on flicks like The Exorcist, The Changeling, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and so on, so I'm obviously biased -- and find people speaking ill of them rather bewildering.

dmeister

Talk about sarcasm, I like the cut of your jib, my good man.

The Exorcist is truly an undeniable classic of horror.

I envy you people with so many great movies left to explore...

dmeister

I'm exploring French New Wave right now, trust me you may feel somewhat burned out, but you still have plenty of adventuring to do.

I'm anxious to see Haute Tension, but I wasn't very impressed with Irreversible...

dmeister

I just ordered Haute Tension from Diabolik DVD, a favorite online store.
Shame you didn't dig Irreversible, that film broke me, my nerves were on end about the rape scene for weeks.

Yeah, but it's relatively easy to disgust someone, which is all that scene really did for me. It seemed like your basic modern update to the rape/revenge exploitation flicks of the 70s. And filming it in that chronologically inverted fashion seemed to make the movie a little anti-climactic for me. While it was very effective in Memento, in my opinion, it seemed just diffuse Irreversible. And the fact that the girl left a man who obviously loved her for a real dick also detracted from the impact of the film, since I failed to have a great deal of empathy for her character.

dmeister

On the other hand, that's life.
What I took from Irreversible, was the idea that we can be victims of that cosmic joke called a "bad day".
Having the story told backwards was very important to me, it's like watching CNN or what have you, and hearing about someone getting killed or raped. Sitting in front of your television screen that is all you'll ever know about that person, if you were to watch Irreversible in a linear fashion, that's all you'd be waiting for, it works on the same level.
Eat breakfast, kiss the wife & kids goodbye, stroll outside and get hit by a truck. Life is disgusting (the rape), random (the setting), and unfair (her misjudgement in male partners).
The film didn't so much gross me out, as much as it made me look inside myself...w/ varied results.

I see where you're coming from. The problem with the reverse story telling though, in my mind, is that you didn't actually have a chance to develop as much empathy for the character before you see her raped. Consequently, her rape was less disturbing to me on a personal level than it would have been had I liked her character more beforehand. Couple this with the fact that I would probably have considered her a crappy person to begin with, given her love interests, and the result is enough detachment from her that I had a lot less emotional reponse to her assault.

Moreover, because her rape is less emotionally compelling, I feel that the filmmakers had to rely on "going all out" with the gruesomeness of the crime in order to elicit a strong emotional response. Consequently, since they couldn't appeal enough to your senses of sympathy and compassion, they resorted to revolting you with incomprehensibly disgusting acts of torture, instead.

In essence, I never got to care enough for her as a person to feel some sort of intense compassion, trauma, and emotional loss, and was left seeing the rape as just another random (albeit horrific) act of violence on another random individual, which I see plenty of in "real" life already. As a matter of fact, if anything, Irreversible actually desensitized me more to violence, which surely was completely opposite to the reaction the filmmakers intended to elicit. I found a two paragraph news article last week about some woman bludgeoning her small sons to death with a rock more horrifying than the hour-and-a-half I spent watching Irreversible.

At the same time, any movie that can elicit such a wide variety of responses from people has obviously succeeded on some level.

dmeister

And I wonder if we have successfully derailed this thread yet???

dmeister

Consider this b*tch derailed!
Oh, and I think we made a pretty good counters on the pros & cons of shock value and Irreversible.

Thing is Dan, you've seen Dressed To Kill, Basic Instinct and Sea Of Love, all of which are arguably giallos. I can see whya tha funnya accents anda hokey stylisation mighta be offa putting, but then you're such a pulp (fiction and comics) fan that I find it funny you don't embrace them more. Ach well.

10 pictures I've never seen but intend to at the earliest opportunity:

Black Sunday only ever seen the first half
The Eyes Of Laura Mars
Der Golem
The Innocents
Dead Of Night
Kaidan
Hammer's Dracula
The Tenant
Wait Until Dark
Christian Nyby's [B]The Thing From Another World