Exorcist...um, do you have to be Catholic to get it?

From the mother's point of view the child's transformation is meant to evoke fears of physical corruption and the psychlogical fear of the child growing out of the control of the mother, especially sexually.

For the child, there is the fear of being trapped, the fear of not being in control of yourself and/or the fear of the 'darker' urges in yourself taking over.

there is also the fear of eveything in your life being torn down, taken away from, turned into a nightmare or destroyed utterly.

these are all fairly universal fears.

The idea of a malign influence that will destroy your life is a common one in countless horror films, both before and after the exorcist.

I would also suggest that Catholics think the demonolgy bits are bigger hooey than the non-catholics do.

If you don't think it's scary anymore it's probably because the film has been copied and parodied so many times. You also, if you are still quite young, are maybe used to the more knowing, tongue-in-cheek style of horror, which leads many people to laugh at the relatively simple scares of the pea soup and spinning heads.
Another reason is that the fears i listed above are 'emotional' horrors. they don't rely on quick cuts or dark shadows or jump scares. Although the film is historically regarded as seminal, it is the cheap and exploitational slasher films of the 70's that truly influenced subsequent horror films.
Better to see the film as a family drama in which terrible things happen, rather than as anything remotely like a modern hollywood horror film.

For the full effect I guess one should be religious in one form or another, not necessarily Catholic. Growing up in a very religious family and being raised that way The Exorcist freaked me out because it wasn't just something put on celluloid it was something that could be a reality. Satan was very much a part of my upbringing and the fear that if one didn't live right you could be corrupted and possibly possessed. There are verying degrees of possession as well.

I'm completely religion-free in every way and I find it to be one of the most brilliantly conceived and frightening movies I've ever seen.

Ypu don't still believe in possession do you?

I'm not a believer either, but unlike Charles B and half the world, I don't have a lot of affection for this film.
I didn't see it till I was 16, and before then I already had been inundated w/ the film's ripple effect on pop culture; suffice it to say, the final experience was kind of flat.

It was more or less like watching that early SNL sketch w/ Richard Pryor, I got quite a few chuckles out of the gargoylesque little girl, spewing pea soup and obscenities.
Despite my opinion, it is a solid picture, and a great example of American horror if you can remove yourself from the gigantic spectre of overexposure that haunts it.

the movie is scary because it is plausible.

I'm not a religious believer anymore so I suppose the answer to that would be no but still there are times when I would say I'm just not sure.

My friends mom went to Catholic School or whatever and just can't watch it without freaking out. I watched and I don't see anything so "AHHH FUCK NOOOOOOOOOOO!" about it, didn't really frighten me. I guess during the time of release because it was based on "true events" and the '70's culture, it would scare people and hippies shitless.

Hippies aren't people?

In what alternate universe?

I dont think that in order to be scared watching the Exorcist in the 21st century has anything to do with being Catholic...I think to be totally effected by it..you either need to have seen it in a theater in 1973, or be totally sequestered from any explicit horror film made in the past 20 years...like Alien...no one had ever seen or experienced a film like this before when it came out and it was truly shocking...remember in 1931...people shit thier pants at the first sight of Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster...today its not shocking...its a pop culture icon...same thing today...Exorcist is not really shocking by 21st century standards, and I have heard people say they thought Alien was boring in its rerelease... but just like Frankenstein the ARE classics.

I don't mind admitting that Exorcist still scares the bejesus outta me.

And Im not even slightly religious.

It's mostly a film that has been too hyped up in the last thirty years.... after hearing how terrifying it was for years, I was very let down by it.

Don't crucify me fellas...but I wasn't really scarred when I first saw this movie (which wasn't until the re-release), instead I found the movie to be really funny, albeit in a very horrific way. It was like shock humor, it was just too outrageous for me to really be frightened.

Now I don't think you necessarily have to be a religious person in order to understand this movie, but I think my attitude towards religion definitely had an affect on how I perceived the film.

That said I do enjoy the film, there are some very good and very believable performances in the film, but for me it just wasn't all that scary (it did have it moments though).

I turned it on one day without even realizing what it was and it scared the hell out of me. There is just something intrinsically disturbing about the whole movie and alot of the imagery stayed with me for quite a while. This is coming from someone who is not religious in the sense that he attends church often, but has beliefs.

Thank you! That's exactly why people who are just seeing The Exorcist for the first time say how "funny" or "stupid" they find it. By today's standards, it wouldn't be considered scary because almost all of the terror is psychological and that means you have to think to watch it and be scared. I'm not saying that nobody uses their brains, just that they prefer to have it there in front of them. That's the reason I find is so amazing that the parking lots at bookstores are always packed, guess the crowd has alot to do with the obligatory coffee shop in most of the stand alone book stores now.

You know it.

I don't believe so. I don't think it's a particularly scary film, considering I'm Agnostic, but the story is strong enough in my mind to carry it.

I think you hit the nail on the head. The Exorcist is psychological horror, there are some gross body horror aspects to it of course, but that wouldn't scare people raised in todays de-sensitized society. The Exorcist scared the living shit out of me because of my fear of the Catholic ideas of good and evil, because of my fear of being controlled, and because the helplessness of the people in that situation seemed so real. I think it has to speak to issues that are already in your mind to scare you. Or maybe society today just doesn't want to think.

I think it depends on your mindset when you see it. I find psychological terror not to work when you are going in with a strong idea of what is going to happen or at least a strong idea of the concept that goes along with how the movie develops. When I first saw the Exorcist I just turned it on by accident and didn't realize it was the Exorcist for a while. It worked so well on me because I started to watch it thinking it was just some made for sci-fi special, then it cut into some creepy stuff, then I realized it was the exorcist by the time stuff was in full swing and I was really engrossed.

The subtle imagery also creeped me out the most during the movie. Stuff like Reagans face turning into that demons for just one second when the lamp is strobing on and off and the weird sillouhette of some sort of winged demon when she's on her knees as the window lights up really got to me on a very base level.

I have to agree with you here.

No, I wasn't implying that. I'm sure everyone has their own reasons for not liking it, it's the reason I think alot of people don't like it.

*thinks about something I heard at Dragoncon* Can that zombie be Tom Savini?!