"MERRINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!"

Halloween means watching scary movies. And, at least in my opinion, there is no scarier movie than The Exorcist.

Now keep in mind that my father, brother and I consider ourselves horror film efficionados. Jas and I were raised on that genre - along with westerns, sci-fi and war flicks. The Mummy, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Creature from the Black Lagoon - we lived and died horror movies on Saturday nights while watching Shock Theater (Channel 18 in Milwaukee) with our father. Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney - we saw them all. Since then I've seen some masterpieces - Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacare, Amityville Horror, House of 1000 Corpses, Aliens, The Shining, Night of the Living Dead, Jaws, The Thing (Kurt Russell remake), and so on.

But The Exorcist tops my list. It was the highest-grossing film of 1973, and it continues to be popular to this day. Entertainment Weekly voted it the scariest film ever made, and it falls at #3 on AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills list. The juxtaposition of the sweet little girl and horrible demon adds to the movie's overall creep factor, as do the make-up, sound effects and the soundtrack. Truthfully, there's not a weak link in the entire cast - with very strong, convincing performances by all the leads, including: Ellen Burstyn, Lee J. Cobb, Jason Miller, Max Von Sydow and Linda Blair.

Here's the original trailer from the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGdbbVcKJlc

The other aspect that made this scary for me was the reality in the premise. The walking dead, vampires, UFO's, Godzilla - that was make-believe. But growing up Catholic (still am), we're taught the Devil is real and that he has the ability to possess people - even innocent children. (Now if you're don't believe in a particular religion, then you'll obviously think believing in the devil is as whacked as believing in a killer lepruchan - but that's another blog post.) That reality scared the shit out of me. I had nightmares about the movie and I hadn't even seen it (I was 9 when it came out so it was quite a while before I had seen it). I think there was a manipulated photo on the book jacket cover (not from the movie) and I read the intro...whatever - I was terrorized. Now my Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Bob saw it in the theater and they confirmed patrons were getting sick and leaving in droves.

Watch the movie if you get a chance. Turn the volume up. And leave a night light on - just in case.