Halloween Week 2010 – Ana’s Movie Marathon: The Exorcist

Back in 2008, when we had our first Halloween Week, I had to be dragged – kicking and screaming -into taking part, because Halloween has always been a Thea thing and I was never into this Horror stuff. The second Halloween Week was a bit better – I was prepared for it, heck, even excited about a few of the things I had to watch and read. And this year? I was actually the first one to start conversations about Halloween (“So Thea, what sort of torture do you have prepared for me this year?”) .

But then I learnt that my movie assignment for this year’s Halloween Week was to watch The Exorcist, the One Movie that I VOWED never to watch.

One of our Halloween Traditions is the Ana Movie Marathon in which Thea makes a list of Halloween-y movies or TV shows and I must pick the ones to watch. In 2008, I watched The Evil Dead movies (and I loved them). In 2009, we went totally overboard, and I watched several Zombie movies, episodes of The Twilight Zone, Alien + Aliens, the creepy Japanese version of Dark Water and the first Descent movie and I ended up enjoying all of them to one extent or the other (to the point where after Halloween Week, I keep looking for Horror movies to watch ). Ever since the beginning Thea has been trying to get me to watch The Exorcist, to no avail. I always found a way to get out of it.

And why is that you ask? Well, The Exorcist has been billed as the SCARIEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME (it is right there, on the cover!). I don’t like to be scared, I am super chicken, ergo, The Exorcist was on my never-to-be-watched list of movies (and that list was composed of exactly one movie). I think I should clarify what I mean when I say things like “I am super chicken” so that you can have a clear picture: I had to sleep with the lights on for SIX MONTHS after watching The Sixth Sense; I have to leave the room if The Shinning is on; Dudes, I put off watching The X-Files for YEARS because the SOUNDTRACK gave me the heebie jeebies. And if The Exorcist is supposed to be more horrifying than all of the above, then there was no way I would watch it.

Then Halloween Week 2010 came around and Thea said: It is the Exorcist or Paranormal Activity.

Oh, Internets I trembled. Because I CRIED with FEAR when I watched the trailer of Paranormal Activity and I cannot bear the thought of ever watching it so I caved. I caved and picked up The Exorcist and enlisted my partner to watch it with me and left the lights on and I started watching it and there is this girl and she is like cute and everything but then a demon enters her body and does things to her and she is like, vomiting, and walking downstairs all twisted and stuff, and there is the horrible crucifix scene, and the priests who try to help and do exorcisty stuff and I kept watching it till the end and Internets……I wasn’t scared AT ALL.

What’s up with that? At first, I thought I picked up the wrong movie! But alas, no, it was the right one. Then, I realised that it was the fact that some of the scenes from the movie are SO famous and appear in most “Best Of” shows and compilations or many of these scenes have been parodied so many times, that this has diffused it to such an extent that when it came the time to actually watch the movie, these were no longer as scary as they were supposed to be.

In fact, the ONLY thing I would consider remotely scary is this:

What a disappointment, folks. And you don’t have to tell me how ironic it is that I am disappointed that I was not scared when being scared of being scared was the one thing that prevented me from watching it in the first place, for such a long time. But disappointed was I and I put it down to building so much expectation over the years. I would even equate this disappointment with how I felt when I watched Citizen Kane, which his considered by many, the BESTEST MOVIE OF ALL TIMES and there is only one thing I can ever say to that: HAHAHA.

Having said all that, did I actually like The Exorcist? Yes, I did. It is a good movie, but not because of its reputedly scariness but because of all the conflict the priest goes through. Like Dear Partner said: the conflict of the SOUL kicked ass.

Thus, we reach the end of yet another Ana’s Movie Marathon (ok, technically not a marathon this time, but the preparation was so tremendous that I feel like I went through one). Bring on next year’s! (and I will NEVER, EVER watch Paranormal Activity, I swear.)