Movie Review - The Exorcist, The Beginning

So we're watching this movie and I'm wondering the whole time if I'm going to be scarred for life like the second one did to me when I was six.

The second one. The one that had me sleeping in my parents room for 3 weeks. The one that had me convinced that if I thought about it too much, the devil would come and get me. The one that had me thinking that if I arranged my bedroom like Regan did, that I would be inviting the devil to come in through my bedroom window. The one that made me feel I needed to recite the Lord's Prayer every time I shut my eyes, even when my mom washing my hair over the sink, for fear that the devil would possess me at any chance he got...

The one that still makes me sweat thinking about thinking about it...

Well so, the first one (I love how they do that whole sequence backwards, just like Star Wars) was entertaining and I sat waiting to be freaked out of my mind - but something was missing. The movie had everything - It had the whole suspense thing, the whole dramatic set up, it took advantage of every moment to freighten you with freakish devil things... But it wasn't until my husband said to me,

"You know, they're trying everything they can think of to scare me... And I'm not scared."

And that's when I realized what that one thing was that was missing...

I WASN'T SCARED.

Being scared would help.

I really didn't want to be scared AT ALL like I was when I was six (that was TOO SCARY for me - me - Miss "Scary Movie In The Dark With No One Else Home". I've never in my life had a movie affect me like that... but I was SIX. I had a soft, smushy, impressionable brain and that movie was NOT COOL.)

In fact, I saw that second one again just a few years ago in the theater when they remade it or something (it wasn't my idea AT ALL and it took me a long freaking time to decide to actually go) and it had poor Regan walking upside down the stairs like a spider. Even at 30 years old or something, I was still afraid when I got home that if I thought about it too much I would once again be inviting the devil to possess my body. It was a, 'I evaded him once, can I do it again?' sort of thing.

- Earl didn't help that situation by turning the lights off and waiting for me upside down on the stairway with his hands bent over his head and his tongue hanging out.

But not this first one. Not "The Beginning". Bring your teenagers to it - NOT your six year olds - and enjoy. If they have a father like Earl, maybe he can make it scarier for them when they get home.