Two Great Horror Films from 50 Years Ago

When I looked at the abundance of classic films released in December of 1973, I deliberately chose to hold off on addressing two milestones of their particular genre: One was an exploration of folk horror that has only grown in esteem over the decades. The other was the biggest moneymaker released that year, a legitimate pop culture phenomenon that is regarded as perhaps the greatest horror movie ever made. They are The Wicker Man and The Exorcist, and here’s what makes them classics.

Based on David Pinner’s 1967 novel Ritual, The Wicker Man delves into the horror subgenre known as “folk horror.” Folk horror draws inspiration from sources that include folklore, mythology, and paganism, and typically occurs in rural settings or a more agrarian past. Playwright Anthony Shaffer, who would also adapt high-profile screenplays of Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile during the decade, handled the scripting chores. Robin Hardy took the director’s chair; Hardy had been partnering with Shaffer in film production for many years and would later write an original novel, Cowboys for Christ, as a pseudo-sequel to The Wicker Man film.

Trailer for The Wicker Man (1973) (Uploaded to YouTube by Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers)

Hardy populated the cast with mostly familiar faces. Britt Ekland was something of a newcomer, but had made a major impression in 1971’s Get Carter. Ingrid Pitt was already horror royalty thanks to her seductive appearances in Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers and Countess Dracula. A fellow Hammer vet (in fact, perhaps the unofficial King of Hammer), Christopher Lee, played Lord Summerisle, and stage and screen veteran Edward Woodward took the leading role of Sergeant Neil Howie. The plot follows Howie as he investigates the case of a missing girl. Journeying to the island of Summerisle, he finds himself bewildered by the pagan population; his inability to comprehend the culture places him in grave danger.

Though the film wasn’t a massive, immediate success, it was well-reviewed by the likes of Variety and the Los Angeles Times. Over time, however, it developed a large following and has only grown in terms of critical praise. In 1977, Cinemafantastique devoted an entire issue to the film, crowning it “the Citizen Kane of horror movies.”  Empire magazine has it listed among their 500 Greatest Movies of All time. Christopher Lee frequently referred to it as his favorite film (which is incredible, considered the man was a multi-time Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, the Mummy, a Bond villain, a Star Wars villain, and Saruman in The Lord of the Rings series). Woodward considered Howie his best role and believes that the final shot of the movie is the best final shot of any film.

The original The Exorcist trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Warner Bros.)

Twenty days after The Wicker Man opened, The Exorcist arrived the day after Christmas. Adapted from the screen by William Peter Blatty from his novel of the same name, The Exorcist was helmed by the Oscar-winning director of The French Connection, William Friedkin. The book was a bestseller, and Blatty had insisted on adapting and producing it. He wanted Friedkin from the beginning, and the director’s Oscar win for The French Connection made the Warner Brothers studio amenable to him taking the chair.

Friedkin recruited Owen Roizman to serve as director of photography, as the two had worked together on The French Connection (with Roizman having been nominated for an Oscar for his work). Friedkin wanted Roizman to make the settings (the house, the buildings surrounding Georgetown, etc.) look completely realistic as a counterpoint to the supernatural happenings. The director, as he would later reveal in interviews like the documentary Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist, also used his love of great painters to compose shots. Various Rembrandt works inspired how he would block scenes, and René Magritte’s Empire of Light would provide direct inspiration for the famous scene of Father Merrin arriving at the MacNeil house.

For the cast, the critical role of Father Damien Karras was offered to playwright and actor Jason Miller after Friedkin caught him in his play, That Championship Season. Friedkin did not know that Miller had spent three years studying to be a Jesuit priest before his own struggle with faith forced him to switch his life path. Miller immediately recognized himself in the story. Legendary actor Max von Sydow took on the role of Father Lankester Merrin; ironically, von Sydow was only 43 during filming, his older look achieved using make-up. Tony Award-winner Ellen Burstyn took on the part of Chris MacNeil, the mother of young Regan, a victim of possession. The crucial role of Regan went to Linda Blair, who was 12 at the time. For the voice of demonic Pazuzu, Mercedes McCambridge was cast; once called “the world’s greatest living radio actress” by Orson Welles, McCambridge had won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for All the King’s Men in 1949. The music of the film almost functions like another character, with the most famous piece being Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells.”

“Tubular Bells (Pt. I)” (Uploaded to YouTube by Mike Oldfield)

Throughout filming, Friedkin’s obsession with getting everything exactly right sometimes frayed the nerves of the cast. During one of Miller’s scenes, Friedkin fired a gun (using a blank) off-camera to elicit the proper startled reaction with the actor. With McCambridge’s permission, he tied her to a chair during one voice recording session so that she’s actually sound like she was struggling to escape. During a scene where the possessed Regan tosses her mother, Burstyn really did land badly, hurting her head and fracturing her coccyx; Friedkin used that shot in the completed film. The director also spent $50,000 of the budget to install a cooling system so that the actors’ breath could be visible during the final exorcism scene, just as Blatty had described in the novel.

After post-production delays pushed back an earlier release date, Warner Brothers chose December 26th for The Exorcist to land in theaters. It exploded out of the gate, remaining the highest grossing Christmas-week release for 24 years, until Titanic replaced it (as of this writing, it’s still #2). The film’s $66.3 million in theatrical rentals made it, for a time, Warner’s biggest hit ever; it was easily the top film released in 1973. Its immediate success came with immediate controversy. Though a number of critics praised it, with many calling it the most frightening film ever made, other critics (like, perhaps unsurprisingly, given their overall history with genre reviews, Pauline Kael and Vincent Canby) derided it, with negative reactions landing between dumb and “evil” (The Village Voice).

Audiences flocked to the film, and there were reports of people fainting in theaters. Various offices of the Catholic Church and other faith groups lodged objections, , which the press enthusiastically amplified.  There were few official complaints, however. The truth is that the film was massively popular, and remained the highest grossing R-rated horror movie until 2017’s It. The Exorcist was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Burstyn), Best Supporting Actress (Blair), Best Supporting Actor (Miller), Best Adapted Screenplay (Blatty), Best Cinematography (Roizman), Best Art Direction, Best Editing, and Best Sound. It won for Sound and Screenplay.

Fifty years later, The Exorcist has retained its reputation as one of the greatest, and most frightening, of all horror films. It was re-released in theaters for its anniversary, and the latest sequel in what has become a franchise of six films and a television series, The Exorcist: Believer, also hit theaters in 2023. As for The Wicker Man, its reputation has only grown; an unsuccessful remake starring Nicolas Cage in 2006 actually brought more attention to the original film. For the film’s anniversary this year, StudioCanal released a 4K restoration of three distinct cuts of the film (including an earlier version trimmed for time and one with restored material); that release gave an opportunity for outlets like Slant and Filmhounds to conduct retrospective reviews that were universally effusive. Perhaps no one can ever be sure why December 1973 was home to so many classic movies, particularly two horror giants, but one thing is certain: Audiences had one hell of a good time.