{"id":198,"date":"2019-01-27T21:12:47","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T02:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/?p=198"},"modified":"2019-01-27T21:12:47","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T02:12:47","slug":"the-exorcist-classical-or-postmodern-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/2019\/01\/27\/the-exorcist-classical-or-postmodern-horror\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Exorcist”: Classical or Postmodern Horror?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people would consider The Exorcist<\/em> to be a “classic” horror movie due to its immense popularity and revered place in the horror film canon, having influenced countless other stories and texts since then, but what struck me after watching this movie was its relevance to Isabel Pinedo’s article on postmodernism and the contemporary horror film. The Exorcist<\/em> seems to me like an example of a film that blends together both classical and postmodern elements of the horror genre, at least from my understanding of Pinedo’s article on the subject.<\/p>\n

In The Exorcist<\/em> we do see some characteristics of the classical horror genre, including for example the clear distinction between good and evil. We (the viewers) know that the demon possessing Regan is evil and that Regan’s mother Chris, Father Karras, and Father Merrin are good. Furthermore, the film ends with Regan having been saved from the demon and therefore good has triumphed over evil (but the Exorcist<\/em> franchise continues in various sequel and prequel films, so it could be argued that the ending to this film is ambiguous as well).<\/p>\n

Conversely, The Exorcist <\/em>also displays some postmodern elements of the horror genre. For example, it is the priests, not the psychiatrists or men of science, who ultimately save Regan. Additionally, the plot of possession and exorcism is irrational and is presented within the film itself as being irrational (even to Father Karras). Finally, the setup of the story presents an example of a disruption of the everyday suburban life that Chris and Regan enjoy prior to the possession, shown at the start of the film.<\/p>\n

The Exorcist<\/em> provides an interesting look at the classical and postmodern horror genres Pinedo outlines in her article, but ultimately it seems to be its own unique creature, not able to fit squarely into either category. And maybe this is an aspect of what has allowed the film to last so long in our cultural imagination\u2014but that could just be due to the 360-degree head turns and green vomit, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people would consider The Exorcist to be a “classic” horror movie due to its immense popularity and revered place in the horror film canon, having influenced countless other stories and texts since then, but what struck me after watching this movie was its relevance to Isabel Pinedo’s article on postmodernism and the contemporary horror …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-c"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paB9Ga-3c","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}