I picked this up as my local bookstore was reading it for horror bookclub (it was rescheduled to April and then outright cancelled. I think they're going to try to do an online meetup, but we'll see). I heard from tons a folks that it was really scary and honestly, it wasn't.
I think it said a lot about gender and cultural norms and mental health (probably not intentionally in some cases) and overall I found it interesting. It was gross and perverse and though it had tons of scenes of research... we never got an explanation as to how Regan got possessed.
I have two theories. I haven't done any research into what people are thinking and I know there's a sequel but I haven't looked into it so no clue if it delves into it. So, first... she didn't close the ouija board. It was such a minor thing though and wasn't spoken about again once Regan started to really go off the deep end, but maybe? I mean, ouija is bullshit, but in the realm of possessions and such, it could be a possibility.
OR it's all just a visceral allegory. Regan is hitting preteen age and going through puberty. I've heard somewhere that some people think that during that time you're open to possession, but I think it's more simple than that. Just an ew, yucky thing. I mean, the possession could've been scary and apart from a few creepy moments, the entirety of it is just sexual. She asks people to fuck her, she masturbates, sometimes violently. A good chunk of her insults to taunt the priests are sexual in nature. For a seventies crowd, that is horrifying seeing a young girl talk/act that way. Overall, girls don't do that. People still feel that way now, to an extent.
Another thing I was annoyed with was Chris' atheism and how it wasn't really explored well in my opinion. She comes off as dumb and a bit of a floozy and it sort of felt like victim blaming at times - a 'where's the father, your broken home caused this' or 'well, your lack of belief brought this demon into your house' sorta thing. I would've liked the utter horror at finding very convincing evidence that there's something else, more. But she just kinda cowtails. I do appreciate that they explored every avenue of health/mental health before even suggesting such a thing, especially consider this was set/written during the time where women were basically doped up on tranquilizers to be "normal" and there was no real exploration beyond that. Tranquilizers are used quite often in both book and movie.
I also watched the movie. It was good, the practical affects were really interest to try and figure out (and in some cases, google - looking at you cold breath). I think they were trying to lean more into Karras' crisis of faith and everything with his mother, but it didn't come through as strongly as in the book and so that final scene I think wasn't as potent. I also found the pacing to be... bad. We don't get to see Regan slowly descend, she just IS one day and there really was no build up. I think that was the probably, as a mother, the creepiest thing while reading - thinking about these little things adding up to a child who I don't recognize anymore and nobody knows how to help.
For what it was, it is a masterpiece of horror literature/film, an entire genre of horror films wouldn't exist without it and overall, I'm glad for the experience.
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