The Exorcist Epoch - Before and After
An epoch, as defined by our good friends at Merriam-Webster, is “an event or time marked by an event that begins a new period or development” , and unbeknownst to anyone at the time, 1973 saw the introduction of a new era in the world of horror cinema with the release of The Exorcist. Extreme, outlandish, boundary smashing and unlike anything else at the time, The Exorcist serves as a mile marker in the evolutionary path of horror. In this article we will be reviewing the world of horror cinema in 1972, one year before the release of The Exorcist and comparing it to the world of horror cinema in 1974, one year after. Come along for a journey into the past to one of the most pivotal moments in all of horror history.
The film which probably best personifies the year 1972 is the seventh installment of Hammer’s Dracula franchise, Dracula A.D. 1972. Hammer is a legendary horror production house which ruled the horror world from the late 1950’s through the 1960’s, but by the time the 1970’s came around things really started to burn out. In an attempt to leave behind their ghoulish, Gothic, Dracula in a castle formula, they attempted to modernize the story of Dracula and Van Helsing by transporting the pair, played by Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, to the groovy confines of modern day London. Gone were the drafty castles and horse drawn carriages and here was the Austin Powers-esque theme music and bell-bottoms. Don't get me wrong, this is a fantastic film, probably my favorite of the Hammer films but it was a clear indication of the stagnation of the horror world at the time.
Christopher Lee wasn't the only bloodsucker to grace the screen in 1972, there was also Vampire Circus and the legendary Blaxploitation film, Blacula. While the blood sucker antagonist changed, the theme was the same. Capes, castles and a story that the world has now seen for the past 40 years without much deviation from the source. The Drive-In and grind-house scenes also had their fair share of blood. The Spanish film, The Blood Spattered Bride was unique with its hyper sexuality and gore, but our main characters were still stuck in a castle in the countryside. There were also many low budget creature features, remnants of the 1950’s horror world with Pigs, Frogs, The Thing with Two Heads and the amazing killer bunny rabbit movie Night of the Lepus. These films, much like Dracula AD 1972 were last gasps at relevancy. By 1972, we would have seen killer versions of every animal imaginable, both of normal size and of atomic growth, so much so that film makers resorted to Frogs and Rabbits for scares.
Other examples of pre-epoch horror included run of the mill thrillers and Italian Giallo films. These movies, by today's standards, are borderline horror movies, but align closer to a suspense film. Sure there is a killer stalking prey, but it's more of a mystery than it is a blood soaked, skinny dipping, campfire slasher.
That being said, there are exceptions. 1972 also saw the release of The Last House on the Left and it could be debatable that Wes Craven’s horrific rape-revenge film was the true catalyst for change, but I doubt at the time the general public was as aware of that film as they were with The Exorcist a year later. There were also some brutal cannibal films like Cannibal Man and The Man from Deep River but these were more than likely hidden in obscure grind-house movie theaters and late night drive-ins, far from the eye of the public or movie producers.
The horror world of 1972, in retrospect, seems to have been just going through the motions. A couple Dracula films here, a dash of creature features there. Nothing too new, nothing exciting, nothing dangerous and this continued into the beginning of 1973. Hammer released another Dracula movie, there was a sequel to Blacula and a killer snake movie, but on December 26th the whole world changed.
In a post-Exorcist world, we start to immediately see more experimental, daring, and especially grotesque films hitting mainstream theaters.
The film which probably best personifies 1974 is the Larry Cohen classic, It’s Alive. In this film, the Davis’s are excited to have their first child after years of trying, but there’s only one thing wrong with the Davis baby: It’s Alive! The baby is born as a disgusting, blood thirsty mutant mongrel that murders everyone in the delivery room and goes on a murderous rampage before finally being killed by his father in the sewer. This is not only a huge departure from what horror films were just one year earlier, but is a perfect metaphor for the release of The Exorcist. When the movie was released it was the monster baby which ripped through traditions and norms, leaving a trail of blood and body parts in its wake.
It wasn’t just It’s Alive either, 1974 saw the release of many of the famed Video Nasties - which for those who don’t know is a collection of films which were banned in England in 1984. These films include Axe, Frightmare, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, and the most famous of the banned movies, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. One might wonder; Would Tobe Hooper be allowed to release TCM if The Exorcist wasn’t released the year before? Perhaps we’ll never know, but you can’t help but wonder if in the wake of The Exorcist, studios and financiers thought, “Hey, it can’t be worse than the crucifix scene?”
Even if we look at less extreme examples, we can see a trend toward the more violent and risky. A perfect example of this is Black Christmas which much like a Giallo is kind of a mystery, whodunit type of flick but in the era of The Exorcist it’s just a touch more violent and gruesome. The 1950’s style atomic monster flicks increase in their darkness as well, pre-epoch it’s Invasion of the Bee Girls and post-epoch you have titles like The Cars that Eat People and Phase IV which, although it is about ants that are terrorizing humanity and the food chain, it has a much more sinister tone than previous killer ant movies.
The biggest impact from the release of The Exorcist would have had to have been on Hammer. Once a leader in horror, had now fizzled away shortly after 1973. In 1974 they had fallen from grace in a huge way, their Dracula film was a crossover with Hong Kong cinema and the Shaw Brothers which saw the famous bloodsucker doing kung-fu in The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires. A different formula was tried with the campy classic Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter which they currently have streaming for free on the Hammer YouTube channel. The closest they came to matching the macabre tone of The Exorcist was their final Frankenstein film, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, which didn't do much to distinguish itself to the point of being noticed. They released a couple films similar to The Exorcist like The Satanic Rites of Dracula which was a modern tale of Dracula who is controlled by a satanic cult. They also released a film which is comparable to The Exorcist, To the Devil a Daughter, their last film before going on an extended hiatus from the horror world.
This evolution of horror branching out to more extreme and dark places continued through the 1970’s with more films pushing boundaries of terror. Unlike other horror epochs, The Exorcist did not spawn a wave of copycats. Post-Jaws there were killer animals, post-Halloween there were slashers galore. The Exorcist on the other hand just seemed to give filmmakers the freedom to be a little more dangerous, a little darker, and a little more terrifying.
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