The passing of American director William Friedkin yesterday marks the end of an era. Friedkin was the director of The Exorcist, the horror film that changed the genre: here was a film about an evil coming from within the sacred family home, rather than a threat attacking the family from outside.
The Exorcist worked as a social commentary, too, with religion, sexuality, youth and politics central themes of the film. Unlike other horror films released around the same time, The Exorcist had no comic edge, nor was it remotely Gothic. It was a deeply fearful and serious film about true evil that had entered an American home: it seized on people’s fears about the wickedness and sin which they believed was taking hold of American society in the Seventies.
