Kathy Shaidle of Relapsed Catholic fame points us to a couple of interesting takes on The Exorcist. One is her own 2000 article, “What compels us to visit The Exorcist?”, where she argues that it's not horror, it's a Western, and explains why, “instead of scaring me, The Exorcist made me cry.” The other is from Sean Collins’ Alltooflat blog, which takes another look at the movie in light of recent history. “This movie begins in Iraq, an appropriate instance of synchronicity given that The Exorcist, the film widely considered to be the greatest horror film of all time, is actually a war movie.” He's talking spiritual war, mostly, but he follows the metaphor nicely.