I really don't see what the fuss is with the Exorcist. I don't think they're anything special. The first one was downright laughable more than scary. I see people say that it had to experience it in its time, but there were plenty of other horror movies from that time that hold up and even got better.
Exorcist is the Rocky of horror movies. Overrated 70s movie that is just plain mediocre beyond some temporary significance yet somehow continues to be lauded despite its peers of the time outclassing it and that to be more and more apparent with time.
There will never be any way to explain it to you, if you weren't alive at the time obviously.
People for a large part weren't as accepting of a lot of things as they are today, which probably explains a lot about modern society really and how some other cultures in general react overall these days.
But that is going off on a tangent sorry.
A foreign film theme sounds good to me, if you haven't seen a lot of those in the past.
I really haven't seen anything I think of as scary these days, just finding anything interesting is unusual.
Things like Argento are pretty cool, check Suspiria out.