I watched 'The Exorcist' for the first time last night and I have more questions than answers

I want to know how Tatum O'Neal beat her for the Oscar!

The Exorcist is based on the true story of Roland Hunkeler.

you're a cunting daughter, OP.

R1 Before the Oscars Mercedes McCambridge revealed she did the voice of the demon. Plus Ellen Dietz (think that was her name) the body double for Blair claimed she did a few of the difficult stunts. Blair won the supporting actress globe but lost all momentum when these revelations came out.

This Ronald Hunkeler, R2?

Did he really masturbate with a crucifix?

Gay?

It was random op. By possessing a little girl Blatty wanted to convey evil could manifest in the most unlikely people. As for the head turning, God saved her.

He has gay face, R5. Maybe Pazuzu possessed him because he was having homosexual thoughts.

I love this movie. Jason Miller is so intense. I don't like the idea of a Babylonian deity being the devil. But overall, one of the best horror movies.

wasn't implied that the girl was possessed as a punishment for her actress mother? Did i imagine that?

R6, I bet he posts on Datalounge now.

I meant R5.

Why do demons possess anyone? To gain access to our plane, to spread fear and hopelessness. If you believe in that sort of thing, it’s not hard to see why.

By the way, the mesopotamians saw Pazuzu was definitely a handful and a problem causer, but not as purely evil. Just as a powerful and sometimes malevolent god like being. At times they wore amulets of protection bearing his shape.

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Regan playing with a ouija board in the first act? That's how she met Captain Howdy. Pretty sure that was the catalyst.

Yes, the ouija board was the vector in which the demon tricked her to invite it across.

Girl had a rubber neck.

R5, how would "The Exorcist" have been different if it had been about a Gayling teen boy instead?

So many missed opportunities!

Personally, I feel that everyone was overreacting a little bit in this scene.

One of the priest that performed the exorcism volunteered for chaplain duty in Vietnam and said he saw more evil there then at the boys hospital.

[quote]The Exorcist is based on the true story of Roland Hunkeler.

Well, true-ish.

Gee R17, how would you react to a little girl being thrashed around on a bed while she spouts vulgarities in a demon voice?

I loved the Iraq intro.

There were exorcisms performed on the boy R19. Whether he was possessed could be debated. Even Father Halloran, one of the priest that performed an exorcism, wouldn't say if the boy was possessed. So, yes it is based on a true story and there was an exorcism. Nowhere in my comment R19 did I say the boy was possessed.

Was it true that when this movie first hit the theaters, people were throwing up in the theater and they passed out barf bags? Or was that just PR to hype the movie?

R17. I think it is one of the most powerful scenes in the movie and the acting is very realistic. The confusion and despair performed by Burstyn is spot on.

It's true. R23. People fainted, EMTs called in. Fantastic.

Exorcist audience reaction.

[quote]The confusion and despair performed by Burstyn is spot on.

And yet, she failed to secure the Oscar for her performance.

That movie was terrifying to we wee Catholics. Even more than forty years on, I’ve actively avoided seeing it again.

R9, possession is never a punishment for doing bad things. Satan likes people to do bad things and would encourage it--not punish it!

Demonic possession is REAL

Back in the 90s in the small town of Salem, Illinois, I a respected psychiatrist was possessed by the devil for about a year

I levitate and burned down churches and even morphed into a black panther

During the exorcism, performed by my on again off again husband, I died, but by the grace of God I managed to unzip that body bag in that morgue and live again!

I saw it the day it opened. There was pandemonium in the theatre. People screaming and crying.

The evening I went to see it a man passed out in the aisle as he was trying to leave the theater during the masturbation with crucifix scene. Also, there was a group passing out cards with phone numbers to call if anyone felt too upset after seeing the film and needing to talk. Crisis help lines I believe. The 1970s were a much more innocent time compared with today.

Did it feel like Jonestown, R31?

[quote]why the hell was Regan possessed by a demon in the first place?

To punish her for daring to menstruate.

A great horror story that was actually a window into the public unease of the time:

Americans' growing despair at the inability of their advanced government to win a war in undeveloped Vietnam was reflected in Chris's weary goosechase with science and doctors to help her daughter fight something none of them are prepared for.

Father Karras' crisis of faith and authority was an analogue for Boomers' rudderlessness during the rapidly unfurling Watergate scandal that saw Nixon resign a year later.

Father Merrin represented the Greatest Generation, who were the only authority on fighting the corruption that was beseiging us, but were aging and too frail to fight any more.

Even little Regan represented the vulgarity and godlessness that older generations feared was creeping into the Baby Boomers--porn, blasphemy, murder, and immorality wrapped up in a cherubic 12 year old.

The very best horror movies do this--they tap into the social divisions and unrest of the day as a way to gain backdoor access to the audience's psyche and truly terrify them. Often people who dismiss The Exorcist as being not scary enough for modern audiences are ignorant of the larger context from which it sprang, and how many boundaries it pushed.

I wonder what future generations will say about us when they discuss our current horror movies, and how they all seem to revolve around zombies and/or found footage.

[quote]There were exorcisms performed on the boy [R19]. Whether he was possessed could be debated. Even Father Halloran, one of the priest that performed an exorcism, wouldn't say if the boy was possessed. So, yes it is based on a true story and there was an exorcism. Nowhere in my comment [R19] did I say the boy was possessed.

I guess where I got hung up was the fact that there's no question in the film that Reagan is possessed.

I think the Roland Doe story is fascinating, but I also think possession is just psychiatric illness, or in the case of Anneliese Michel, anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.

[quote] Even little Regan represented the vulgarity and godlessness that older generations feared was creeping into the Baby Boomers--porn, blasphemy, murder, and immorality

Sounds like millennials!!

My older brother was the lead singer of a Black Sabbath cover band, and heavily involved in the occult when the movie came out. He saw it, came home that night, quit the band, and promptly went out and joined the Marines.

OP there is a scene that was cut from the original run but put back in all the special editions that gives an explanation for her possession. During the exorcism the two priests take a short break on the steps and Karras asks why a random 12 yr old girl, and Merrin says its to cause despair. So R12 is correct.

And...I brought receipts!!

And furthermore here was the explanation for the cut, and why it was put back in later!

More receipts!

OP, you’re not supposed to ask questions that suggest the movie may have flaws. You’re supposed to agree that this is the scariest movie ever made, flawless, practically a documentary, and since you saw it you have been terrified of demonic possession, which it convinced you is real. That’s the response I’ve gotten from every person with whom I’ve discussed the movie. My “it’s meh; I have some questions” reaction has been universally condemned.

The head swivelling thing is because of demonic magic.

If you can believe a little girl can be possessed and speak in tongues and manifest words on her body and levitate, I don't see why spinning her head without breaking it should be a problem.

It's all make-believe!

There is a clever scene where the demon telekinetically opens a drawer on the nightstand. When Father Damien asks the demon “Did you do that?”, the response is sort of playful “ahhhh”. It was interesting how they layered traits into the demon as a character with the voices dubbed in. He’s playful, then petulant, then self-pitying. It’s very clever sound editing. You can see its full effect in a YouTube clip of Lynda Blair voicing the demon, and you instantly see why they dubbed it.

It all seems so silly to me, but I wasn’t raised with religion. My thought: if you’re raised to ne spiritual, believing that flesh is just flesh, then what’s the big deal if the body were to be possessed temporarily by a demon? Honestly, if I saw that happen, I’d be convinced that there’s more to life than flesh and blood and I’d be like, OK, kid, go to the white light and let this monster take over the body so it can be killed. Or whatever. I dunno. I can’t relate to this as such a horrific thing for thinking adults to contemplate.

Kind of boring when you watch it now. The Nun movie is better.

I took ayahuasca several times and every time I felt as if the spirit of an independent living entity inhabited my body. I felt it exploring every limb and organ, including my brain. My eyes teared up and then my nose ran and then my mouth salivated and I was paralyzed and couldn’t wipe my face as it was wet by all those running fluids. Various parts of my body moved as if they were being “tried out” for the first time by someone putting on a mechanical suit. At times my torso was lifted up and slammed back down into the bed over and over, my hips thrust over and over, sometimes for such long periods of time that I would be physically exhausted and achy and it still continued automatically, or it seemed that way. It literally felt like control of my body had been handed over to someone else who was test driving it. It wasn’t scary at all because that entity felt loving and empathetic and harmless, just curious about being able to play with and explore this new vehicle. I was still conscious the whole time, and at some point during the second or third separate experience of this, I realized that anyone looking on from the outside at my body moving like this—especially the tears and the saliva and the snot pouring out on their own as I just lay there unable to move—would look like the Exorcist to anyone watching from the outside, but from the inside it was certainly a new feeling but not a scary one at all.

The sequel was much better than the original.

Terrifying. You have to guve Lucifer credit for his patience, waiting all those millennia to resurface only after Hasbro manufacutred Ouija, the plastic-and-cardboard book that demons require to escape their eternal infernal fates. God thought he planned for everything—until...HASBRO!

i only watched little clips of this movie in my life. i could NEVER actually watch the whole movie because the idea of demonic possession scares the shit out of me. I was raised a christian, now i'm agnostic, but these things still scare me a lot. cant help it.

It's all real. But I know a woman who can take off a demon curse. It only costs $175. But she's good.

Why is the idea of demonic possession so scary? I really don’t understand.

Spirit boards have been around far longer than the marketed Ouija board R49. Isn't it amazing some people have no sense of history.

OP there are several editions of The Exorcist on Blu-Ray and DVD with commentary by the director and the author that help explain some (not all) things in the movie. Also there are a few Youtube videos dealing with the movie.

The fear is losing your mind and losing control of your body and actions.

Losing who you are is far more terrifying than an image of a demonic being.

really, r52? are you stupid or just a millennial who doesn't understand shit?

R54 In that video, the narrator says that whether the girl was possessed or not is a question of faith. Here is something I don’t get: People of faith in God are supposed to believe she is possessed by a demon, whereas people with no faith in god are supposed to believe she is not possessed by a demon. Would someone who puts faith in God not trust God to prevent little girls from being torn apart, mind, body and soul, by the devil? Or do the faithful actually trust in God to allow evil entities to torment unsuspecting, innocent human beings?

R35, excellent analysis. That's what separates the horror movies of the 70s and the ones from today. Without context like that, horror movies are just filled with dumb scares.

Carol Burnett, Barbra Streisand and Audrey Hepburn were Friedkin's first choices for the mother role. The studio rejected Burnett, and Streisand didn't want any part of it. I think Hepburn had prior commitments and couldn't do it. Burstyn was brought in after they turned it down.

R56 Gen X and no, I really don’t understand. If you are a spiritual person and believe that who you are is not you body, that your spirit continues on beyond your body’s expiration date, and a demon comes along and takes over your body, the way I see it is that it’s basically an infection, a bad toothache, a temporary state of pain and torture that will ultimately pass. It’s not the most horrible thought. The most horrible thought would be an eternity separated from people you love, or being destroyed (your soul, not your body) by a demon. If you are a devout person, I don’t know why it would be sadder for Reagan to go through a possession amd an exprcism than it would be for her to have to go through cancer and chemotherapy, for example. Call me crazy. I guess I just see things differently. If you believe in the soul and in the goodness of innocence, temporary melodramatic demonic possession doesn’t wield any real power over the little girl’s *actual* spirit.

Jewish Barbra would have added a whole other level of weirdness.

Wasn't there also something about another actress (Shirley MacLaine, maybe?) who lost out after Friedkin saw her looking frumpy on the streets of New York?

'The Mephisto Waltz' is another great Seventies horror movie/book that also had echoes of the current political scene.

The crucifix masturbation scene was in poor taste.

R61 Barbra would have made sure she was perfectly lit from her “good side” during the most ghoulish scenes. “The devil may take my baby, but he’ll never take my beauty!”

You have a link to Carol and Barbra being offered the role of Chris R60. Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine were offered the role. Audrey Hepburn was offered the role too. Kinda amazes me she would have done the film. Ellen Burstyn took the role, but only if she didn't have to say "I believe in the devil." BTW, Burstyn was raised a Catholic.

I saw “The Seventh Sign” as a kid and that movie was far more upsetting to me. Demi Moore played a pregnant woman who realized her baby would be the Antichrist. She had to make a choice in the end. That’s the sort of psychological terror that resonates with me. A body being thrashed about and barking curse words just doesn’t give me legitimate scares.

[quote]I saw “The Seventh Sign” as a kid and that movie was far more upsetting to me. Demi Moore played a pregnant woman who realized her baby would be the Antichrist. She had to make a choice in the end. That’s the sort of psychological terror that resonates with me. A body being thrashed about and barking curse words just doesn’t give me legitimate scares.

Yes. At a church lock-in, no less.

[quote]The very best horror movies do this--they tap into the social divisions and unrest of the day as a way to gain backdoor access to the audience's psyche and truly terrify them.

Absolutely true. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original, that is) was released in the 1950s and played into people's fears of a potential growing Communist movement in the USA.

Frosty breath.

Reading the DA's report about the Pennsylvania Catholic priest sexual abuse case, all I could think was, this is all so unbelievably diabolical. I really believe that heaven and hell are here, right before our eyes.

Many people believe earth is a heaven and a hell R70. You look at the atrocities against people and it is pure evil. Look at the people that get enjoyment torturing animals. We all have seen or heard about evil all around us.

R70 Yes. A movie that were to accurately depict the Catholic church’s systemic child sexual abuses even half as graphically as the Exorcist depicted a demonic possession would be ten thousand times more terrifying than the Exorcist. It’s fascinating to me that Catholic people swoon over the horror of a little girl vomiting and saying profanities while shrugging off a timeless parade of adult priests who shove their dicks inside of children and threaten to kill their families if they tell anyone.

[quote]Streisand didn't want any part of it.

What do you mean I can't sing three songs? If you make the movie with me, I get a minimum of three songs.

You are applying what we know today to what we knew back then R72.

R73 “I have an idea. It’s a brilliant idea. They say music soothes the savae beast, don’t they? What if the demon kills the priest and we think all is lost...and just then a divine halo of loght descends upon the mother—me—and inspires me to sing a medley of three of my most beloved songs? Trust me, the fans will love it. This idea has potential. But I should direct because I really don’t think Friedkin can pull it off the way it needs to be, you understand. I’ll need the studio cleared before the big climax, and my assistant Max will give you the humidity I’ll need. Listen, you want this to be a blockbuster, don’t you? You want this to be good? Good, then let’s do it right the first time, my way.”

Actually, a sequel or reboot of The Exorcist, set in present day, and revolving around a Catholic sexual abuse scandal could tap into #metoo and make a bit of a splash. Maybe a church investigator is brought in to investigate allegations against a priest, with the red herring being that he's possessed, only to find out that he is repressed but pious and his victims are possessed and being used to seduce him and damage faith? Investigator could represent Mueller investigation? Themes of mistrust in authority and having to wait too long for justice? Exploiting victimhood status to strike without reproach?

R35, thank you. Spot on!

I saw the movie the day it opened (in Washington, DC no less). Despite the fact that I and millions of others had already read the book, it was still shocking to actually see the movie, and I was in a daze afterward. I remember walking out of the theater with the other stunned-looking people who'd just seen it, past the line of people waiting to get in. They were looking at us expectantly to figure out what they were about to see.

Touching on this a bit there is a great documentary called "The Keepers" about abuse and murder in the Church in Baltimore.

I just turned on The Seventh Sign and—lo and behold!—it begins with some stoic white dude walking down the street in Haiti while the local people squabble and behave generally like they aren’t civilized. The Exorcist began in the middle east and flew to Washington. I wonder why people have the idea that Trump’s “shithole countries” are places of evil. 🤔

That movie sounds like a real drag... I think I'll stick to the Exorcist!!

That was directed to R72.

I think it's actually scarier hearing Linda Blair's own voice. Not only is it unnerving, it makes you wonder if she's just a sociopathic little girl.

r66 - In THE SEVENTH SIGN Demi Moore's baby isn't going to be the antichrist; he's going to be the first baby born without a soul because the Guf -- the Hall of Souls -- is empty.

Exorcist II: The Heretic states the reason Regan was possessed is because she has special healing abilities. The demon attacks people with such powers in order to destroy them, inspiring the question "Does great goodness draw evil upon itself?"

Though 99% of people would rather pretend this sequel doesn't exist, I think it is an interesting possibility. As for

When I watched this movie I couldn't help but burst out laughing every couple of minutes. Seriously, those over the top profanities, and special effects. One of the best comedies for me.

As for the head spinning, perhaps it was a mass hallucination?

In The Exorcist 3, Regan has grown up and changed her name. She still represents Washington although she lives in New York. She has bleached the hell out of her hair and wears clown makeup so that no one will recognize her as Regan. She is still possessed, though, and the devil inside of her doesn’t fool anyone.

I wonder what Kubrick and Nichols would have done as director:

Warners had sent the script out to three other prominent directors: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur Penn and Mike Nichols. They all responded in the negative, for various reasons. Kubrick said, "I only like to develop my own stuff" -- he changed his attitude about that when he did The Shining, but that was his excuse. Arthur Penn had just done Bonnie and Clyde and said he didn't want to do anything else about violence, especially with a child. Nichols thought it was going to be impossible to pin this story on the acting of a 12-year-old girl. None of that stuff bothered me because, frankly, I was so overwhelmed by the power of this story, and I didn't stop to think about the problems involved with making it.

The studio wanted Audrey Hepburn, Jane Fonda or Anne Bancroft -- all very good actresses -- to play the actress whose daughter becomes possessed in the film. I would have loved to have any of them. But Audrey wanted to shoot the film in Italy, where she was living with her husband, an Italian doctor. Although I was a great admirer of the Italian filmmaking industry, that didn't feel like a good idea. Anne Bancroft was in the early stages of pregnancy and wanted to do it, but we would have had to wait a year. Jane Fonda, frankly, turned us down. She sent us a note saying, "Why would I want to appear in a piece of capitalist, ripoff bullshit?" A few months ago, I had dinner with her and I reminded her of that, and she said: "Wow, did I say that? It feels like another person." I had also met Carol Burnett at a party and thought she was a very intelligent person, not the silly dingbat she played so well on TV. I proposed her. Blatty thought it was a great idea, but the studio hated it and dismissed it.

R88 People will snipe at me for saying this, but none of Kubrick’s movies can be taken at surface value, not really. He made provocative movies to be sure, but he encoded layers of subversive meaning that went far beyond the surface level. The Shining’s surface layer is more ambiguous than that of a haunted house or a demonic possession, and the layers underneath are more specific. I think a little girl possessed by the devil frankly is just way too trite for the movies that Kubrick made.

Nobody does anguish like Ellen Burstyn

I was a student at Georgetown in the 1970s, and the film was our 'Rocky Horror'. It was shown regularly, and we should cheer for buildings as well as students/priests who served as extras in the crowd scenes. The Exorcist Stairs were a part of regular crew team training sessions, as well as an obstacle to tray down in heavy snowfalls.

Ellen has said Friedkin narrowed it down to her and Anne Bancroft. Friedkin had met Bancroft in a deli and decided she looked like shit. Then Burstyn got the part. Ellen said that’s not fair she (Burstyn) looks bad going to the deli. Friedkin said those are the brakes. So Bancroft was very close to getting it but wasn’t wearing makeup apparently that day.

Who are you quoting R89?

[quote]Friedkin said those are the brakes.

And right after that he pointed to the gas pedal, and ended with the clutch.

R96 And then he aimed the car down the Georgetown steps and into the Potomac. The devil made me do it, he said. Those are the brakes.

I do wonder if people regret turning down roles like this once the films become big hits.

I don't think people who weren't alive in the 70's can imagine what it was like to see this. There had never been anything like it and yet it drew very diverse crowds - all races, ages, etc. In some ways, it kinda brought people together as any good horror film should do. There's something about that experience that you have with a hundred+ strangers in a darkened room that you never forget.

Sophia Loren would have brought more of the actress-y quality the role required. Burstyn was too receptionist-y for the role.

My sister and her friends went to see it multiple times, mostly to watch the audience. Eventually they were thrown out for laughing.

“The girl vomited!! It is surely the work of the devill!”

Friedkin is the subject of a documentary coming out soon. In it he reveals that Max Von Sydow had a lot of trouble getting out “THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU” because he was an atheist.

Freddy Krueger makeup = hokey Hollywood special effects.

Freddy Krueger makeup on a little girl standing next to some dude with a priest’s collar = the most terrifying movie ever made.

He should have cast Doris Day or Kim Novak as the mother.

Or Lucille Ball

Vivian Vance would have been an extraordinary Regan.

1. the others outfit at the party was amazing!

2. i heard the scene where she gets the spinal injection is what made people pass out/vomit, not the the devil stuff.

3. I just saw a documentary on Netflix or Hulu with Fiedkin about supposed real life possession and it was stupid.

r105 Gary talked her out of it

The real name of the boy who was possessed is Ronald Hunkeler. He was born in 1935/1936. He's apparently still alive.

Linda Blair was really possessed during the movie.

R110 method!

R109 see R2

Max Von Sydow asked if the set of The Exorcist was cursed said “It’s just a movie”. Kinda puts it in perspective.

R113 Von Sydow is an ignorant heathen. The Exorcist was explicitly targeted by all the demons of pandaemonium mount in hell. Clearly the movie is more than a movie. It is more than an assemblage of grips and production assistants and techs and makeup artists. It is a work of God himself. That is has grossed half a billion dollars is inconsequential. It is not “just a movie.” It sprang whole from the fore of YHWH. It is holy. Von Sydow is a monster, a demon, Pazuzu!

There were several things about that movie and the time period.

It was more violent than other movies we had seen. We were still pretty innocent for the most part in that time period.

There is no proof one way or the other to say it can't happen to anyone.

It was based on a kind of true story.

These were things that weren't brought out into the open. You only whispered about them and you really didn't want to think about it. This brought it right out front and center.

It is something that can never be proven the same way God's existence can't be proven.

[R23] Was it true that when this movie first hit the theaters, people were throwing up in the theater and they passed out barf bags? Or was that just PR to hype the movie?

—Anonymous

I saw the movie on its initial run. I don't recall anyone vomiting, but a number of people did leave. Several were complaining about the profanity. I remember two girls in front of me leaving after one of them said she thought she was going to be sick.

Overall, it seemed more people were disturbed by the profanities.

OTOH, I also saw Mark of the Devil on its initial run, and we did have several women use their barf bags that were handed out to everyone upon entering the theater. That movie's violence was disturbing for the time.

[quote]Friedkin is the subject of a documentary coming out soon. In it he reveals that Max Von Sydow had a lot of trouble getting out “THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU” because he was an atheist.

It's called acting. I'm sure he had plenty of time to rehearse saying it.

It is pretty funny that actors can play cult members dedicated to devil worship, but saying “the power of Christ” is objectionable to their atheistic moral principles. Gimme a break.

I might be going against the grain, but I actually find this movie abhorrent. I think what they asked of Linda Blair - who actually had to say those profanities and mime acts of sexual violence - is way above what any child actor should be subjected to. The child who played Danny in "The Shining" was so shielded by Kubrick and his co-stars that he had no idea he was making a horror film. And the medical scene with the spinal injection - something creepy and lewd and pornographic about that.

Past that I didn't find it scary. I don't think the Devil or an evil spirit can waylay an innocent child because she plays with a board game. The understated lesson that a single mom (with a gay friend who ends up dead) is a natural target for this is bullshit. The religious material is bombastic crap I'd think any practicing Catholic would be offended by.

The hysteria surrounding this movie is fascinating, and the mini-documentary linked above is actually more terrifying than the film. But Jaws, Alien, The Thing, The Shining, even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, are all far better made and still more relevant movies than this one is.

I think the movie is quite conservative. Blatty was a devout catholic and friends with maclaine. Its almost like hes attacking her and other new agey actresses for their false religions.

[quote] The religious material is bombastic crap I'd think any practicing Catholic would be offended by.

Who gives a fuck about what offends practicing Catholics. I'm offended by practicing Catholics, not some horror movie that strives to scare/entertain.

I read the Blatty novel upon its original release on a camping trip with my family and our family-friends' families. (I was an impressionable 11-year old.) The one thing I remember most during this trip is the adults of the families entertained themselves by playing with a Ouija Board at night.

I own the Blu-ray of this film; though after viewing the film in the theatre years later, I'm still afraid to 'open that door' in my home by viewing it today.

The medical procedures that were performed on Linda Blair were abhorrent. The producers and director and Linda Blair's parents should have been prosecuted for that alone. The rest of it was just play-acting.

I would have loved to see Dunaway as the mother. That would have been interesting.

Great film. Still holds up today.

I'm pretty sure the medical procedures were play acting, too. It's funny, because I saw this as a kid and thought "I want to play that part. It looks like fun." I was laughing up a storm at the entire movie. I saw it in college and it was suddenly the horror masterpiece everyone had been raving about. In all fairness, I remember seeing Rosemary's Baby around the same time and finding it super boring. I rediscovered that one years later as well and realized what a masterpiece it was.

If Dunaway had played Chris, I think we'd all have been more scared for the demon.

[quote]I'm pretty sure the medical procedures were play acting, too.

As opposed to what -- actually performing them on the young actress??

I can handle the demonic stuff, but the watersports scene was too much.

I can handle the demonic stuff, but the two nuns-one cup scene was too much.

Linda Blair was quite shielded during the making of this movie. A lot of the stunts or explicit moments were performed by Eileen Dietz instead. During the crucifix scene, for example, she was just asked to put the crucifix in a box on top of her lap over and over--she had no idea what she was pantomiming...Although she did have to say the infamous line "Let Jesus fuck you." Eileen also performed a lot of the physical thrashing around and the shots that required special contraptions (the projectile vomiting, for example).

From interviews with cast and crew, Linda Blair was like an ultimate professional; when asked how she could do and say these things, and she replied "it's not me, it's Regan." There were two incidents on set that raised alarms for Blair's safety: the ice cold set during the exorcism scenes during which she was clad in only a nightgown (you can see her shivering in some shots), and the thrashing scene linked above, when the harness attaching her to the mechanism that caused her to violently bend at the waist came loose and left a gigantic bruise on her lower back.

Ellen Burstyn also almost broke her back during a scene where Regan smacks her across the room, and the stunt harness pulled her way too hard--off her feet--and she landed on her back. The camera panned down to capture her legitimate, pained reaction and lingered on it...this created tension between Friedkin and Burstyn that lasts till this day.

The hospital shots, while realistic, were fake. Linda's mom was a nurse in one of them.

I remember hearing that Friedkin would randomly fire off a gun on set just to keep tension up.

1974's ripoff 'Beyond The Door' was terrifying! Just the trailers on TV gave me nightmares!

Starring DL Fave, Juliet Mills!

R131 yeah Friedkin was quite the bastard on the set but he knew what he wanted. It paid off. I still think the film is a masterpiece.

As a (lapsed) Catholic, I really liked this movie. The book scared the shit out of me, but the "Catholicism" was more overt in the movie, so I felt very solid and secure. I knew what was going on, and that the devil could terrify, but not actually harm, unless the faith of the opponent was rattled, or the devil got a psychological advantage. So it didn't play on ME psychologically, because there were rules.

There are gay men who remain Catholics after coming out?????

Regan had probably traveled to the Dyatlov Pass.

"Oy vey, Maria- you're tellin' me to take my daughter to a witch Doctah?"

Barbra actually was fitted for costumes and reported for principal photography when the director was still Mike Nichols. She recorded three songs: "Leave Her To Heaven"; "Ste. Sinner"; and a rendition of "Autumn Leaves" that plays over the end credits.

All of this was returned to her after she bowed-out, and resides in a trunk in her underground mall.

NOW a warning???

R80 because many of them ARE and they HATE gay people like you

Why do you think.so many people from those countries want to come to America?

It's amusing to think of Regan down in the basement, making a papier-mâché cock and tits, then sneaking out to stick them on a statue of Mary.

[quote]—Gay men are so dumb somwtimes

Let it go r139. Evangelicals like you are a much larger and more immediate problem.

[quote]I remember hearing that Friedkin would randomly fire off a gun on set just to keep tension up.

He also slapped the priest (an actual priest) who played Father Dyer across the face before shooting the scene where Dyer gives Karras Last Rites. The priest's hands are shaking really badly, and it was because he was so shocked, not because he was acting.

Friedkin is an asshole.

Lol.

In the doctors scene, the nurse with the beard was an actual x-ray technician at NYU Medical Center where the scene was filmed. He managed to get a bit part in the movie. His name is Paul Bateson, he was a serial killer who killed gay men in the Greenwich area. He went to prison for one murder, but was suspected of six more.

[quote]In the doctors scene, the nurse with the beard was an actual x-ray technician at NYU Medical Center where the scene was filmed. He managed to get a bit part in the movie. His name is Paul Bateson, he was a serial killer who killed gay men in the Greenwich area. He went to prison for one murder, but was suspected of six more.

And this was the basis for the movie Cruising.

I was 9 when it was released and I thought the poster looked so cool I asked my dad to take me and he said sure. My mom said, George if you take my son to see that movie I will divorce your ass and take every dime you make until you die. When I finally saw the film as a teen I was glad she put her foot down.

To the poster who can't grasp why being possessed might upset the victim- while some possessions are culturally supported (in Hoodoo and Norse traditions, in particular), possession to a Westerner means total and permanent loss of self, and also doing harm to others. The character of Regan apparently felt this way, as evidenced by her carving "HELP ME" on her torso (from the inside).

Interesting books on more benign possessions and the people who experience them: Possession, Depossession and Divine Relationships by Diana Paxson and Drawing Down the Spirits by Raven Kaldera and Kenaz Filan. A book about not so wonderful possessions is Sinister Yoigs by David Gordon White.

*Yogis

In the novel Father Karras asks Father Merrin what is the purpose of possession. He says says that he thinks it's to torment the loved ones and the people around the one who is possessed, rather then any vendetta against a particular person, like sweet little Regan.

I suppose the head can spin around without breaking the neck because the demon is a supernatural creature and he's inhabiting Regan's body, so he's able to do that.

And by neither Linda Blair nor Tatum O'Neal should have won an Oscar for their fluke performances. The Oscar should have gone to the wonderful Madeline Kahn that year.

Bob Burns the drummer of Lynard Skynyrd went insane after he saw the exorcist.

There was an excellent podcast about the making of the movie last year. Inside The Exorcist.

It was gripping and scary.

R121, because this movie was used - very cynically -as a recruitment tool for the Catholic church.

It was an illusion, OP, just like when she turned into his mother. It’s not real. The demon is manipulating them.

Interesting, R148. I’m the non-religious (but spiritually investigative) person who doesn’t get the terror of the idea of demonic possession as long as it’s only physical. I knew nothing about the Norse idea of Odr, but it makes total sense to me as someone who writes and paints. Sometimes you’re taken over by something else that has a mind of its own so to speak, and it’s an ecstatic state when you’re simply witness to your body channeling ideas or images that don’t seem to be coming from you. It feels like the opposite of a “demonic” possession.

I'm probably the only one, but the most uncomfortable scene for me was when Reagan comes into the living during her mother's dinner party and urinates on the floor.

It just feels so real and shocking.

What a lame, bratty demon, R156. I’d be like, “seriously, Satan? This is what you do you keep your reputation? Piss on the floor?”

who needs to watch this shit when we're fucking LIVING it with pazuzu in the fucking WH!

LAH, LAH, LAH, LAAAAAH!

YOUR PRESIDENT SUCKS COCKS IN THE KREMLIN!

Somebody, PLEASE shit in my mouth!

The film scared the living shit out of me as a young teen in the late 90s. I couldn’t sleep for a week. Now I can watch it and sleep with it on. I loved the behind the scenes on set home movies released in 2010!

I wanna hear Linda Blair doing ALL the dialogue.

Consider the fact that there’s no way they could make this film today. It is still THAT constroversial.

I started laughing when Stinky urinated on the carpet.

But I guess I was wrong since so many fat straight chicks see that as proof of evil. No wonder JonBenet's mother killed her, all that enuresis.

People who can't handle a wee puddle of pee shouldn't have kids or pets.

You actually didn't have that many questions, OP.

Where the hell you came up with this shit is a mystery R151. I don't like censorship, but this site really should censor people like you that blatantly lie.

R30 and R87 cracked me up.

R85, for me the funniest part--watching the re-released version in 2001--was when the doctor lit up a cigarette in his office as he discussed Regan's brain scans with her mother.

The first time I saw the movie, though, was in 1996. I was on a long bus trip, and the movie was playing on a four-inch, black-and-white monitor, a few feet away from my seat. For a year afterwards, I slept with the lights on.

Tatum O'Neal SHOULDN'T have won the Best Supporting Actress that year because...

Her character was the central/lead role in Paper Moon. She should have been in the Leading Actress category.

(Like Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People...the MAIN role in the film)

I want a Season 3 of the TV show with DL Fave Ben Daniels

The woman that did the crab walk sued a few years ago and now gets proper credit. She actually wrote an entire book about it. I shit you not.

Wasn't the crab walk deleted from the original release and only restored when technology was good enough to erase the wires?

It was the first R-rated film I saw, in Australia, where it played at our local movie theater on a somewhat odd double bill with Ken Russel's The Devils. They probably thought they were both demonic horror films. I'd read the book and was desperate to see it but had to get a friend to buy our tickets as I looked less than my 16 years and you needed to be 18. In retrospect I was more scared that they wouldn't let me in than I ended up being by the movie. But as others have mentioned, Catholic friends were completely freaked out by it. Hammer vampires frightened me more than demons way back then but I still thought The Exorcist was great and, after reading this thread, I now want to watch it again.

[quote]I want to know how Tatum O'Neal beat her for the Oscar!

It wasn't Mercedes McCambridge revealing her as the voice, people were actually pissed at her. She signed on knowing she was supposed to keep quiet but it was such a phenomenon she couldn't help herself. It was because Tatum O'Neal was nominated in the wrong category. She is the leading role in the picture, even the book was called "Addie Pray", but The Academy refused to nominate a child in that spot.

[quote]She is the leading role in the picture, even the book was called "Addie Pray", but The Academy refused to nominate a child in that spot.

What a loser!

I always thought that was a weak answer, R39. The screenplay should have articulated it better or come up with a more believable answer/reason.

If a clear reason for the possession was given, it would have been less frightening. The randomness of the attack is a big part of what is so frightening.

one of my favorite movies ever, terrifying.

ive watched the exorcist several times and ive come to believe pazuzu orchestrated the possession to have a showdown with father merrick.

father merrick at the beginning of the film , sees the unholy statue of pazuzu UNCOVERED at an excavation, there is a shot of father merrick standing directly in front of the uncovered statue and it looks as if he is confronting the demon.

when father merrick enters the home to begin the ritual, the demon screams 'merrick'!, the demon was waiting for him and wanted this chance to kill him.

Odr wasn't what I was talking about, r155. I suggested books based on seidr and spae practices, which involve full archetypal possession. They are not about feeling more creative or "channeling an ecstatic state."

I've attended spae events and have sat across from someone who was being "ridden" by Odin. There were several continuous whirlwinds of leaves and dirt around her, and a definite sense of denser energy. Energetic disturbances are even more noticeable at hoodoo events, when the Loa completely take over someone's consciousness (commonly referred to as "horsing" the person).

At both types of rituals, there are people situated to help after a spirit leaves the horse's energy field, because most of them are confused, exhausted, and sometimes injured afterward by what they've done while horsing. There can also be detrimental effects of holding a much larger energy body in a smaller, human energy field. Horses (also called "mounts") rarely remember anything that happened during the time they were being ridden. Regardless of whether the possession is caused by psychological or otherworldly forces, possession is not a gentle occurrence that someone easily recovers from.

The TV show was pretty good, especially when it was revealed that Geena Davis' character WAS adult Regan. Second season was excellent.

R93, I went to Georgetown in the Eighties. They would show the film during Freshmen Orientation Weekend. It was fun to watch the movie to pick out how the campus had changed since the making of the film. The stairs near the home (exterior shots) on 36th ST NW and Prospect NW (where Fr. Karras dies) were known by everyone as "The Exorcist Stairs." Peter Blatty lived close to campus (I believe on Prospect).

[quote]The TV show was pretty good, especially when it was revealed that Geena Davis' character WAS adult Regan

That was a GREAT reveal. I had thought it was all kind of hum-drum, and then WHAM!

I gave them a lot of credit for being able to keep that under wraps. There were a few little bits like Tomas seeing a newspaper clipping about the deaths of Merrin and Karras, but they managed to keep a lid on it being such a direct sequel until that moment where she looks at Tomas and says "My name is Regan MacNeil."

I love how the film was released on December 26th.

Bye Mom, going to the mall to return the sweater and then we are going to see The Exorcist...

According to director William Friedkin, the studio wanted Audrey Hepburn, Jane Fonda or Anne Bancroft to play the part of Chris MacNeil. Friedkin also thought Carol Burnett would be good, but the studio hated the idea and dismissed it:

The studio wanted Audrey Hepburn, Jane Fonda or Anne Bancroft -- all very good actresses -- to play the actress whose daughter becomes possessed in the film. I would have loved to have any of them. But Audrey wanted to shoot the film in Italy, where she was living with her husband, an Italian doctor. Although I was a great admirer of the Italian filmmaking industry, that didn't feel like a good idea. Anne Bancroft was in the early stages of pregnancy and wanted to do it, but we would have had to wait a year. Jane Fonda, frankly, turned us down. She sent us a note saying, "Why would I want to appear in a piece of capitalist, ripoff bullshit?" A few months ago, I had dinner with her and I reminded her of that, and she said: "Wow, did I say that? It feels like another person." I had also met Carol Burnett at a party and thought she was a very intelligent person, not the silly dingbat she played so well on TV. I proposed her. Blatty thought it was a great idea, but the studio hated it and dismissed it.

Meanwhile, I was getting phone calls from Ellen Burstyn. She had had some decent but not starring roles, but there was something about her tone of voice that I responded to. I agreed to meet with her at a house she was renting in Beachwood Canyon. "Do you believe in destiny?" she asked me. "Yes, I guess so," I said. "Well, I'm destined to play this part," she said. And then we started to talk. She told me about her Catholic girlhood, how she left the church after a bad experience. But she had a quality which to me is the most important thing about an actor or actress, and that is intelligence. I felt she understood the story and was very keen to do it. So I lobbied for her, even though Ted Ashley said, "Ellen Burstyn will play this role over my dead body." But she became the last woman standing.

[quote]So I lobbied for her, even though Ted Ashley said, "Ellen Burstyn will play this role over my dead body."

And I laughed all the way to an Oscar nomination.

Boomers & WWII generation were brought up to be religious. I went to catholic school and all my catholic friends had tuna for lunch and fish sticks or shrimp chow mein on Friday nights. Catholic schools were packed. We had our own sports league. Nuns wore long robes and wimples. Priests were at the top of the heap. The rich families in the parish vied with each other to take the pastor out to dinner, to give the most expensive bottles of scotch as gifts. My Protestant friends sang in church choirs.

Rosemary’s Baby started off this examination of religion & occult in films. Is a God dead? Is the devil real? Are we threatened by things we can’t see? There was radioactivity & Air & water pollution with ions & chemicals we couldn’t see. There was a free floating anxiety - atomic bombs, ICBMs, the threat of what seemed like perpetual war (which eventually came true after Americans fought off the first attempt with Vietnam). So many worries. Spies infiltrating governments. We’d won WWII with the military, but could the military protect us from aliens? Could they protect us from spies? From crazy college kids who were making bombs and talking about some crazy political gobbledegook? From race riots in our cities?

I think rosemary's Baby started a conversation and The Exorcist ended it. After that, people were far less religious, so these kinds of movies became increasing cynical, hokey and violent in order to scare people. I was in catholic high schooo,when the Exorcist came out & nuns had given up the robes and wore simple black dresses that covered the knee and black pantyhose. The wimple was reduced to a straight scarf with white banding. No more breastplates or wings. In only a few years, habits would be completely gone & nuns would be wearing civilian clothes. Catholic school attendance fell precipitously and schools began closing. Religion was on its way out and instead of quoting the Bible or catechism, people were talking about vibes, peyote trips, teleportation, spirituality, EST, primal screams, mantras, gurus, meditation. Religion became more individualistic and less a common community experience.

And that’s why scary movies nowadays rely on zombie apocalypses, blood, gore, sound effects, screams and weaponry (guns, archery, knives, swords). Because the taboos of mainstream religions don’t really scare people anymore.

r185 i like your post.

R177 = Miss Emily Litella.

At the time I saw the film I’d heard max von Sydow’s name but hadn’t seen him in any films or any TV. I thought he really was an old man.

I thought The Omen was scarier than The Exorcist.

"I wonder what future generations will say about us when they discuss our current horror movies, and how they all seem to revolve around zombies and/or found footage. "

IMHO the popularity of zombie stories reflects our incredible anxiety about the way the bottom has fallen out of the world for so many working people. Jobs are vanishing, being replaced by computers or sent overseas, almost the moment a decent job is lost, a respectable person can turn into an exhausted, hopeless, unattractive, possibly drugged-up, shambling wreck.

And the vampire stories that were popular ten years ago reflects our fascination with the glamorous rich, who both dazzle us and ruthlessly feed on us.

[quote]"I wonder what future generations will say about us when they discuss our current horror movies, and how they all seem to revolve around zombies and/or found footage. "

Are you forgetting about "Get Out" which just won an Oscar last year for Best Screenplay?

Audrey Hepburn would have been awful. I can fully imagine Fonda and Bancroft being good though.

The Exorcist scares me so much that just reading this thread is creeping me out. Gurl bye.

I think all subsequent possession films forgot what made The Exorcist so shocking - it involved a sweet little girl. You can't get scarier than that. Seeing a 20/30-something career woman or mother getting possessed just isn't as scary or shocking. Oh, she cusses out her husband and kids? Please! Who hasn't? These days, seeing a young girl cussing probably wouldn't be super shocking like it was then, but I can bet seeing a young girl shoving a crucifix up her twat and literally shoving her mother's face in it would still get a huge reaction. The Exorcist had balls. It broke all the taboos we hold near and dear to us. About the only other thing they could have done was have Regan fist the family dog. It really went to those dark places that we're still not supposed to go.

The other possession films just can't compete. I've seen some that are enjoyable, but not another one will ever be as daring and frightening. The 70's had the best horror movies, because it seemed like anyone could die at any moment and no one was safe. Starting in the 80's, a lot of horror movies started getting predictable. The minute the "final girl" entered the frame, you knew she was going to be the one who'd survive at the end. There was no sense of real danger. Horror movies rarely pull the rug out from under you these days. Everything's so safe.

Speaking of religion and horror, there’s a fight going on in Dublin about a Magdalene Laundry building. The Japanese want to pull it down for a hotel & many women (and some men, too) want to make it a museum

Unlike today where a picture opens on 5000 screens "The Exorcist" opened in one theater in NY, The Cinema I & II on the upper East Side and the national in L.A. I don't know how they handled L.A. but it played to constant lines around the block for weeks and then Warner Bros. would add another theater but in New York City only, and the lines continued. They didn't go "wide' expanding to Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island, Jersey and such for 5 months and played over a year in theaters and was re-released twice. It was an event. Those days are long gone. The movie today would be on DVD/Blu-ray in 90 days.

R196 in the Richard Pryor hosted episode of SNL from December of 1975, he mentions The Excorcist in his monologue as if it was currently in theaters, and then there's an Excorcist sketch. The timing never made sense to me, only seeing it several years later.

Now I realize it must have gotten a rerelease at that time.

I saw The Exorcist on rerelease in a movie theater filled with African American teens. I can’t insgine seeing it any other way

Audrey Hepburn as Chris MacNeil? Can you imagine Hepburn doing that scene where Chris is shrieking obscenities into the telephone? It would have been laughable. Jane Fonda? She was not the right type; too hard, too brittle to play a distraught woman begging a priest for help for her possessed daughter. Ann Bancroft? She was not the right type either; she seemed to old and too tough. And CAROL BURNETT? Just goes to show you how crazy directors can be. Friedkin actually considered her for the role of Chris MacNeil? That is so nuts. Thank God Ellen Burstyn finally got the role. She seemed exactly right for it.

The actual case - as has been said many times - was a boy in the Baltimore-DC area in the late 1940s. But there was an exorcist at St. Louis University and the Jesuits arranged for the kid to go to St. Louis to see if a religious treatment could help. They kept him at the old Alexian Brothers Hospital, which had a psychiatric ward on the top floor. The exorcism occurred with all sorts of spectacular phenomena. The kid punched holes in the hallway wall as they wheeled him down, and the room they performed their rite in was unusable afterwards. I have two friends who worked there before they tore the old building down and they both said the same thing. The room was kept locked with a light on and it was strictly off limits, and this was in the 1980s, almost 40 years after the events.

The kid went back home without an instant cure but over time he did okay.

[quote] And CAROL BURNETT?

Why not? Mary Tyler Moore was good in Ordinary People. And Carol’s daughter was involved in drugs at the time, so she had experience with worrying about a child.

Robin Williams, Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey were all comedians who made the transition from comedy to drama. What makes you think carol Burnett couldn’t?

[quote] And then we started to talk. She told me about her Catholic girlhood, how she left the church after a bad experience

Now I’ll add Ellen Burstyn to my list of People I Thought We’re Jewish, But Aren’t. I assumed Burstyn was a creative anglicization of Bernstein.

[quote]Are you forgetting about "Get Out" which just won an Oscar last year for Best Screenplay?

...and is about creating zombies out of black people?

Bancroft would’ve been about 40 ish at the time. I would’ve love to have seen her take on the role. Burstyn however was inspired casting and worked out wonderfully.

Audrey Hepburn shouting obscenities would've killed "The Exorcist." That would've shocked audiences more than anything Linda Blair did.

Streisand is the only other actress besides Burstyn who would have worked in the role. The character of Chris needed to be vulnerable enough to elicit sympathy from the audience, yet tough enough to fight for her daughter. Hepburn was certainly sympathetic, but she was too weak to stand up to the demon.

Mary Tyler Moore would have been better than Burnett, for sure.

Also Shirley MacLaine probably would have been better than Burstyn. She would have been more convincing playing a successful actress, which is Ellen's biggest weakness in the role. It's a shame Shirley didn't get the part.

"Streisand is the only other actress besides Burstyn who would have worked in the role."

Oh, please. She would have been ridiculous, totally unlike what the character was supposed to be like. Carol Burnett would have been equally ridiculous. Imagine HER screaming obscenities in the phone and howling in pain and horror after having been knocked to the floor and having her face shoved in her daughter's bloody crotch. It would have been funny, not scary.

Buck never would have let me do "The Exorcist," R207.

burstyn is an excellent actor who offers a riveting performance in the exorcist

R203: she was born Edna Rae Gillooly. Names don't get any less Jewish than that. Burstyn was one of three husbands' names.

The link below says that Friedkin and Burstyn dated in 1973.

MacLaine always claims Blatty wrote the book based on her. Why didn't she get the role in the film? You'd think it would have been of interest to her considering her metaphysical interests?

[quote]Streisand is the only other actress besides Burstyn who would have worked in the role.

Had she gotten the role, she would have recorded something along the lines of "Evil to Want Me", the love theme from The Exorcist, and it would have played over the end credits.

[quote]Had she gotten the role, she would have recorded something along the lines of "Evil to Want Me", the love theme from The Exorcist, and it would have played over the end credits.

And if you want horror, recall the indelicate hand of Marvin Hamlisch scoring the thing.

If you read the book, it is clear that Chris is supposed to be MacLaine. I read it before I know about her relationship with Blatty and the physical description of her, the description of her career and public image are so clearly MacLaine.

[quote]in the Richard Pryor hosted episode of SNL from December of 1975, he mentions The Excorcist in his monologue as if it was currently in theaters, and then there's an Excorcist sketch

Your Mother sews socks in Hell!

I think Audrey Hepburn would have been brilliant. She really wanted to to do it and Friedkin wanted her but Warner Bros. would not agree to the Rome shooting. They shot in a warehouse in NY where they could refrigerate the bedroom scenes. Warner had a film festival at Radio City Music hall and I saw "The Exorcist" there. Friedkin and Burstyn came out after and talked about the film. He said they shot close to Radio City and he used to walk by on the way to work and said to himself, this is one film that would never play here since it was a family friendly only policy.

[quote]MacLaine always claims Blatty wrote the book based on her. Why didn't she get the role in the film? You'd think it would have been of interest to her considering her metaphysical interests?

Because between the publication and the movie she made her own possession film and blew her chance.

[quote]Your Mother sews socks in Hell!

Your Mama sews socks that smell.

The medical tests scene that apparently made everyone queasy.

"I think Audrey Hepburn would have been brilliant."

Audrey Hepburn screaming obscenities would have funny, not "brilliant." She would have sucked big time as the foul mouthed Chris MacNeil.

How about Bea Arthur as Chris MacNeil?

Why the hell not?

Hmmm...so the role of Chris McNeill calls for: red hair, maternal quality, tendency to curse at people when exasperated. And...in more than one scene she moves very briskly to answer the door. Damn it, DL! I can't believe you haven't mentioned the obvious actress who would have been a perfect fit for this role.

You know who would have been brilliant as Chris McNeill? Lauren Bacall.

She would have been perfect in every way. Don't you agree?

Lauren's too hard and tough. She has almost zero vulnerability.

Lee Remick could have been great as the mother.

I think Audrey Hepburn could have pulled it off, she could be a very good dramatic actress when she stopped being twee, as in "The Nun's Story". It's possible that she could have been absolutely brilliant at screaming into the phone, come across as someone who's so desperate that layers of good breeding that seemed deeper than the Marianna Trench had been stripped away.

But who knows, the book is pretty clearly about MacLaine, and frankly, she was never that good an actress, and never gave a rat's ass about her daughter in real life. It's just as well she didn't get the role.

I always thought it was odd that they cast Louise Fletcher in the sequel since she and Burstyn were often confused. As a kid before I saw the films but just would read about them I thought Fletcher had taken over the role of Chris.

Burstyn is so conspicuously absent from the second film. Regan is just left alone in the city as a teen while her mother is away and her doctor supervises her? I mean you don't do that with regular kids but especially not with ones who have been possed by demons.

[quote]Why do demons possess anyone? To gain access to our plane

So those of us who don’t own a plane are safe?

[quote]You know who would have been brilliant as Chris McNeill? Lauren Bacall.

Lauren Bacall’s Chris would have immediately known the best way to demean and humiliate Pazuzu, and he would have slunk away, embarrassed.

Lauren Bacall's Chris would have had her kids in boarding school like the real Betty Bacall did with hers.

[R223] How about Bea Arthur as Chris MacNeil?

Why the hell not?

—Anonymous

If Bea Arthur had played Chris, no Exorcist would've been needed. Bea would've beaten the Pazzuzu out of Linda Blair.

[quote]Audrey Hepburn screaming obscenities would have funny, not "brilliant." She would have sucked big time as the foul mouthed Chris MacNeil.

Honey, she had a huge hit with the very scary "Wait Until Dark" where she played terrified to an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination.

Was the script Audrey Hepburn read the same one that was eventually used to make the movie? I'm asking because I have a hard time believing she would ever agree to film scenes like the one where Chris has her head shoved against her daughter's bloody crotch.

[R234]

"Wait Until Dark" is nothing like "The Exorcist."

Pick out the scene in "Wait Until Dark" that is even comes close to the screaming obscenities scene in "The Exorcist" that posters are referencing.

Your'e hopeless R236.

When I was living among the evangelicals, the idea was that God would always forgive you, and you could never lose your place in Heaven, unless you stopped believing in His everlasting love. Loss of faith was the only unforgivable sin, really. But even if you committed that sin and repented, He would welcome you to Heaven like the lost lamb.

Catholics have the same loophole.

R23 as a 15-year old kid during the crucifix scene I went running up the aisle into the lobby. Where I waited until my friend came out at the end making fun of what was my first official MARY! moment in a long lifetime of them to come

In an alternative universe where this film could actually have been made decades earlier, which golden age actress would have been good for the role of the mother? Bette Davis? Katharine Hepburn? Who else? I can imagine Judy Garland acting the fuck out of this role. Elizabeth Taylor would have been awful. Barbara Stanwyck would have been amazing. Joan Crawford would have passed on it because of the similarity to Mildred Pierce ("I've already done the loving mother / troubled daughter picture").

Katherine Hepburn as Chris: "The Loons, Regan, the Loons! Stop acting like the Loons!"

Joan Crawford as Chris: "Pazzuzu, bring me the axe!"

Judy Garland as Chris: "Cursing and vomit and head spins, oh my!"

Bette Davis as Chris watching Regan vomit: "What a dump!"

[quote] It's a shame Shirley didn't get the part.

You are being facetious, right?

R12, the film rather misrepresents Pazuzu. He was the mischievous personification of the South Wind, hot and arid. Many held him to be a bringer of good luck, which is why his amulets and figurines are common finds in Iraq. In fact, he was considered the remedy to a far worse demon, Lamashtu, which afflicted pregnant women with complications and was held responsible for infant mortality. (Bear in mind that the ancients did not have our understanding of illness, i.e. the Germ Theory of disease; to them, everything was caused by invisible spiritual forces.) Pazuzu was considered the special protector of pregnant women and infants, who wore his amulets as an apotropaic charm against Lamashtu. Lamashtu was later identified as Lilith, with the same properties, and much the same superstitious practices, with the names of archangels placed above the crib, or the phrase, "Adam and Eve. Out, Lilith!" as the apotropaic.

R21, the Iraq intro has a context that isn't explained in the film (or in the book, I think). Because of the way the ancients viewed disease as being caused by supernatural beings, they called upon shamans, called ashipu, to cast out the malign spirit. This was done with a good deal of ritual mummery and the equivalent of raindancing, but frequently the heart of the ritual involved identifying the spirit by name, embodying it in the appropriate figurine, and ritually imprisoning it inside of a bottle or clay pot covered with spells or prayers (same thing, really) to contain it. The jar was then buried so that it would hopefully never be disturbed. In the Iraq opening to the film, either time or the diggers' shovels have broken a container holding such a figurine, and released the confined spirit loose upon the world. Spoiling for a confrontation with an exorcist after so many millennia, the spirit chose Lankester Merrin, who happened to be associated with the dig, and chose a victim which circumstance would place in Merrin's eventual path.

This underlying backstory about the jar and the figurine got all mucked up with Exorcist II: The Heretic, when the screenwriters postulated a pre-Iraq encounter between Merrin and "Pazuzu."

Can you imagine Burnett playing Chris as Eunice?

Let's keep on discussing this. It hasn't grown tiresome at all.

It's part of the DL pantheon, R248. And those interested learn new things each time.

Part III is terrifying and laid a certain stylistic groundwork for everything from Seven to Silence of the Lambs.

"When I was living among the evangelicals, the idea was that God would always forgive you, and you could never lose your place in Heaven, unless you stopped believing in His everlasting love."

Well that certainly explains why they feel so free to break all their own rules, they think hellfire is for other people.

I slept with a rosary and wore a scapular just in case.. I was convinced I was a good candidate for possession. Once I was so freaked out I slept in the bathtub. Yeah, I was a high strung, catholic kid.

Thanks R152 for pointing me in the direction of that Inside the Exorcist podcast - very interesting and as you say, scary. The most frightening bits were when they were talking about the supposed real-life case that inspired Blatty to write the book, especially the parts about the room in the hospital where the exorcism had taken place.

And I know what you mean R252 - when I was in my Hammer horrors stage I came across a few film tie-in books in second-hand shops which I read multiple times but would always turn them face down or cover up the cover before I turned out the light as if somehow the creatures could and just might escape from the pages if they weren't held down by a t-shirt or pillow case.

"Honey, she had a huge hit with the very scary "Wait Until Dark" where she played terrified to an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination."

Sweetie, she played a VERY vulnerable woman (blind and alone) being menaced by a criminal. Hepburn did vulnerability VERY well. But the idea of Audrey Hepburn screeching and foul-mouthed is beyond ridiculous.

Give it up, Old Queen Who Doesn't Want To Think Audrey Hepburn Would Swear!

We've all heard your point, heard it many times, and if we disagree then repeating yourself a dozen more times isn't going to change anyone's mind.

i saw an edited tv version of the movie when i was 11 yrs old in the 80s. i slept with the lights on in my room for weeks afterwards. scarred my gen-x mind.

The only movie in my life that had me not sleeping for days and keeping the light on all night was "Gremlins" - I was 7 when I saw it.

Now, it's since Trump won.

try watching the movie while you're high on PCP.

Give it up, Stupid Twat at R255 Who Envisions Audrey Hepburn Screaming Four Letter Words Like A Banshee. You don't speak for the masses ("we?") you silly twat. Just because YOU have a pathological desire to hear Audrey Hepburn cursing and watch her having her face shoved in her little girl's bloody crotch doesn't mean others share your bizarre fixation.

Hepburn would be ridiculous in the role (either one). Puh-lease.

Fonda and B could have each brought something interesting to it. I would've loved to see the B/Mike Nichols version, especially...

Would they have made Chris Jewish if B had played her? That would've added a whole other element to everything, if so. Intriguing to consider.

Okay, R259, if that's what you really want, we'll call you MMMMAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYY!!! from now on.

They used to show it at the midnight movie theater when I was in my late teens. We would all drop acid or smoke a shitload of weed and go see it. When Regan's head spun around the whole theater would erupt with applause and laughter.

I personally think the opening Iraq sequence is the scariest part of the film. The editing and sound effects are incredibly creepy and unnerving. It's still part of my yearly Halloween movie viewing.

R260, exactly. can you imagine how proper and prim hepburn would sound? It wouldn't make any sense. Just imagine hepburn staring at reagan as she stabs her vagina with a crucifix or even as she pees the carpet. It's impossible to imagine because it's ridiculous. I'm guessing her performance would remind me of Helen Lovejoy on the Simpsons: "Will somebody plllllllease think of the children (who masturbate with crucifixes and pee on my damn floor)!!!".

Carol Burnett is Eunice MacNeil!

"What do you mean you can't get Ed on the phone? He is staying where they are hosting the hardware convention in Minneapolis. Christ, you take an illiteracy test for that job...don't you tell me to fucking calm down!"

With index finger curved, " Now you tell me an exorcism won't do my kid any good!"

Do you think Liz Taylor was too old to play Chris in 1973? She starred in the films "Night Watch" and "Ash Wednesday" that year.

I ask because I think she would have been 10 times better than any of the other actresses mentioned. I think she would have been a revelation in the role.

Taylor would have been atrocious. She could not have handled the role.

As a compromise, how about Bea Arthur as Chris Meloni?

I saw William Friedkin at the TCM Festival this year and he did say Audrey was in negotiations but wanted to do it in Rome. He also told the story about Fonda that someone described higher in this thread.

He also spoke of how he had already signed Stacey Keach as Karris but Miller wanted the part so much he felt that dedication would pay off in the role so he tested Miller and thought he was perfect and bought out Keach's contract.

He also said Mercedes McCambridge insisted on actually being tied up and restrained so she could sound authentic when fighting them. (and she also started drinking again on the film even though she was an alcoholic but she wanted that slurrred sound.)

Brendad Ickson IS Chris MacNeil!

Fascinating and slightly creepy bit of an interview with Mercedes McCambridge. She actually went off the wagon intentionally in order to be more effective in her voice overs.

[quote] He also spoke of how he had already signed Stacey Keach as Karris but Miller

Stacy Keach as a Greek, Catholic priest from NYC would have made absolutely no sense.

gee that was interesting r270. It also shows how much she contributed to the performance. I always thought the voice was mechanically enhanced but she's able to do a lot of it right there. I can see how Blair lost the Oscar.

McCambridge didn't even get a screen credit until later. Now it says "And Mercedes McCambridge" in bold letters at the end of the credits.

Let’s talk about Lalo Schifrin’s original score. Now I agree that the score he wrote was not very strong, but Billy Friedkin was so coked up during the scoring session that, by the third cue, he stormed the podium and snatched the score right off the stand and started ripping pages out. The players were dismissed early. Friedkin then began the long process of scoring the film himself using “found” pieces like Tubular Bells, Threnody and Fantasia for Strings. In a weird way, it made the film feel almost more vérité and, frankly, scarier.

One of Lalo’s cues did make it into the trailer however.

(Lalo later “repurposed” large swaths of the Exorcist score for Amityville Horror—one of the great secrets of 70s Hollywood horror.)

Here’s the Schifrin cue that made it into the infamous strobe light trailer. Plus, if you skip to 1:03, you can hear The Exorcist Love Theme — yes, it was really going to have one (as did The Omen!) — you queens joking about Barbra Streisand recording a song for the closing credits had no idea how close to the truth you were! 🤣

Mercedes McCambrige is the greatest name ever.

Lucille Ball would have been excellent as the foul-mouthed mother. Too bad she was ancient by then, although that didn't stop her from getting cast in Mame!

Here's a still of Lucy right when she discovers her daughter with the cross

Here's a still of Lucy right after her daughter shoves her face against her vag

Lucille begging Father Karras for an exorcism for her daughter.

I love you R277 - 279

The thrown out score sounds like a poor man's Bernard Herrmann.

Tubular bells couldn't be any more perfect

This thread is so...fresh!

this thread is so...tired.

Not as tired as your ancient, cavernous pussy, R284.

[quote]if you skip to 1:03, you can hear The Exorcist Love Theme

That music starting at 1:03 felt like it belonged in a James Bond movie from the 1960s...I expected to hear Shirley Bassey's vocals.

Exorcism scene.

Second most frightening scene in Exorcist franchise is Linda Blair's acting at 1:31.

"I was possessed by a demon. It's OK though. He's gone now."

Most frightening scene is a tubby Linda Blair tapdancing on stage.

[quote]this thread is so...tired.

That's because you are here, skedaddle, scoot scram.

A Rome location might have been good, kind of like the Omen where they were diplomats. Washington/Georgetown really worked. It wouldn't seem to because DC is is not a bastion of Catholicism like NY, Boston or Philly but I liked the Georgetown locations in fall.

if you got scared, just laugh....

We have an Exorcist thread every 6 months here on DL. We love Satan!!

My God, Linda Blair was such a pudge in Exorcist II. Couldn't she at least have gotten herself in shape considering she had to do "dancing" in the role? But maybe her cute, chubby little girl look was considered a contrast to all the evil goings-on in the movie. I know that was a major reason she was cast for Regan in the first place: her cutie-pie, chubby face was considered a great contrast to the gnarly face of Pazuzu.

Even back then she was seen as FAT in the sequel. And fat girls weren't as widespread then as they are now. She was the type who could have had the fattest ass in the whole school. But she had big tits so she would have been popular for parties.

I love the movie (original and 3) but who in the hell hasn't seen the movie that matters? kids? they will not get it so don't bother.

The walk-home-on-Halloween scene with tubular bells in the background is so bizarre. It’s summertime, the trees are full and green. Turn the corner and brown leaves are being blown around by the wind.

Look to your left — it’s summer again. Now we see one tiny branch with red leaves planted in a fully green leafed tree. Here come the brown leaves again. Is it summer? Is there a drought? No. It’s halloween! I can tell because masks.

I think they did the same thing in the movie Halloween. It’s supposed to be the Midwest on the last day of October but everyone is walking along streets with leafy green trees. Then a few brown leaves scoot across the sidewalk.

My turds are the size of my fuckin forearm!

At the TCM Festival a woman asked Friedkin if the scene at r282 when tubular bells starts and the nuns habits blow in the wind was supposed to be the moment evil entered the story. (I always thought that too.)

I was shocked when Friedkin said he had never heard that theory before.

One of the spooky things about Exorcist 2 is that Linda Blair appears to be rehearsing for a high school musical of 42nd Street.

42nd Street wasn't even a stage musical at the time the movie was made, and wouldn't open on Broadway for another 4 years.

🎃👻🎃👻🎃

[QUOTE]I think they did the same thing in the movie Halloween. It’s supposed to be the Midwest on the last day of October but everyone is walking along streets with leafy green trees. Then a few brown leaves scoot across the sidewalk.

Halloween was shot in Pasadena in the spring, hence the green trees (I suppose it doesn't matter what season it was really). The brown leaves were props they had to reuse for each scene. They also had a lot of trouble finding pumpkins.

Wow Ellen Burstyn born Edna Rae Gillooley. That fucking name needs an exorcist. Your Edna Rae sucks Gilloolies in hell.

I think the Demon Pazuzu haunted the rest of Linda Blair's career!

Blair seems to have possessed by something after doing the Exorcist. She began an affair with Rick Springfield; she was 15, he was 24. Her parents, especially her stage mother, were of the "anything my little movie star's heart desires" school of parents and they allowed Blair and her lover to live together in the family home. After that ended she became a coke-snorting groupie; the columnist Lisa Robinson said that it wouldn't be a rock concert without the presence of Blair. She would party with the likes of Keith Moon and Ozzie Osbourne and Linda Lovelace and she would screw just about anything with a record deal, including the super freaky Rick James. She got busted for cocaine and her career tanked, due to her drug use and lack of talent. She tried to reinvent herself as a sex symbol but her nude photos made her look more ridiculous than sexy. She eventually became absorbed in animal rights issues and that's mostly what she does now. Her one memorable performance, and that was mostly due to special effects, was in The Exorcist. That was her shining moment: spitting pea soup, screaming obscenities at priests, and fucking a cross and shoving her mommy's face in her ravaged crotch.

Night Patrol was hilarious.

r304 she was typed cast after this film, no one could see her as anything else.

"Wouldn't she have died after her head snapped around..."

OP, I've wondered that very same thing! Everything else in the movie was so realistic, that head business sticks out like sotethuumb!

A friend of mine had a less than pleasant encounter with Linda Blair at a horror convention and I've heard so many other horror stories from other people to lead me to believe she's a very unhappy, bitter woman. Also, according to my friend, she doesn't believe that she's ever made a horror film in her life. Yes, that's right the star of one of the most famous horror films of all time has never made a horror film. I hate when actors get all pretentious and stuffy and say horror films are "religious thrillers" or something dumb like that.

Maybe she needs an exorcism?

She made "Hell Night" which is certainly a horror film. And rather a good one, in which she is rather good.

"...in which she is rather good."

That's because during the filming she was possessed by Pazcucu (or wtf it's called).

[quote] One of the spooky things about Exorcist 2 is that Linda Blair appears to be rehearsing for a high school musical of 42nd Street. 42nd Street wasn't even a stage musical at the time the movie was made, and wouldn't open on Broadway for another 4 years.

Posts like r300 are why I keep coming back to DL!

Is the Exorcist 2 worth watching at all? Does it have any camp value?

I was inspired to rewatch The Exorcist last night becuase of this thread. For some reason I've seen the 3rd, but never the 2nd.

R313 There's some camp, but no value.

[quote]Halloween was shot in Pasadena in the spring, hence the green trees

The exterior shots of the houses were filmed on a street in Hollywood, just off of Sunset- Orange something or other Avenue, if I remember correctly. I went on a Haunted Hollywood tour and we rode down that street. At that time, Johnny Depp still owned property on the corner.

The majority was shot in Pasadena, though the Doyle and Wallace houses were in Hollywood.

The Myers house was in Pasadena, but moved (though still in Pasadena), and is now partly occupied by a real estate company, which is slightly ironic.

Disturbing stuff!

Another freaky scene. The book describes the room as smelling of rotten sulfur when the demon presents itself.

Thanks for sharing, r298.

Did you enjoy that?

I must be the only one, but I really enjoyed Kitty Winn's performance as Sharon in the film. She didn't get a lot of lines or much of a storyline, but she did a good job displaying subtle horror in a film racked with overacting.

Did R47 write a whole lot of nothing or am I just really fucking high?

[bold]BEYOND THE DOOR[/bold]

The movie is supposed to pro-Catholism, but is it? The exorcism failed. The main exorcist (the older priest) was killed by the demon during the exorcism. The younger priest didn't use religion to kill the demon. He tricked it and then killed it (and himself) in the process. Maybe his sacrifice for the girl was similar to Jesus' sacrifice for man. It's similar to Jesus' sacrifice for mankind perhaps.

i think so too r324

We're up to the 326th post, yet there are still so many unanswered questions. Come on, people. More posts here! More questions! More tangents!

Father Merrin died of a heart attack or something. He was old. The demon may not have helped, but he did not kill him. He does not actually kill anyone.

Doesn't he kill Burt Dennings?

R313 The director John Boorman always has has problems with narrative and plot structure. It has good cinematography and interesting effects. That being said the plot is extremely convoluted. Scorcese clamied that the sequel was better than the original. I think Marty must have been possessed himself!

[quote] Doesn't he kill Burt Dennings?

Regan killed Burke Dennings. No wonder her mother went splitsville in Exorcist II. She couldn't stand to be around the little murderess!

I always thought the film missed out on a potetinally terrifying sequence by not dramatizing Deming’s murder.

Imagine the drunken old sod, left to babysit Regan, pouring himself a stiff drink in the den, suddenly hearing a series of crashing noises upstairs, then heading up to investigate...

Good stuff here. Let's explore this movie from all angles and exhaust all possible theories and behind-the scenes intrigue. This is important stuff.

So important that you bothered to click on the link, read through the thread and then shit on it to prove your superiority, eh, R332?

Beat it raw, people!

R332 should leave this thread and go masturbate with a crucifix instead.

R335 - Take your meds, dear. And stop fixating on a 45-year-old movie. You need to get outside and breathe some fresh air. Go carve a pumpkin. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Your mother worries about you.

[quote] Your mother worries about you.

Your mother sucks cocks in hell.

...or learn Canasta. Do something with your life.

R338, for someone who claims that this thread is beating a dead horse, you have made so many replies to it.

Oh, dear!

Sacrebleu! It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Never saw the movie when I was a teen as I was too terrified though all my friends went in Manhattan. I went with them because it was exclusive then and you had to see it in NY. Instead I went with another friend to see a matinee of Words and Music with Sammy Cahn. There were I guess very few options up at TKTS.

I remember people having seen it and having been horribly shaken and frightened by it. Watching these excerpts now it seems laughable(Like Mercedes says finish your popcorn) though it eerily captures the ridiculous catholic hysteria I knew as a child. You didn't have to be sexually abused to be abused by the church.

I imagine seeing it with a packed audience of African-American teens would be one of the ultimate movie experiences. They would totally get it and have a great time.

i like to kick back and finger my pussy every evening. so relaxing and satisfying.

I find the sound of the two dogs fighting to be the most unnerving thing in the film.

....

I've been busy watching Mobility Mary videos. Love that bitch!

[quote]Jason Miller is so

Not as intense as what his son did in front of my house!

I'd like to know if any of the butler scenes had originally planned to be expanded upon. It's been a while since I read it, but in the novel Karl has a daughter who is a heroin addict, and their story is a fairly substantial part of the book and kind of reflects Regan's inner battles with her demon. In the scene where Karl goes out to by traps and Chris says "well don't go now Karl, the shops aren't even open" kind of sets it up he was sneaking away to give the daughter money to buy heroin.

[quote]Kind of boring when you watch it now. The Nun movie is better.

F&F for R46. Christ, are we doomed as a society.

[quote]Good stuff here. Let's explore this movie from all angles and exhaust all possible theories and behind-the scenes intrigue. This is important stuff.

Yeah, everyone should be ashamed. Now let’s get back to Part 46 of our series about Tommy & Gio.