The Exorcist (1973)

Too demonic

Longest line I ever stood in to see a movie.

Fake fake fake

Best horror movie ever made.

Still one of my favorite movies all time.

I was a kid and too young to see it when it first came out in theaters, but I remember seeing reports on the news of people fainting during screenings or throwing up. I think most of those reports were studio-generated to bring in audiences.

I finally saw it on the big screen when they re-released it around 1980, I think. It didn't make me sick and it didn't make me faint, but I thought it was a brilliant horror movie with terrific performances all around, especially by Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair.

We had the 45 single of the "Tubular Bells" theme song, and on Halloween, we'd decorate our house and my brother would put a big stereo speaker up in the window and blast the record. I'm sure our neighbors hated us.

Mercedes became a regular on the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre. She played humans.

Regan

I liked Lee J. Cobb in this. Something about him was comforting.

I was 12 years old - my Mom's best friend took me. I had read the book already (unbeknownst to my Mom), so had an idea what to expect. But for this 12-year old, it was a truly memorable, and terrifying, experience. I have re-watched it a few times since, mostly just to laugh at the special effects, but in 1973, oh boy!

Max von Sydow was only 44 in this. They aged him to look 70.

Ellen Burstyn pulls the whole movie together, and I'm glad she's embraced its legacy. I love the story she tells of how after it premiered, she snuck into a screening and a woman fainted in the aisle. Ellen ran over to help and realized that seeing Ellen standing over her as she gained consciousness wouldn't help at all, so she called over her companion and made sure she was tended to as she took her seat.

R11 interesting! I did not know that. Burstyn is an actress I do not know a lot about.

In a perfect world, Linda Lavin would have portrayed Chris MacNeil.

🎶 There's a nuuuuuu demon in TOWWWWWnnnn 🎶

Cuts to possessed Regan (Philip McKeon) vomiting warm pea soup on Chris's tired feet.

Beth Howland as Sharon.

Marvin Kaplan as Father Karras.

Vic Tayback as Father Merrin.

Martha Raye as the voice of Pazuzu!

Ellen reprises her role in the upcoming sequel.

R13 And who would you put as Lt. Kinderman? Polly Holliday?

Terrifying. Music makes the hair stand on end.

[quote]and LINDA BLAIR as Reagan.

Nancy?

I am in love with Father Karras. Good hearted but tortured and conflicted, lonely, a good son, darkly handsome, selfless. I refuse to acknowledge Exorcist 3 where they completely shit on all the good the character did (no wonder Dahmer was a fan of that one and not the original one.

Also that crazy connection to Cruising from 1980 via the real life radiologist/serial killer is dome of the best movie trivia I ever heard.

What if George C. Scott played Kinderman instead of Lee J. Cobb?

How would he fit into the movie?

R18 Dahmer was probably a fan of that one because it felt autobiographical. Authentic serial killer representation is so lacking.

Some scenes can be funny. Like when she tells the doctors to fuck her while waving her arm and thrusting her crotch out. When the exorcism starts, the demon orders Karras to fuck Merrin (Fuck him, Karras!), as if he is supposed to stop everything to have sex.

I studied intermediate Greek with this guy.

The priests were better actors than some of the actors. I couldn't believe Father Dyer was played by an amateur.

The pacing of the film is just perfection, it is such a true classic.

Ellen Burstyn is probably one of the greatest actors in the history of film, but because she's so decidedly private and unglamourous, she probably will never have the legacy that other less deserving actors do. Her body of work is astonishing. She gives The Exorcist the authentic humanity that moves it out of the realm of graphic, demonic possession 'porn' into, an at times, poignant story.

R25 yeah, but it is nothing but a capitalist piece of shit

Ellen Burtsyn MADE this film. She modulates her performance from loving to slightly haughty to chastened to wrenching anguish perfectly. And the real spine of THE EXORCIST is its portrayal of a mother's fierce love for her child.

I enjoyed the TV series on Fox a few years back, but was furious when they brought back Chris MacNeil (played by Sharon Gless - horrible recasting!) only to have her murdered by a possessed Regan. Hack TV writers should never have been given permission to kill off an iconic movie character.

Worse still, they wrote Chris and Regan as having been estranged for years because Chris wrote an exploitative tell-all about Regan's possession to make a fast buck, a total betrayal of the characters we saw in the film. It never would have happened.

I'm glad the TV version is apparently being ignored for the new film.

R23 And like all Catholic priests, he was accused of molestation.

That's par for the course, isn't it?

Wow, the letter Mccambridge's son wrote her...what a piece of shit.

The best horror film ever made. But millenials think it's lame. Sad.

Max von Sydow was repulsed by hearing Linda Blair cuss up a storm. He was such a gentlemen that he genuinely forgot his lines.

Stands up remarkably well and hardly feels dated. Good acting all around. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Paul Bateson (the serial killer found liable for at least one of the body-parts-in-the-Hudson murders that inspired "Cruising") played the radiology tech. Creepy.

I find it funny when people complain about the pacing. The slow pacing is what makes the scares so much better. For me, the scariest moment in the movie is when the possessed Reagan is on the bed near the end of the movie reaching out her hand and you see the statue of Pazuzu to the left of her. For some reason, that image has burned itself into my brain and I can't forget it.

Oh man, I keep forgetting it's spelled "Regan" not Reagan

You know what she did? Your cunting daughter?

[quote] You know what she did? Your cunting daughter?

It took until Mommie Dearest to get another dual camp-horror classic.

R34, exactly! The film takes an incredible amount of time connecting you to the characters, expertly, emotionally. It lulls you into the dread filled world and then BAM, “we” walk towards that closed door “with” the priests as the roller coaster begins. Can you a imagine modern horror film allowing that slow build up?

R38 no way. Burkes, Sharon, Father Dyer, and Lt. Kinderman would have been murdered if it was made today.

I only feel safe watching it while holding rosary beads and a bible.

I hate what they did to Sharon's character in Exorcist: The Heretic.

R38, exactly, I think that's one reason why horror films today are so terrible. That plus CGI.

R41, same, I still don't understand why she killed herself at the end, it made no sense. Where did that even come from???

I don't and haven't paid attention to any of the sequels or spin off shows...I know I shouldn't be surprised at this point but they could have at least once defended the integrity of the og film.

R44, consider yourself lucky. I still don't know what the hell John Boorman--a very good director who directed Point Blank, one of the greatest movies ever--was thinking. He hated the original and wanted to release a movie he felt would be kind of an antidote to the first; big mistake. If you have no clue why a film is successful (as was the case here), you shouldn't make a sequel of it.

I've never watched any of the sequels/remakes/tv shows. It begins and ends with the original.

It should have won the oscar.

R44 The Exorcist III is good. It's more of a slasher thriller though. The tone and direction are totally different. It focuses entirely on Kinderman and fleshes him out a lot more.

Totally tubular! Hell’s bells!

I waited three hours, with my Dad, on line at the Bruin Theater (?) in Westwood. I was a 11 and 1/2…we had a blast watching the movie. He took me to Hamburger Hamlet afterwards.

Stick your cock up her ass you worthless cocksucker!

Did the TV version really say your mother sews socks in hell?

Yes it did, R51,

Friedkin was something else.

He still is... but he was back then too.

[quote] Creepy as Hell Music by Jack Nitzsche

I thought the music was by Mike Oldfield. "Tubular Bells", the music most associated with the film, was created by him.

The new movies will undoubtedly suck, just like all the others.

Unengaging concept films with tonnes of CGI, built around a single twist, like young Merrin in The Heretic, Karras is still alive in Part III, 'A Clean Regan' in the series.

""Regan" got her name from "King Lear." The nutty Chris McNeil named her after one of King Lear's awful daughters. In the novel, Chris remembers that "she almost named her Goneril", after another one of King Lear's awful daughters. She never considered named her Cordelia, after Lear's GOOD daughter?" Chris McNeil was nutty, like the woman she was based on: Shirley MacLaine.

They’ll be fainting in the aisles

R57 great audiences, so much fun

I think the 3rd is overrated. Feels like a 90s (cable) TV movie to me. And George C Scott's hambone performance drives me crazy. One good scare...in the hospital. The statues and shit are creepy I guess. But it tries too hard, and has nothing to say. What it tries to say comes off as heavy handed and overwrought. I *wanted* to like the second one, just because I had heard it was godawful, over the top, shiteous - but it wasn't the fun kind of bad. Just bad. The first film was lightning in a bottle. Have loved (and obsessed over) that film since I first saw it at age 9...THIRTY years ago, waaaah.

My only question was, why did the devil/Pazuzu/whoever randomly decide to torment the McNeils? I never got that...like, why not fuck with a devout Catholic family who already believed in good and evil - and see if you could get them to like, lose faith in God or something? Chris McNeil was an admitted atheist, divorcee, etc... You'd think that she and her daughter would have already been on the devil's good side by default. Instead, he probably turned them into big ol' Christians when they realized that help from the church would save Regan.

R56, the real child the story is based on was named Ronald. The girl was named Regan. Get it? Ronald Reagan.

I love that Friedkin through the soundtrack made for the film right out the window - literally.

R61 Who was governor of California at the time.

Blatty and Friedkin have denied the name had anything to do with Ronald Reagan.

R61 I thought the real boy was Roland?

I first saw the edited TV version while it was broadcast against the ‘80 Winter Olympics, which my dad wanted to watch, so he had to do so on the B&W Tv in the bedroom. My mom, 9yo sis & I watched on the color Tv in the family room. Both parents had seen it in the theaters & I don’t know how we persuaded them to let us watch it, I think I said it was edited for tv & can’t be thaaaaat bad.

Well, when the head spinning scene came up, my mom warned us, & I had what I can only describe as an out of body experience. Either that or I fainted briefly. Right around that time my dad came into the room to get some water, & started talking like Linda Blair’s character, which caused my sis to go into hysterics, thinking he was possessed. I was too out of it to realize what was going on.

My parents moved my sister’s bed into my room & we had to sleep in the same room for about a month, that’s how bad it screamed her up. To this day she can’t watch the movie or even talk about it. God forbid a clip comes up of it during the Oscars, she has to close her eyes & plug her ears.

I remember not being able to sleep that first night, we slept with our mom that night & I guess Dad slept in my bed. I think I probably had heart palpitations for the first time (which I developed about 15 yrs later from watching Se7en). Despite the trauma it caused, I’ve seen it about 10x since, read the book, & watched both sequels, the prequel, & the tv series. I agree 100% with the rave reviews for Ellen’s performance. Around the time we saw this on tv, we saw her in the movie Resurrection which I was convinced had something to do with the Exorcist & worked myself into a frenzy. That movie hams a scene where a girl gets a bloody nose & Ellen’s character heals her; somehow I worked this out as being the onset of another demonic possession…

Resurrection is an excellent film with Burstyn as a woman who discovers she has the ability to heal after an accident. She refuses to put the ability in a religious context which pisses people off.

I might be in the minority but I think the long Iraq sequence in the beginning was superb and I wanted even more of it.

[quote]R54: I thought the music was by Mike Oldfield. "Tubular Bells", the music most associated with the film, was created by him.

Yes, but it's only a small excerpt used twice in the film ('Walking Home,' 'End Credits'). There's a lot of pieces of music in the film, by a lot of composers - Hans Werner Henze, Krzysztof Penderecki, Harry Bee, Les Baxter, etc.

Here's one of Jack Nitzsche's contributions:

[quote]R60: My only question was, why did the devil/Pazuzu/whoever randomly decide to torment the McNeils?

It wasn't random. The objective was to stage a rematch with Father Merrin, who had once exorcized him in Africa, and to beat him. The demon was able to anticipate that, several moves ahead, attacking the McNeils would inevitably lead to Father Merrin's assignment to the case.

R69 and R60 and she played with a Ouija board

Lots of people play with Ouija boards, R70. No one else gets answers like Regan did.

It wasn't about the McNeils or anything they believed or didn't believe, did or didn't do. They were simply collateral damage.

My friends Mom took me to see this when I was 13. My Parents wouldn't let me see it. It scared the ever loving hell out of me. When Regan came down the stairs in that backwards spider walk, it freaked me out. Jason Miller was great, and he's the reason I watch it from time to time. Good God though, the experience of seeing that movie as a kid was... quite an experience. The 70's, I do miss that era.

[quote]R72: My friends Mom took me to see this when I was 13. My Parents wouldn't let me see it. It scared the ever loving hell out of me. When Regan came down the stairs in that backwards spider walk, it freaked me out. Jason Miller was great, and he's the reason I watch it from time to time. Good God though, the experience of seeing that movie as a kid was... quite an experience. The 70's, I do miss that era.—Yes, I'm old.

Except that the 'spider walk' was not part of the original theatrical version - it was added to 'The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen' (2000).

R13 I love you!

R72 fake post. Imagined it in his lame brain.

R65 you are obviously neurotic.

Your dad sounds cool.

Ellen Burstyn, Lee J. Cobb, and Max von Sydow were veteran actors who gave great performances.

But the unknowns were better- Jason Miller, Linda Blair, William O'Malley, Kitty Winn, etc.

Pazuzu was interested in Regan because she had psychic healing gifts, her unique powers were demonstrated in the Exorcist II, but I think Blatty hints at them in the novel too.

You're all gonna die up there

R78 Regan is barely mentioned in the novel. She misses her father and feels rejected by him, then she gets possessed. I think it's mentioned that she had behavioral problems before the start of the novel.

As others have written, the demon wanted to crush the faith of the priests, it chose the young girl to draw them in for the battle. The fight was announced long before when Merrin saw the artifacts in Iraq, using an innocent child to ruin was just a part of the destruction of the spirit.

Opportunistic spirits often prey on pubescents children. They have they openness amd trust of younger children yet are filled with the intense emotions of teens. It's a perfect storm.

Interesting, R66, she plays the daughter of a woman (Blake Lively) who never ages or dies.

I recall opening night in Westwood, CA. Lines were insane, around the block X3, plus I believe it was raining. I thought it was rather stupid. I'm not religious, so all of the religious undertones meant nothing to me. I was upset that I stood in line to see the thing. I've never watched it a second time, either as a rental or when it played on TV.

When I first saw it, I always thought that the dig is what set the demon free. And the demon apparently flew all the way to Georgetown to slip through Regan's open window. Yeah, I know. I was a kid.

I thought the same thing r85.

I recognize the scene now as foreshadowing of the Priests showdown with that demon.

Is the demon the devil?

In the second film it is Pizzuzzu.

[quote]I still don't know what the hell John Boorman--a very good director who directed Point Blank, one of the greatest movies ever--was thinking. He hated the original and wanted to release a movie he felt would be kind of an antidote to the first; big mistake.

I'd only seen a few scenes from Exorcist II: The Heretic before last month. With a few hours to kill in "horror season," I thought I'd give it a fair viewing on HBO Max. I was aware of its reputation as one of the worst big-budget movies ever, the stories of audiences laughing hysterically at it in 1977, the 3.8 out of 10 it has today from IMDb users.

It really is awful, and it's a special kind of awful you need talented people, a lot of money, and unwavering self-belief to achieve. The acting by Burton and the entire female cast is terrible; only Von Sydow and James Earl Jones are decent. And the bizarre set design! Louise Fletcher's therapy office with glass walls on all sides; the inadvertent-suicide recipe that is the terrace of the high-rise apartment in which Regan lives...

I'm glad this was not a career killer for Boorman. As you note, he's usually much better. His Hope and Glory (1988) is one of the superior examples of the "autobiographical boyhood nostalgia" movie (Amarcord, Radio Days, Avalon, The Long Day Closes, Roma, etc.).

I never understood how the demon chose Regan to posses. Just because she played with a Ouija board?

[quote] It really is awful, and it's a special kind of awful you need talented people, a lot of money, and unwavering self-belief to achieve.

It is a tremendous movie to watch stoned!

It took me a long time to decide to watch it. The scariest movie I’ve seen.

[quote]the inadvertent-suicide recipe that is the terrace of the high-rise apartment in which Regan lives...

Even more bizarrely, this scene at Regan's apartment was filmed 35 floors above the street at the top of the Time-Warner Building at Rockefeller Plaza, in a specially built set that actually had no railings.

Surely you jest R91!

[quote]R89: I never understood how the demon chose Regan to posses. Just because she played with a Ouija board?

No. The Ouija board came after, not before. The house already was exhibiting signs of a presence, with the attic sounds, and Regan's art was becoming... peculiar. It's possible that the demon drew Regan's attention to the Ouija board, to use as an interface in order to better converse with her. From the kinds of questions Regan began asking her mom, it was apparent that all sorts of things, somewhat untoward, had been suggested to the child.

The way the McNeil family was selected had to do with all sorts of factors invisible to humans, having a bearing on their social circles, and the probability that an eventual appeal would be made to the local Catholic parish, which would have the authority to send Lankester Merrin, the demon's desired opponent. Although the McNeils were not particularly religious, the demon took steps to make certain that the Church was suggested as a possible avenue for help, i.e. the crucifix planted in Regan's room, Chris McNeil noticing the 'intense young priest' from across the campus.

I love to say "Why you do this to me, Dimi?"

[quote] James Earl Jones are decent

When a guy in a bee costume is your best actor, you know you're in trouble. Burton sounds like he's in completely different movie, he was probably drunk throughout the movie.

The music, Tubular Bells scared me more than the movie did

"The Exorcist II would be a classic if it was made in any other language other than English"

It would be nice if you weren't a liar, R72.

Yes, the music and sound effects are an important element in the film. ..

The filmmaker used NO SOUND during Father Damians nightmare where he is yelling for his mother and she disappears into the subway without hearing him. You only hear Father Damien breathing and muttering.

Disturbing and impressive film making

Captain Howdy? That is a fucked up name.

The horror film, Smile uses some of the techniques The Exorcist created, specifically the use of music to create a uneasy feeling of dread.

"Daaaaaamn, bitch be pissin' all over the floor!"

Why I never liked the movie and don’t care about it is it’s strangely impersonal (aside from Burstyn’s sometimes emotional performance.) It’s cold and visually ugly, to my taste.

It doesn’t have the glow of anything special about it. It’s just a machine. And the story doesn’t really make a lot of sense, despite r94’s try at an explanation.

I mean, Pazuzu Takes Georgetown? Why?

[quote]R101 Captain Howdy? That is a fucked up name.

It could be fine for a pet, maybe.

R104, its an ugly film in a lot places, grim. It doesn't even have a happy ending. Father Merrick explains exactly why the demon chose an innocent for its instrument, to break the faith of the believers.

Great film and holds up well, effect and story. Ellen is superb- so perfectly believable.

The Exorcist looks fantastic the way it is. Of course it's "ugly", that's the point.

[quote] I love to say "Why you do this to me, Dimi?"

I only say that in bed.

BTW, the trailer for the film is a masterpiece too. It gives nothing away. You would never know how horrible the film is based on the subtlety of the trailer.

[quote] : I never understood how the demon chose Regan to posses.

R94 explained it well, but I remember Father Merrin explaining it off as "to make us despair," which I found an unsatisfactory explanation at the time.

Horrible = horrifying

Horrifying is much deeper than horrible. Unless you’re a mincing prisspot.

A sandwich can be horrible.

Maga= Pazuzu

Maga wants American democracy to not exist. Pazuzu wants to break the faith of the believers.

American democracy means a Black man can be elected to become President, twice. This is deeply offensive to maga.

Maga works to undermine our trust in news media and our belief in the American democratic system.

Elon Maga used his platform, Twitter to promote a fake website, The Santa Monica Observer and denigrate the New York Times.

[quote]R11 I remember Father Merrin explaining it off as "to make us despair," which I found an unsatisfactory explanation at the time.

Yes. For one thing, if this were an effective way to make mankind despair, then every other child throughout history would go through a horrific possession.

Or are demonic supplies limited?

Let's face it, R119. Demons are limited.

Demons need to get off their ASS if they really want to make a difference in the world.

Damn slacker millennials.

[quote]Demons need to get off their ASS if they really want to make a difference in the world.

Not gonna happen. These aren't the demons of ancient times that worked their way up with a hoof-strap mentality. These are the coddled, participation-trophy, "Everyone gets a sacrifice" demons.

[bold]#word

#SpeakingTruth2Power

[quote] These are the coddled, participation-trophy, "Everyone gets a sacrifice" demons.

But at least they are gender queer!

They made pazuzu look like a whore in the second movie. I dare say the lip gloss did it no favors.

The indignity.

I don’t understand the oft-repeated comments people make about this film being “demonic” or “evil.” If you actually watch it from start to finish, it is one of the most religious—or at least Catholic—movies ever made. It is a classic good-versus-evil story where the godly ultimately triumph. It’s only disturbing because the battlefield at the center is a 12-year-old girl. William Peter Blatty, the screenwriter and author the novel, and actor Jason Miller were both devout Catholics with Jesuit educations. There is nothing inherently evil about this film—it’s the opposite really, if you believe in the things it depicts.

Friedkin knows how to make an inherently creepy movie. Cruising has similarly bad energy around it.

He really didn’t sustain much of an artistic stride after The Exorcist. You’d think he’d be able to direct anything he wanted after it’s success, but the movies are lukewarm.

And no, I don’t think Cruising is some underrated masterpiece.

"good-versus-evil story"

R123 this is R22. Bermingham had been Blatty's teacher in h.s. and they stayed in touch. Blatty got established as a writer and came to Bermingham and said "It's time for another book but I'm stuck. What should I write about?" and Bermingham said "why not something about the reality of evil", as this was the 70s and everybody was relativizing everything and the Fr was a bit fed up with it. It's not an evil movie and it's not even really a horror movie, it's a theological movie. So you're spot-on.

It took me years to finally view this movie. I was always afraid to see it. Even now, I haven't seen the entire movie.

R126 "Everybody was relativizing everything and and the Fr was a bit fed up with it."

???

R125 I think Cruising is a very very good film. Better than Dressed To Kill by DePalma.

Pffft r123.

R129, I think both are classics but Cruising does make me think more and bothers me more too.

I attended Georgetown in the late 1970s, and this film was a cult classic shown multiple times a year (Freshman Orientation, Halloween, graduation week). I must have seen it at least 6 times in a crowd of hundreds of classmates.

The buildings and the campus Jesuits cast as extras would get cheers every showing. So too would Ellen Burstein's walk from the front circle (37th & O) to her house 3 blocks away at 36th & Prospect) via streetscapes all throughout Georgetown would get commentary. Certain lines would also get callbacks. Our own version of Rocky Horror

[quote]So too would Ellen Burstein's walk from the front circle (37th & O) to her house 3 blocks away at 36th & Prospect)

You seem to have confused Ellen Burstyn with Broadway actor Danny Burstein.

R65, your experience with the film sounds like mine, though I came to it a few years after you. My friends and I rented the VHS when we were age NINE (!) and I could not get passed the fucking horrifying bullfrog-throat scene. It gave me my first actual panic attack. Could not manage to get through the movie until I was 12. Every time I would try to watch it, I would freak out. If a “possession” scene from the film came on the TV as part of a clip show or entertainment news report or something, I would freak out. Adrenaline shooting through my body, I would go pale, heart pounding.

So dumb, right? Well, excuse me, you other hard-asses, but I was a child and had been raised Catholic and actually believed in the possibility of all that stuff really happening.

Nowadays I still love the film but it doesn’t scare me much — some of the jump scares do, I suppose, like the candle that flares up out of nowhere in the attic (what caused that? and why was the incident not investigated or ever mentioned again?). I have a download of the recreated original theatrical presentation, with the original color timing, original Saul Bass Warner logo at the beginning, and the original mono sound. There’s a 4K UHD disc coming next year, but I absolutely do not expect it to correct the issues with the current Blu-ray; I reckon my downloaded file, safely kept on a micro SD card, will be the ‘definitive’ presentation of it, in my collection.

[quote] Did the TV version really say your mother sews socks in hell?

No.

Eileen Dietz, whom some of you might remember as Sarah, the child-like mental case on General Hospital, played the face of Pazuzu.

R134 Bullfrog throat scene? I haven't seen this in awhile, what scene are you talking about?

Exorcist II killed Kitty Winn's career.

I've always found The Exorcist less "scary" than really intense and unrelenting. I first saw it on network TV as a kid, and it didn't make me afraid to go into dark rooms the way the first Halloween film had done in the same era; it was effective in a different kind of way. But mileage varies on that. I've talked to people who had nightmares from it.

I later learned that "intense and unrelenting" was William Friedkin's thing in his best period, no matter the subject matter. The French Connection and The Boys in the Band could be described that way too. For almost their whole duration, those movies are going at you.

The Exorcist is probably the most boring and unscary horror movie ever made. Only on DL is it revered, as the ancient gays romanticize the 70s.

[quote] Only on DL is it revered, as the ancient gays romanticize the 70s.

Yeah, that's probably why it's number 127 on IMDB.

My bad, number 226, but that's still very high for a horror film.

R132 that’s cool. There’s a similar thing at Berkeley (or there was, in the 80s) with “The Graduate.”

R18 sorry but what's the connection to Cruising and a serial killer...?

R95 that's fucked up.

Seriously.

That shit scares the hell out of me.

[quote]The Exorcist is probably the most boring and unscary horror movie ever made.

Sure it is.

I was too scared to see it back when I was a little gayling. The commercials/previews scared the shite out of me.

So I finally saw it a couple years ago. It hasn't aged well at all...what was shocking back then, is HILARIOUS now. Especially the 'daring' dialogue...

"Lines were insane, around the block X3, plus I believe it was raining."

I miss wanting to see a movie soooooo bad. The new Disney, the new sword and sandal epic, the new Bond, the new Woody Allen... now nothing excites me.

That's the way I feel about it R138. When I was a child I thought it was scary, but as an adult, I find it an ordeal (in the best way). It's not so much that you watch it, but you endure it (I may be looking for a better word, in that it grabs you in a way more than mere viewing). I felt the same way the first time I saw "Hereditary".

You liked Hereditary the second time R148? I know we had some pretty heated threads on that movie, the person who insisted it was an allegory for mental illness comes to mind. But I just thought it was bad and that ugly kid was so hard to look at, luckily her head was then gone soon.

[quote]R136: Bullfrog throat scene? I haven't seen this in awhile, what scene are you talking about?

It's when the doctors are brought to the McNeil household to see Regan. She tilts her head back into her pillow, her throat swells, and she emits a thunderous, croaking belch (@ 42 seconds on video below) - just before she backhands the doctor.

[quote]R143: sorry but what's the connection to Cruising and a serial killer...?

"Paul Bateson (born August 24, 1940) is an American convicted murderer and former radiographer. He appeared as a radiologic technologist in a scene from the 1973 horror film The Exorcist, which was inspired when the film's director, William Friedkin, watched him perform a cerebral angiography the previous year...

In 1979, Bateson was convicted of the murder of film industry journalist Addison Verrill and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison; in 2003 he was released on parole, which ended after five years. Prior to Bateson's trial, police and prosecutors implicated him in a series of unsolved slayings of gay men in Manhattan, killings he had reportedly boasted about while in jail, bringing it up at his sentencing. However, no additional charges were ever brought against him. The experience inspired Friedkin to make the 1980 film Cruising which, while based on a novel written a decade earlier, incorporated in its storyline the city's leather subculture, with which Bateson had identified...

In 2012, Friedkin recalled having visited the jailed Bateson prior to his trial, and having a conversation which suggested that either Bateson had committed the additional murders or merely that he was considering confessing to them for a lighter sentence. However, there is no other record of incriminating evidence mentioned by Friedkin in that interview. Despite this, Bateson is often inaccurately described as a serial killer."

[quote]R134: I have a download of the recreated original theatrical presentation, with the original color timing, original Saul Bass Warner logo at the beginning, and the original mono sound.

How did you happen by that? Is it still available at its source?

A couple of years ago, I attempted to replace the current Warner logo with the original Saul Bass, but the results were less than perfect; the timing was off by a fraction. I gave up for the time being; perhaps I will try again.

[quote]There’s a 4K UHD disc coming next year, but I absolutely do not expect it to correct the issues with the current Blu-ray;

Apart from the wrong logo, which issues?

R149, I.liked Hereditary as many times as I've seen it. But, the first time I saw it I was def. In the camp who thought it was unlike anything I had seen before. The only other time I had felt that way was when I saw The Exorcist for the first time as an adult. I felt like I was enduring the film rather than watching it, and not in a bad way. I was sorry I could only see it once for the first time, and I've been watching horror movies my entire life.

R153, I completely agree about Hereditary, the viewing experience was very much something to be 'endured' but in the best possible way.

"Bateson would later suggest that his appearance in The Exorcist was revenge on his father for punishing him as a child by making him stay home from Saturday matinées at the local movie theater and listen to opera on the radio instead."

Paul was a very bad seed!

[quote] Bullfrog throat scene? I haven't seen this in awhile, what scene are you talking about?

In the scene where the doctors come to the house, they come in the room and see Regan flailing about. Then she flings herself back on the bed, only the whites of her eyes visible, and her throat swells, hence "the bullfrog throat."

That was answered HOURS ago, Pazuzu Jr. Try reading a whole thread.

Thanks both of you guys for answering, the person who wrote it disappeared. Interesting...you all like Hereditary, my boyfriend loves it, I don't. I need to ask him if he felt the endurance thing and compares it to this movie. Thank you.

I’m r65, who watched Exorcist when I was 10 & my still-traumatized sis was 9. We both separately saw Hereditary recently, I loved it & found it mildly disturbing. As with the Exorcist, she’s deeply traumatized by this other movie years later, says it stuck with her, & swears she sees things on the ceiling from time to time out of the inner of her eye.

I love RLM and they do reviews for most horror flicks. Here's the Exorcist one. They did Hereditary too, I think they both liked it.

[quote]I liked Hereditary as many times as I've seen it. But, the first time I saw it I was def. In the camp who thought it was unlike anything I had seen before.

Yeah, Ari Aster has something. His films (well, the two features to date, Hereditary and Midsommar) do benefit from at least one more viewing, once the plot mechanics are all sorted. Now, if someone hated them, a second viewing likely will not change that, but both movies are dense. Aster has a way of burying things (in visuals and in sound) that sort of register subliminally the first time, but mean more when you know where everything is headed.

He's my favorite of three filmmakers who established themselves in "art horror" around the same time last decade. Jordan Peele, unfortunately, is reminding me of Shyamalan with his diminishing returns (Get Out > Us > Nope). Robert Eggers is obviously talented, but neither The Witch nor The Lighthouse really grabbed me. They were cold, remote.

Well, I feel like maybe I should watch Hereditary again then. Thank you.

Why did Linda Blair’s career go straight down the shitter?

Rick James, bitch.

That bullfrog throat scene is also where she invites the good doctors to fuck her. In the book, it states that she masturbates furiously during all this. I don't think she masturbates in that scene. She sort of just grabs her crotch and tells them to fuck her.

[quote] You do your job.

I don't think any job description for a clerk in a convenience store, or a liquor store, or any other kind of store, includes the words: "Tasks include cleaning up piss and shit left on the floor by customers." NO poor store clerk should be called upon to that.

Oops, wrong thread.

Don't shit up this thread R166! No world star here!

I love that Carl is seen lying on the floor in the crucifix masturbation scene and they make no big deal about it in the film.

One would think that Regan would need to get to an ER after stabbing herself with that crucifix.

Regan slapped Chris’ face. Viciously.

[quote]R165: I don't think she masturbates in that scene. She sort of just grabs her crotch and tells them to fuck her.

Sounds to me like you watched one of the censored versions. She masturbates using the crucifix, screaming, "Let Jesus fuck you!"

The book is a bit graphic as it describes Regan, after the initial crucifix stabbing, slowing down and sensually guiding the crucifix in and out of her vagina as the demon moans in ecstasy.

I need to read it again, my mom had it and my sister and I read it several times as kids. Fuck yeah, for the 70's and 80's! I remember the book was really good.

r148 that was a perfect description of the movie. It really puts you through the emotional stresses of seeing someone deteriorate and feeling helpless against it.

I also find the effects well-used. You barely see Pazuzu at all. They don't hit you over the head with any of that. It's almost always things going on in the room that get the more lavish treatment, which again hammers home the emphasis on what the child is going through, which is so scary. It's grounded. We care about this girl. We aren't being dazzled by mystical nonsense. It's always about this girl.

The moments with her thrashing around violently are easily the most impressive. You'd never see an actress willing to go through that today. It would all be CGIed. The fact that you know what you're seeing on-screen was actually happening (to some extent) in the room for real is what makes it so freaky.

...I don't really understand the motivation of the devil. I mean, why not just kill the kid outright? Why lure this priest into a confrontation at all? You're the freaking DEVIL. You have massive power, right? So why the silly half-steps?

I guess we're supposed to believe that the devil likes to torture humans and torment them, which is....fine I suppose. But again, kind of weak. Sort of like how Joker or Riddler set up elaborate traps and leave clues and hints and then go "oh no! You caught me! Drat!" when it would have been so much easier to ignore Batman altogether.

I wonder which moments caused people to faint in cinemas back in the day....is there any record of it? Any quotes from people saying "it was the crucifix masturbation scene!" or "when her head spun around!" or whatever?

Off-topic but this is why I'm so glad there is a video bootleg of the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls, because watching it you absolutely feel how the energy in the theater changes throughout the show. You can hear audience members - and possibly black audiences in particular, who might have not seen any Broadway shows prior - starting to do the church thing of calling back to the performers as they get whipped up into a frenzy and applauding all the scene changes and costume reveals. It really enhances the experience, being transported back in time and feeling how the art landed in that context.

Seeing Spider-Man No Way Home was fun for that same reason. Everyone delighted in the reveals and character moments.

R169 — I had NO idea Karl was there. I’ve seen this film countless times. Is it mentioned in the book that he’s lying there?

[quote]Any quotes from people saying "it was the crucifix masturbation scene!" or "when her head spun around!" or whatever?

This isn't much of a data point, but the head turning all the way around is what my mother found so horrifying. The Exorcist was her number-one scary movie experience, and she referred to that scene every time it came up. Not the crucifix or the cursing or the thumping bed but that. "Oh, Lord, when her head went all the way around?! I'll never get that out of my mind."

That particular effect didn't have the same impact on me. I remember pointing out, "You LAUGHED when Steve Martin's head spun all the way around [in The Jerk, when he realizes the check is for 250,000 dollars instead of 250]." Ah, memories.

But context is everything, I know. It's not just the swiveling head, it's everything with it: the makeup, the lighting, the sound design. The Exorcist is, without doubt, effectively mounted.

That head spin would have killed her. It's a movie, yeah I know.

Yeah I find some of that head spinning stuff as weak moments of the film. Not only physically impossible but a very "ooh look at this, isn't this SCARY??!!". Same as the spider walk down the stares....trying too hard and adds nothing to the film, imo. I dont even find the movie "scary" so much as distressing...and the most distressing moments for me are the catscan or whatever that is supposed to be, and the "Let Jesus fuck you" to her mom before pushing her on the wall.

[quote]R175: I also find the effects well-used. You barely see Pazuzu at all. They don't hit you over the head with any of that.

In the original theatrical version, yes. But then in 2000, someone felt the need to update the film, and came out with 'The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen', which adds superfluous flashes of both the Pazuzu statue and the Eileen Dietz white face more than a dozen more times throughout the film, to the point of absurd overkill. They inserted the Spiderwalk, which constitutes a narrative intrusion, and changed the ending of the film from the chilling original to Father Dyer and Lt Kinderman jovially strolling off to "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

If any of you are watching 'The Exorcist,' and the version contains the Spiderwalk, you're not watching the original film, but rather the bastardization released in 2000. Go find the original theatrical version and watch that instead.

I read somewhere that it was the hospital scenes, R176. The spinal or whatever they are doing to Regan which caused people to faint.

R181, agree with you on the spiderwalk. It looks so fake to me, like it was added via CGI. Like Friedkin thought to himself "what random thing can I put in here to just spice things up?". Which goes against the rest of the movie which is all about the push-pull of the calm, quiet moments with the shocking horror.

I thought the walk was an impressive sight...but the problem was the cutaway.

In other instances, I don't mind that Regan does shocking stuff and we immediately cut away to days later and calmer circumstances. But when I saw the spider walk, all I could think was "um...what did they do after that? Help her up? Throw a blanket over her? Or did Regan flip up onto her feet, gymnastics-style, and throw her arms out, awaiting applause?"

I didn't find the Version You've Never Seen too offensive. It was just a way to freshen the film a bit, but I don't think it was intended to replace the original, thank goodness. The ending with them walking away as buddies, I agree, was a misstep though.

The head spin, definitely, didn't freak me out much. You KNEW it had to be a face wooden head on a dummy body. There would have been no other way to do it. And then Regan's neck muscles would have/should have appeared all twisted thereafter.

You can't sever the spine and just put it back in place, all easy-peasy like that. Regan would have been a cripple. A darker ending for sure.

Yeah, that effect was a bit silly to me, even as a kid.

The "hands inside the stomach" part was awful though. I was freaked out by that for sure. And the choice to have Regan calmly sitting on the floor, observing the dead priest she'd just killed. Acting choices or directorial choice like that...chilling.

How DID she kill him? He's just laying there, right? He didn't look choked or cut up or crushed or anything. Did his heart just give out?

*fake wooden head*

I went to see The Version You've Never Seen in a movie theater in 2000, and it was fun to experience it that way, as it's a movie I had only seen in its original form on television. But I didn't come away feeling the film had been improved. Most of the restored material was neutral or, in the case of that longer final scene, damaging.

Ebert's review from 2000 is right on target (although it made William Friedkin angry, as I recall).

[quote]R184: It looks so fake to me, like it was added via CGI.

Well, it was, or at least augmented by CGI. There's two versions of it.

1) the original, which was shot at the time, but not included in the original film because it was too much, too early in the narrative; it robbed later scenes of some of their shock value, and damaged the suspense the film had been so carefully building;

2) a CGI augmented version, inserted into 'The Version You've Never Seen,' where Regan comes down the stairs inverted, and vomits blood.

Here's the original, unaltered take:

And here's the Spiderwalk from 'The Version You've Never Seen':

Same here, R177. I've seen this movie a zillion times and had NO idea Karl was lying on the floor next to the bed! Are we supposed to assume Regan struck him and knocked him before Chris entered? If that was the case, it's unfathomable that Karl and his wife would stick around after an assault like that and all the terrifying goings-on!

As for the cause of Merrin's death, it's left up the imagination. He clearly had a weak heart - he's seen taking his medicine - but IIRC, Regan is strapped down before Karras exits the bedroom and has gotten loose when he returns to find Merrin dead. So, who knows?

And I agree that the shot of Regan just sitting there looking blankly at the dead priest is one of the most horrifying in the whole movie.

[quote]R186: How DID she kill him? He's just laying there, right? He didn't look choked or cut up or crushed or anything. Did his heart just give out?

It doesn't sound like you saw the film at all, R186. Merrin had been popping nitroglycerin pills for his heart since the beginning of the film, and again in the McNeil's bathroom, just before the final session.

[quote]The "hands inside the stomach" part was awful though.

I don't remember anything like that. That must be some more bullshit added to the film in 2000, which I only watched once.

[quote]And the choice to have Regan calmly sitting on the floor, observing the dead priest she'd just killed. Acting choices or directorial choice like that...chilling.

The demon's expression seemed to me a mixture of surprise and perhaps disappointment, as though Merrin, dying suddenly of heart failure, had somehow escaped what it had planned for him. The demon did not recover its glee until it saw the effect Merrin's death had on Father Karras.

I'm not a big fan of The Version You've Never Seen. It doesn't improve the original film in any way, shape, or form. It slows down the pacing a bit, adds too much CGI, changes the sound mix at times, and the spider walk scene is interesting by itself, but feels so out of place in the film. It kills the film's elegant pacing by being too much too soon. That seems like something you'd pull out closer to the end of the movie. What's so effective about the original cut of the film is how gradual the horror elements are introduced. At first, it's just "rats in the attic", then it's a strange encounter with a Ouija board, then Regan asks to sleep with Chris because her bed is shaking, etc. It's slow and eerie and builds up until the horror of the crucifix scene which finally sends Chris to find an exorcist.

Rewatching the film during the Halloween season, I was surprised that the moments that really disturbed me the most this time around as an adult were the moment with Damien and his mother and that horrible place where she winds up. Such sadness to those scenes.

R193, your post reminds me that a big reason The Exorcist is scary is because of the terror rooted in sadness and loss of control. Father Damian feeling responsible for his mother's death and then jumping out the window is tragic to me.

[quote]Father Damian feeling responsible for his mother's death and then jumping out the window is tragic to me.

He jumps out the window because the demon has taken possession of him.

It's true R194 This movie only works because it takes time to get to know the characters and make them relatable to the audience. All the ripoffs that came later could recreate a lot of the makeup effects and shock moments, but none of them had the humanity. I truly haven't seen one great exorcism movie since. The only one that comes close in The Exorcism of Emily Rose which takes a much more sedate approach and focuses on the psychological side. At least it went for something different.

[quote]R185 when I saw the spider walk, all I could think was "um...what did they do after that? Help her up? Throw a blanket over her? Or did Regan flip up onto her feet, gymnastics-style, and throw her arms out, awaiting applause?"

I think that was in the musical version… which only got a limited release.

It's always scarier to me to have just a little exposition, it's why Rosemary was so great, the devil eyes and the implication that the kid is fucking scary looking. I hate being hit over the head with shit and then told to find it shocking. A little goes a long way, that's why these new shit movies like Terrifier are stupid and gratuitous. Henry with Michael Rooker is probably much scarier than any new shit. I haven't seen a good horror movie since Frailty.

I was in DC recently and stayed slightly a bit over a mile away from what are called "The Exorcist Steps" located in Georgetown.

Although I was largely horrified when I saw the flick at the theater when it played in it's first run, I've never been drawn back to it either wholly or partially since then and, as such, the nearby steps were not enough of draw to lead me to visit that site.

p.s. 3 of us drove 30 miles to see it all of those years ago and my friend Pam, seated between us 2 guys, gripped my wrist so hard in terror at one point that when I later left the theater, it was still smarting and also bruised!

The recent TV series was excellent. Unfortunately David Gordon Green is making a new Exorcist movie trilogy and you know its going to suuuuuck.

[quote] One would think that Regan would need to get to an ER after stabbing herself with that crucifix.

Indeed. A metal crucifix violently jammed into a vagina (and she was a 12 year old child) would be seriously injured. In the novel it's described like this: "Regan s vagina gushed blood onto sheets with her hymen, the tissues ripped." Anyone with an injury like that would need stitches (seems to me she'd have to have her poor little vagina sewn back together) and maybe treatment for blood loss. As for Chris, after watching her daughter rape herself with a crucifix while screaming "Let Jesus fuck you!" and having her face shoved into Regan's bloody crotch, she "screamed until she fainted."

[quote] I had NO idea Karl was there. I’ve seen this film countless times. Is it mentioned in the book that he’s lying there?

No. Either something was cut or it’s an Easter egg. Karl was the one who was under suspicion for putting the crucifix in her room earlier. He must have returned to put it back in there after her mother took it out and Regan got him. It makes total sense.

[quote] He jumps out the window because the demon has taken possession of him.

No, he does it to save Regan.

I'm only now starting to appreciate how great Linda Blair's performance was; way better than Tatum O'Neal, who won the Oscar over Linda. In fact, I saw Paper Moon the other day, and O'Neal was overrated, imho.

In the book, before Karras enters the room to find a dead Merrin, he overhears the demon screaming at Merrin to "come back, you were losing" or something to that effect. I think Merrin's heart just gave out.

Of course, in the awful sequel, they make it seem like the demon somehow manipulated his heart until he died.

R204, is Paper Moon worth the watch? I've always heard about Tatum's performance (younger Oscar winner, bla bla bla) but I remember being really surprised to learn Blair didn't win the award.

R206, Paper Moon is fantastic. It tugs at the heart strings. All the more so if you know that Tatum’s relationship with her dad was strained and abusive. She gave a great performance in it. Better than Blair in The Exorcist, though she was very good, too.

Sorry, maybe I was too immature, or the hype overdone but I didn't find it scary. And since we all knew that she was indeed possessed I found the obligatory scenes with explanations and medical examinations rather tedious. Lee J. Cobb's character basically unnecessary except for providing exposition and the scene of him and Father Karras having a prolonged discussion on the track pointless. Regan's father never materializes and the scenes of Father Karras and his mom pointless. My friends and I and others in theater laughed at certain scenes. Night of the Living Dead (1968) and the first 45 mins of The Texas Chainsaw massacre were far more intense to me. It's no Rosemary's Baby.

In the novel Karl is in Regan's bedroom putting an ice pack on her forehead. Chris is downstairs reading, then hears bellowing from Regan's bedroom. At first she thinks it's Karl, but when she comes into the room Karl is unconscious on the floor, having been knocked out by Pazuzu, and Regan has her legs propped and spread wide, the crucifix poised at her vagina. She's flashing back and forth from Regan to Pazuzu, until Pazuzu finally takes control and shoves the crucifix in her vagina.

Sharon, Willie and Karl all deny putting the crucifix under Regan's pillow. They're telling the truth. Pazuzu did it. Pazuzu also did the church desecrations. It's was all Pazuzu's doing.

[quote]I don't think any job description for a clerk in a convenience store, or a liquor store, or any other kind of store, includes the words: "Tasks include cleaning up piss and shit left on the floor by customers." NO poor store clerk should be called upon to that.

You've obviously never worked a retail clerk position that involves dressing rooms or people's pets/kids pissing and shitting on store floors. We had an infamous thread about it here on DL.

^^^ Is this about the carpet pee scene, or something?

The behind the scenes footage available on this youtube channel are amazing. In one of them they were tearing out lightening for the exorcism scene.

The case is based on Ronald Hunkeler who died recently.

Ronald would get out of town on Halloween because he was worried someone wolf blow his cover trick or treating. lol

What was Ronald’s deal, anyway? He made it up for the attention, or for kicks? Or was he mentally ill?

Wow, R212. Thanks for sharing that! It’s a new upload — just 3 months old — and I really thought I had seen all the behind-the-scenes footage. Not so!

[quote] The head spin, definitely, didn't freak me out much. You KNEW it had to be a face wooden head on a dummy body. There would have been no other way to do it. And then Regan's neck muscles would have/should have appeared all twisted thereafter. You can't sever the spine and just put it back in place, all easy-peasy like that. Regan would have been a cripple. A darker ending for sure.

The head-spinning wasn't actually happening; Pazuzu hypnotized Chris and Karras into believing they saw it. The demon had the ability to read minds, which was how it got that information. It's how it found out about Karras's encounter with the homeless man in the subway, as well as his mother's death (it tricked Karras into thinking he saw/heard her). It also makes reference to Karras being gay. In the book, it reveals that Sharon has the hots for Karras and masturbates while thinking about him, and throws Karl's distress over his drug-addicted daughter back in his face.

Yeah, I remembered reading or at least thinking that the head-spinning was an illusion. Just like that brief shot of the statue from Iraq appearing on Regan’s bed — it wasn’t actually there, of course.

The "I cast you out!"/"Stick it up your ass, f****t!" scene, dubbed in multiple languages. I'd watch the full-length Japanese dub.

[quote]Regan s vagina gushed blood onto sheets with her hymen, the tissues ripped." Anyone with an injury like that would need stitches (seems to me she'd have to have her poor little vagina sewn back together)

The vagina doesn't need to be "sewn back together" after a hymen tears. Hymens usually "tear" after the first penetrative sex act, or sometimes even with tampon insertion or vigorous horseback riding. That's why they were called maidenheads and people in ye olden times checked the sheets for blood after a bride had sex for the first time- it was proof that she had been a virgin before the act. That was very unfortunate for women who were born without hymens (it's rare, but it happens).

Regan would surely have lacerated the walls of her vagina, however, and would have needed medical treatment, if she wasn't a movie character who'd already miraculously survived her head rotating 180 degrees.

Being stabbed repeatedly and with superhuman force up a vagina would likely do more harm than lacerated walls. I also cannot imagine that the demon had great aim every time. He would have stabbed her urethra and maybe even her rectum. She would need to get to a trauma center quick. Instead, she sits there, shitting her diaper, likely causing a dangerous infection.

IF she wasn't a movie character.

Neither Tatum O'Neal nor Linda Blair deserved an Oscar for their performances. O'Neal's performance was a fluke; Peter Bogdanovich had to pry a performance out of her and it wasn't easy. He had to bribe her to say her lines. Blair's performance was mostly special effects; a dubbed voice, tons of makeup and harnesses used to fling her around. The role required little real acting.

All of the other nominees were more deserving of an Oscar; Madeline Kahn, Candy Clark and Sylvia Sidney. I would have loved to have seen Madeline Kahn or Candy Clark win. They were both perfect in their roles.

My gawd people, you're taking this silly film waaaaay too seriously. It was hokey then and it's hokier now. Just HILARIOUS!

[quote]R201 As for Chris, after watching her daughter rape herself with a crucifix while screaming "Let Jesus fuck you!" and having her face shoved into Regan's bloody crotch, she "screamed until she fainted."

Well, wouldn’t you?

Ronald is believed to have been sexually molested by his mother.

The head turning and all that shit was supposed to be illusions. The demon is fucking with them.

Cute.

More.

Someone said in the book Regan continues to do the crab walk running after them. That probably would have worked better.

Ohhh you’re such a badass, R223. I bet you only watch the most serious and realistic of films. Documentaries, mostly?

I want to hear the alternate demon voice done by a friend of Friedken’s. It was recently auctioned off.

Couldn’t they A.I. Mercedes’ demon voice for the new films?

R230, the only people who are scared by shit like this are people who believe in heaven and hell.

Warner Bros. is releasing this on 4K UHD next year and they should really include all those outtakes and behind-the-scenes / rehearsal footage as seen in the YouTube links above. That stuff is incredible to watch.

How do the YouTubers get ahold of all that?! So much of it is not included on any of the home video releases’ bonus features as yet.

R233, I get that, and as an atheist I no longer find the film utterly terrifying like I did when I was a little Catholic kid. But surely you’re capable of enjoying a well-made, gritty 1970s film — the last great era of filmmaking — despite not having the capacity to believe the events depicted actually could take place in real life? Do you come up against the same issue with e.g. science fiction stories?

[quote]I also cannot imagine that the demon had great aim every time.

I don't know why this made me laugh, when we were having a serious discussion of Regan's pelvic damage (if she wasn't a movie character).

R234, they’re online through a library archive for producers only. Someone ripped them.

R237 Not just a somebody, a hero.

[quote]But when I saw the spider walk, all I could think was "um...what did they do after that? Help her up? Throw a blanket over her? Or did Regan flip up onto her feet, gymnastics-style, and throw her arms out, awaiting applause?

Well, it WOULD be more crowd-pleasing than her tap routines in the sequel.

There's that laughable sequence with the cutting and back forth between Richard Burton being pelted with rocks in Africa, and Regan feeling the blows while hoofing in the theater. Finally she leaps off the stage and is writhing in agony. All I could think is that the audience was being spared the rest of a shitty show. (Unlike, you know, those of us with an hour of Exorcist II: The Heretic left to go.)

She tap dances in the sequel?

Jesus.

Were any of the follow-ups worth seeing?

Just how much was Sharon getting paid as Chris' personal assistant to stick around and take care of her violent demon of a daughter?

R240, the third one is good. The second is pure camp. It's a misfire in all possible ways except the music score which is interesting (it's by legend Ennio Morricone). I read a funny review that claimed that The Exorcist II featured the first and only demon acid funk score. Seriously though, the second one is truly awful. Apparently the script kept being rewritten over and over and over again to the point where it made no sense. You should watch it to see how bad it is. Legend has it that the studio executives were chased out of screenings of the movie because audiences were so pissed off, they threw shit at the screen.

Agreed with everything R242 says, including the comments about Morricone's intriguing score, which is certainly memorable (as so many of his are).

II does have a small band of defenders, some of them surprising. This Martin Scorsese quote gets reprinted a lot: "The picture asks: Does great goodness bring upon itself great evil? This goes back to the Book of Job; it's God testing the good. In this sense, Regan is a modern-day saint - like Ingrid Bergman in Europe '51, and in a way, like Charlie in Mean Streets. I like the first Exorcist, because of the Catholic guilt I have, and because it scared the hell out of me, but The Heretic surpasses it. Maybe Boorman failed to execute the material, but the movie still deserved better than it got."

R243, Pauline Kael also felt it was better than the first one. Which is stupid. It's definitely not. The second is so badly misdirected that I don't know how anyone could conclude "it's brilliant!". Boorman really should have "stayed in his lane" for this one. He's a very good director but he was just clueless about the appeal of the first movie. Which is a red flag that you probably shouldn't make a sequel in the first place.

The 4th one had Patrick Ewing and George C. Scott! R211 No, that's from a thread about a customer having explosive diarrhea on the floor of a store. So Linda Blair attended a rehab I attended twenty years ago, in LA county, I think the rehab is gone now, it was really nice on a huge piece of lab but the girls all were in dorms together, 4 to a room. Except for the "Blair House", when people had been there about two months and were getting to be trustworthy, they were able to move into the Blair house which was a little cottage with like 4 people as opposed to a dorm with 40. Just a fun fact.

R227 Linda Blair looks SO young in those clips, even younger than she looked in the film. I wonder what year those screen tests were filmed. I just wish we could hear the actual audio.

In case no one has posted this yet...

[quote] So Linda Blair attended a rehab I attended twenty years ago, in LA county,

Was she in their for alcohol? She still denies that she ever did coke.

You know I don't know R248, I'm assuming it was for booze and everything else. Wait, she denies she did blow? She fucking hung out with one Rick James so...

She looked like she could have played a country western singer in a movie or something. Did her career totally end with this movie?

R249, yup, she absolutely denies it. She was caught with cocaine a few months after the Exorcist II and denies that she actually was doing it. LOL about Rick James, I almost totally forgot about that. They didn't just hang out, they were actually in a relationship for two years! He said she had an amazing body and an amazing mind and they apparently posed semi-nude for some magazine together?

Yes they did R251! When I was at the rehab it was way after she had been there so no employees there had dealt with her, but yeah, it had to have been coke involved. And then Rick and a gf went on to "kidnap" some woman and hold her hostage and smoke crack with her for 24 hours or so in a hotel. I thought the gf may have been Blair but maybe not.

I was a theatre manager in DC when this was released. Two people died during the three months it played

How R253? What do you mean?

Whereas it is impossible to designate even approximately the worst film one has ever seen, there is a very strong probability that Exorcist II is the stupidest major movie ever made. -John Simon July 4, 1977

Ahem R255...

R256 Was Ishtar considered stupid and incomprehensible or an unfunny, very expensive takeoff on the Crosby-Hope-Lamour Road to . . .movies?

All of the above, R257.

Who couldn't comprehend Ishtar? R258 The model for the film were lame Road pictures but Exorcist II made no sense and was meant to be taken seriously.

R252, wtf? That's pure insanity. I guess it's more plausible that the gf was Linda Blair vs Teena Marie.

R252 R260 It was neither Linda nor Teena. It was some skanky no-name coke whore.

I just came to post that R261! Thank you, yeah I couldn't remember who it was but I'm quite sure Linda did drugs with him.

Anyhow, at Acton rehab, you knew you'd made it if you got to live in the Blair House, it was a real privilege. I never got to.

R263, you know if you said "Pazuzu" three times in the dark, bad things would happen!

It's funny you say that R264, I never really wanted to live in the Blair house, it did kind of seem creepy and it was far away from the other lodges on campus so bad shit could happen and no one could get to you quickly.

I remember when the director's cut came out. People were pissed that Pazuzu's face was everywhere around the house. They were particularly enraged over P-Zu on the range hood in the kitchen. "What's next, he pops up out of the toaster?"

Yeah R266, I never saw any of the new ones but it sounds like they are "doing too much" as the kids would say. The scares are in what you imagine, not seeing a face everywhere.

Yes, “The Version You’ve Never Seen” is awful.

Regan pulls up the toilet lid and it's pazuzu on the inside. Her shower curtain, previously floral-patterned, is now hundreds of pazuzu faces.

At the time, it was a phenomenon. Enormously popular and blitzed by the press. Some found it to be tempting fate, even sacrilegious. Being that the subject was/is so controversial, the film frightened everyone, including those who hadn't seen the film. We didn't have the internet, just our fears and imaginations.

"You're all gonna die up there."

Anyone see the 2021 documentary, "Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist"? It looks watchable.

I think what annoys me is the movie is presented in a pseudo intellectual way, as if it has a core message we’re supposed to ponder.

It’s simply a horror film with the usual loose ends… just with the help of better acting and special effects.

That’s Blatty’s fault — because he took the subject matter seriously; I think he said he thought of it as a “theological mystery” or something to that effect. A bit ridiculous.

That aside, one of the film’s great strengths is how matter-of-factly it’s presented a lot of the time, almost documentary style! It has very few musical cues at all* and at times feels very realistic (obviously not everything in it feels realistic, but the more ‘mundane’ scenes absolutely do).

*the stupid “Version You’ve Never Seen” of course has a surplus of musical cues: what feels like non-stop cellos, telling us we’re supposed to have a sense of dread and fear, because apparently the young people of the year 2000 were too dense to know when to be scared otherwise

The music played during the stomach reveal is scarier than the scene.

[Quote]That’s Blatty’s fault — because he took the subject matter seriously

Unlike Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist doesn't have a shred of irony or humor. In Rosemary's Baby the witches provided moments of humor particularly Ruth Gorden as Minnie who appeared to be a harmless, nosy old neighbor.

The "you're gonna die up there" is one of the scariest parts! Imagine being that guy! I would re-think going if I were him and we never do find out, do they, in fact, die up there? If it was the Challenger, we know the answer.

R263 You fabulous drunk whore.

The frightening sound intro is a recording of a finger, rubbing atop a crystal, wine glass. Very affective effect. Brilliant.

I'm a bit confused as to when the transition from Regan to Pazuzu happened. When she told that guy he was going to die up there, it was in her own voice. She also cusses at the doctor's office in her own voice. Was the demon telling her to say those things?

As soon as she started exhibiting personality/behavioral changes, that’s when the demon was definitely inside her, but hadn’t yet taken full control. When you watch the movie multiple times, you might start thinking she was already showing signs of possession when we first see her—Chris hears the “rats” in the attic, goes to check on Regan, and finds her window open and the cold air streaming in.

R277, I assumed that was just a violin…!

By the way, the “you’re gonna die up there” bit is presented so quickly, it’s almost impossible to discern who the guy was and what Regan meant, when you first watch the film. There’s a mumbled line from Father Dyer (“first missionary on Mars”) to the astronaut, and that’s about it. And it’s easy to miss. I can imagine most people hearing “You’re gonna die up there” and having no idea where ‘up there’ is.

Oh you might be right R280, I read the book so I know about the astronaut and who she meant. If I were that guy...I would definitely not go after all.

No CGI in 1972. Opening scene filmed in northern Iraq. Friedkin was given permission to film by German archaeologists who were on a local dig. The footage is of a real dig, not a set. The archaeologic finds included many severed statue heads. In 80 B.C. the area people were attacked, their home sacked. The attackers beheaded the people and their statues. Errie and foreboding.

Loved that no flashbacks are needed. Just realistic, mundane build up. Reagan opening her eyes is a perfect, cinematic moment. Friedkin won for best director even though he wasn't an Academy member. He absolutely deserved the award.

Friedkin didn’t win Best Director for The Exorcist, though. The film one for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound.

Ugh, the film WON, not ‘one’

(I blame my boyfriend for REFUSING to stop talking to me while I’m trying to post on Datalounge.)

[quote]*the stupid “Version You’ve Never Seen” of course has a surplus of musical cues: what feels like non-stop cellos, telling us we’re supposed to have a sense of dread and fear, because apparently the young people of the year 2000 were too dense to know when to be scared otherwise

^^ This. I hate The Version You've Never Seen with a passion, with all the stupid "Ooh, look kids -- there's the creepy Pazuzu face on the wall!" moments, and that dumb, overrated "spider walk" scene. William Friedken can't seem to stop himself from ruining his perfect films; I'll never forgive him for what he did to The French Connection (destroying the 'grittiness' by washing out the color and changing it all to purple)

Damn, now I kinda want to watch the "version you've never seen!" strictly a hate watch, of course, but I may try and find it streaming The original is on Prime now I think, I watched it for Halloween.

"Oh Blanche, ya know we got rats in the cellar?"

I didn’t know he fucked with the color timing of The French Connection, too. What is wrong with him?

I’m really worried that when they release the new 4K UHD of The Exorcist, they’re going to retain the overly-blue tint to the final exorcism scene. If they do, I’m not gonna buy it. No way.

283, he did win Best Director for the Exorcist. My stars!

R284, I read that as your boyfriend refusing to stop "taking you."

My bad, Friedkin won Golden Globe and was only an Oscar nominee.

What moron thinks he won Best Director for The Ex…

^ that moron up there

The GGs are worthless now, and they were absolutely meaningless back in the 70s…not even network televised.

Put an un in front of it^

I’ve owned copies of the film for decades, starting with VHS circa 1989, and I have Warner’s synopsis on the back cover sort of burned into my memory. They make mention of the two Oscar wins, and I didn’t even have to look it up to confirm. It was nominated for 10 altogether and should have won more than just the 2. I think the academy was, as ever, too conservative to vote for a horror film in several categories. It wasn’t until The Silence Of The Lambs that an unsavory, gruesome film swept the Oscars.

His boyfriend wasn't just talking to him, he was breaking up with him.

No fucking while posting on DL!!

I will say I loved the part II trailer.

The demon Pazuzu otherwise known as Captain Howdy.

[quote] The Exorcist doesn't have a shred of irony or humor.

Your mother sucks lots of cock in hell.

"Dimmy, why you do this to me. Please, Dimmy, I'm afraid." Powerful.

Best gay verbage this side of adult film. It comes from a demon, but it's still out there. "Fuck him, fuck him, Karras".

Remonds me of Fletcher's heart attack scene from Brainstorm

^ reminds

Love Friedkin's "Bug" from 2006. Great director.

Upon seeing the Exorcist, Joan Crawford stiffened in her seat. Deja Vu. "I've heard this bitch before".

Is there more than one poster (op) keeping this thread going day after day after day???

Is there anywhere online I can watch the original theatrical version for free? The only version I can find is the lesser Version You've Never Seen.

Yes. I'm not OP and i've posted three times in this thread, so there.

Not for free, R308, but it’s on HBO Max streaming currently. I’m sure you could download it illegally, but… make sure it’s the original theatrical version!

McCamridge would exhale into a mic and multiple sounds would emit. It came from booze, eggs, smoke(and cum). No wonder Joan threw her shit into the street.

McCambridge could give you DL (down low) guttery bitches a run for your money. Where's the holy water?

Cum!?

[quote] Was she in their for alcohol? She still denies that she ever did coke

If she denies ever doing coke then she's the biggest liar in the world. She was arrested for drug possession and conspiracy to sell drugs when she was only 18. She pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of conspiracy to possess cocaine, in exchange for three years' probation. After becoming famous as the little girl who cursed priests out and shoved a cross in her vagina she became a hard core groupie. partying hard with the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Keith Moon, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. She posed semi-nude in the arms of a shirtless Rick James, with whom she had an affair. Her first lover was Rick Springfield, thye shacked up together in her family's home when she was15 and he was 24. And she expects people to believe she never did coke? She must be nuts.

They truly knew how to get a performance out of these actors. Punch em in the face, tie them up in restraints. You can't do that today.

R314, she also claimed (in the VHS version of The Exorcist released in 1998 or so) that she didn't know what masturbation was until years after The Exorcist was made lol.

What a filthy lying whore! Someone else asked her if she understood the crucifix “masturbation” scene before they rehearsed it, and she’d replied “That’s like jacking off, right?”

She KNEW! The filthy lying whore.

No ones talking about the elaphant in the room? Is director, William Friedkin gay?

elephant. Better to correct, than to be corrected the uptight trolls.

I don't know about gay, but Friedkin was married to Los Angeles newscaster Kelly Lange back in the late-80s.

Good question, R318. He kind of gave the impression of being a bit “fabulous” when he was directing this film. Wearing an ascot, some dramatic hand postures in the on-set photography… then he chose to direct Cruising. Oh, and The Boys In The Band before The Exorcist. I always wondered about him, but never heard any rumors.

[quote]r318 No ones talking about the elaphant in the room? Is director, William Friedkin gay?

He’s not an interesting enough person to be gay.

I though he married actress Jenny Seagrove?

There are plenty of gay men who are as dull as dirty water. Not saying he is, or that he’s even bisexual (a possibility, however!), just that him being uninteresting as a person doesn’t mean anything w/r/t sexual orientation.

I don't think he's gay. He's been married 4 times, currently to Sherry Lansing (since 1991).

I don't think Friedkin's gay, but I think he's always been fascinated with the fringe parts of society and the underground. Just look at some of his more successful films - The French Connection, The Exorcist, Cruising, The Boys in the Band, To Live and Die in LA...

So just gay at heart. I like him. I'll give him an honorary badge.

Friedkin sounds a lot like Shitler, but with brains, a bigger vocabulary, and less Adderall.

My Sims are drug dealers. Mods allow them to push Adderall, Coke, amphetamines, pills, mushrooms, lsd tabs, and weed. They can be crack dealers and crake whores. They can even be alcoholics. It's funny until they have to go away to rehab.

Sorry, Jenny Seagrove was romantically linked to director Michael Winner. I thought she was married to Friedkin because she was in his movie THE GUARDIAN, and I assumed that was the director husband.

The French connection. Friedkin was married to actress Jeanne Moreau 1977-1979

Short marriage.

Am I crazy or does Mccambridge look like the lantern jawed Rumer Willis? Also, I post in this thread everyday too, so there again!

Mercedes McCambridge’s son killed himself, his wife and two kids when Mommie Dearest was going to tell his boss he’d mismanaged her stock portfolio.

Yes, I posted about it upthread R333. He left a shitty passive agressive note to her too. "Night, mother!" Blaming her he got audited or whatever. What a prick.

This thread is interesting and funny. I have posted several times. So what?

My reaction is she sounded like a cunt (most stars are.)

Most parents don’t endanger their kids’ livelihood and entire future over some missing money.

[italic]”You were clearly a working mother. I was conceptualized to save a bad marriage. I accept the ‘new father’; I lost the ‘new father.’ I watch you try to kill yourself twice. You have never been there for me when the chips were down... Is this clear to you? That you have hurt every member of my family; that you have hurt me; that I stood by you under some really adverse conditions and that you have never done anything but manipulate me for your purpose… I have broken man’s law, you have not. I have not broken God’s law. You have. There’s nothing more to say.”

Wow R337. Oh R335 someone upthread asked if it was the op posting all the replies. I know the DL loves this movie and these threads are always pretty well populated.

Goodness, did he really reference the stage play and subsequent film adaptation, ‘Night Mother, in his suicide note?!

Yes I think he did say "night, mother". The whole note was pretty fucked up. She was probably a shitty mom but his kids had to die too? I'm sure their relationship was as odd as Susan Cabot and her midget son.

The entire “note” was 12 pages long.

Bitch stated her boundaries!

The son would have been a DLer, for sure.

Mercedes McCambridge was an extreme alcoholic.

Few raised by them emerge undamaged.

And people thought I was a terrible mother!

I like this quote:

[quote] In her autobiography, McCambridge wrote about her movie stand-in, Helen Griffith, but she didn’t name the woman who stood in for her as a parent.

The main difference between Exorcist II and Ishtar is that audiences were laughing uncontrollably at one of them, and it was the wrong one.

The Exorcist II was so bad that people threw shit at the screens and tried to hunt down the execs responsible for the movie. That's a whole other level of bad.

DL only knows Linda Blair from The Exorcist and an episode of Murder, She Wrote

Linda Blair was never taken seriously after TE. Whatever the role, you'd be seeing her head spin 360..

Outside of her amazing performance in The Exorcist, Linda wasn’t a great actress and quite wooden in the roles that followed, including Heretic. To be fair, time hasn’t been kind to most child actors from the 70s, so at least she was able to carve out a somewhat trouble free adult life despite the roles drying up.

Speak for yourself!

I turned 12 years old in 1974. Linda Blair starred in two of the most “teen-agey” TV movies if the 70s.

‘Born Innocent’ and ‘Sarah T: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic’ are both seared in the memory of this old Dler. ..Landmark NBC movies to challenge ABC’s Movie of the Week. 😉

Born Innocent

She’s also pretty good in Summer Of Fear, a TV movie about witchcraft co-starring the lovely (but evil) Lee Purcell. It’s free to watch on Tubi at the moment, and likely Amazon Prime as well (I can’t get Prime to play ANY video via my Roku as of last week, no idea why).

She played Muffy in a Love Boat episode.

Sarah T….

Special Guest Stars: w. daniels— Mr Braddock! John Adams! Dr. Craig! m hamill— Luke Skywalker

R350 You obviously didn't see my incredible performance in Roller Boogie. I was robbed of an Oscar nomination for that one. Robbed, I tell ya!

Thank you R351! I came to mention Born Innocent but forgot the name. I thought Mary Woronov was in it too, she would have been perfect as the warden.

I do wish they’d gone with original choice Audrey Hepburn for the mom role. How touching and priceless it would have been to see her shocked little face smashed into Linda Blair’s bloody crotch as she’s ordered, “Lick me, Mother, LICK ME!”

The shock and dismay in Audrey’s eyes would have been REAL!

Splattered palazzo pants ensemble by Givenchy.

Linda Blair followed up TE with several other "victim" roles, like the tv movies where she's an alcoholic and a teen in juvie person who gets raped with a toilet plunger. She was in that "Airport" movie where she plays a young teen with a serious illness who had a guitar that Helen Reddy, playing a nun, starts strumming and then gives her a spontaneous song. That movie was SO bad. She tried to reinvent herself as a sex symbol with the atrocious "Roller Boogie", another one of her really bad movies, but it didn't work Her career never really jelled after making her big splash with The Exorcist. Why was that? It's quite simpe: she had no real talent. And her looks didn't help; she always looked like a pudgy little girl and she sounded like one too. As she grew older she made drastic changes in her diet and actually became gaunt, which made her look somewhat more mature but didn't become her.

Linda went disco

Blair said in one interview that every date she’s ever been on has expected her to masturbate with a huge metal crucifix, often right there in the restaurant. “And I’m just not comfortable doing that in public.”

from Kathleen Carroll's 1973⭐⭐⭐⭐ review

Friedkin's problem is that he has a tendency to rush too much. In his haste, he sacrifices character development. The book was rich in psychological insight. Blatty's screenplay is not. The actors are given very little to do but react. But they are all superb, particularly Jason Miller as the guilt-ridden Father Karras. His brooding, anxious face suggests that he is suffering internally and that he is a priest who is beginning to have doubts. Ellen Burstyn is extremely believable as the mother. Her anger and her anguish pierces the heart.

I re-watched The Exorcist last night because of this thread and I think Linda Blair should get more props for her acting in this movie. As someone said up thread, what actress could do what she did? Her physicality and facial movements, even when Mercedes McCambridge was providing the voice, are compelling. Very few young actresses could do what she did. Anyone else would have made the possession look silly and not scary.

Janet Jackson could have gotten her big break as Regan. Oh well!

Can someone confirm if there were unexplained accidents and deaths during the filming of The Exorcist?

My cousin said this was a sign the movie should have never been made.

At least the demon approves of gay sex. "Fuck him, Karras! Fuck him!"

Lordy - that Exorcist 2 trailer is...overdone. We get it - there are bugs!

I'm kinda curious to see it now...except for Richard Burton. Why is he there? And James Earl Jones? How hard up for cash were they?

Richard Burton had to say he rode on the wings of a demon.

[quote] Her physicality and facial movements, even when Mercedes McCambridge was providing the voice, are compelling.

Blair's physical acting was superb. Little Brat Tatum O'Neal is in ownership of an Oscar that she doesn't deserve.

[quote]I'm kinda curious to see it now

Here's a great 42-second excerpt.

[quote] Blair's physical acting was superb.

Oh, please. Her "physical acting" was done by special effects, being yanked around in a harness. And anybody can make facial expressions.

I could swear Sharon is trying to hold in laughter when Regan is telling everyone to fuck her.

R371 = Tatum O'Neal. Enjoy another line, bitch.

R370 Dana Plato also claimed she turned down the role of Regan in the original. Not sure if I believe her though…

[quote]being yanked around in a harness. And anybody can make facial expressions.

It's true. Datalounge is full of authorities on making facial expressions while being yanked around in a harness.

Wasn’t Linda Blair involved in a puppy mill or something, too? Early 1980s…?

I remember her telling a story about how people would go out of their way to avoid her because they were afraid of her.

I don’t know about a puppy mill, but she became a very vocal animal rights activist & dog rescuer. She famously said she’d rather see Christopher Reeve stay forever in his chair, rather than any animals be experimented on in the hopes of finding a paralysis cure.

I remember a thread a few years back where someone posted that they believed that Burke went into Regan's room to molest her.

R378, I remember that, I can't believe she said that. And she was a friend of Reeves (I doubt they were close after that comment).

R379, I think that's mentioned in the book.

R370 Regan's a cunt. "What's the matter with you?"

Fuck off, possessed bitch!

R380 Why shouldn't she say that? She loves animals. Reeve gave not a fuck about paralysis victims till he was one, so he got it.

R370 yeah that’s one of cinema’s all time laughers 😆

R370, the music at the end of that clip is killing me.

Linda Blair thinks pit bulls are "misunderstood" and is "determined to dispel the negative stereotypes surrounding pit bulls." What an an idiot.

Oh well then she's an asshole on that R385, but as far as not wanting other animals to die to help out Chris Reeve, I can't disagree.

Pit bulls hate being misunderstood and take it out on random strangers by ripping their faces off.

[quote]Oh well then she's an asshole on that [R385], but as far as not wanting other animals to die to help out Chris Reeve, I can't disagree.

It's fine to say that you're against the use of animals for medical testing. But to have personalized it by making a cruel comment about Chris Reeve was vulgar and offensive.

The New Yorker Pauline Kael The Exorcist II

The film is too cadenced and exotic and too deliriously complicated to succeed with most audiences (and when it opened, there were accounts of people in theaters who threw things at the screen). But it's winged camp--a horror fairy tale gone wild, another in the long history of moviemakers' king-size follies. There's enough visual magic in it for a dozen good movies; what it lacks is judgement.

Linda Blair may be the least fleet-footed actress Hollywood has produced since the incomparable Joan Crawford attempted to keep up with Fred Astaire in "Dancing Lady." Seen tap-dancing, as she is on two occasions in "Exorcist II: The Heretic," the chubby-kneed Miss Blair appears to be stomping on live cigar stubs. The rest of the movie is even heavier and more lugubrious.

-Vincent Canby NY Times

Man, reviewers were way funnier back then.

R388 I love Chris, so much that I have the two books he wrote on his accident. I was rooting for him but then in his second book he talked about how he moved his finger and wanted an MRI or something to see if he was coming back, as it were. He said he called the doc at the Jersey rehab center and the doc basically kicked out the people he already had scheduled for the machine, just so Chris could come use it. That kind of rubbed me the wrong way, like he's somehow more deserving of the machine then the other quadriplegic peons. So yeah, that kind of made me look at him differently and the bragging about getting to come in the next day was a little tone deaf.

Very good, OP.

There's only one spelling error in your opening post.

This thread made me watch the movie again on HBO Max. I had not seen either version of it in over 20 years.

I liked the way Regan and Chris's wrestling on the floor over the cookie (?) in an early scene prefigures their later physical struggles. It's an innocuous version of what's to come.

All the major performances are stellar.

The movie does do a good job of setup, but it struck me that Friedkin and his editor, either on their own or acting on studio edict, were going to make damn sure this thing is in the neighborhood of two hours. That first half hour to 45 minutes is a bit frantic after Merrin's prologue in Iraq, with the establishing of all the Georgetown characters, what they do, what their issues are. Some scenes, such as Karras's in the campus bar with Kanavan ("I think I've lost my faith, Tom") feel lopped off, as if there were originally at least a beat for the last line to sink in on the person listening. But then we're across town with someone else.

Maybe it's less a flaw than a pacing choice. Today, so many movies have long run times, and some of them earn it and some don't; they're just slack and indulgent. The Exorcist is the opposite of leisurely. (Even though I can imagine modern viewers still being impatient. "Just get to the possession!")

Then I watched III. It's an interesting movie, with one all-time, hall-of-fame scare moment (the night nurse), but it does fall apart at the end. That "Father Morning" business is at variance with the approach of the rest of the movie. I know the story about the studio insisting on reshoots with a character like that, because they felt an "Exorcist" movie needed an exorcist going through the water-flinging/praying routine. But it's really dumb. There's a recut version I have not seen.

[quote]r394 That first half hour to 45 minutes is a bit frantic after Merrin's prologue in Iraq

What is even the purpose of the Iraq business? Is the demon released on the world when they find the amulet or whatever it is?

R394, the recut version has the original ending and it’s awful. Perhaps the most anticlimactic ending in horror history. George C. Scott walks into Brad Dourif’s cell and shoots him. That’s it. The studio was smart to make Blatty reshoot it, although he may have refused and someone more talented than him had to step in.

R395 Merrin had faced off against the demon some 40 years earlier when it had entered the body of a boy. Merrin won in that case. So The Excorcist was a grudge match.

But yes, the demon encounters Merrin in Iraq, and follows him back to Georgetown. There is MUCH more to the Iraq scenes than meets the eye. This video is a brilliant breakdown of those scenes

By the way, I HIGHLY recommend listening to the audio book, read by author William Peter Blatty. His interpretation of the characters, and his way of reading the descriptions is spot on. And, in the book, the character of Pazuzu (the demon) is much more fleshed out, and interesting. Much of Pazuzu's dialog was cut for the movie, which is a shame. This sounds very weird, but he's actually somewhat likable. He's worldly, and clever, and interesting. Something of a bon vivant, actually. Seriously.

[quote]Merrin had faced off against the demon some 40 years earlier

I haven't read the novel in ages, but in the Friedkin movie, it's said to have been "10, maybe 12 years ago."

R398 ohhh ok. I guess I was confusing it with the real life story that some have said it's based on. Thanks for clarifying.

[quote]r397 yes, the demon encounters Merrin in Iraq, and follows him back to Georgetown.

“Smoking or non smoking? Please store all carry on carrion overhead.”

Holy shit, this is so bad. Poor Louise Fletcher and Kitty Winn!

Guess I'm going to have to watch Heretic now.

What about the prequels and sequels? All shit?

[quote] yes, the demon encounters Merrin in Iraq, and follows him back to Georgetown.

No, the demon was already in Georgetown. In the novel, finding certain archaeological objects in Iraq leads Merrin to believe that Pazuzu will be back. So he returns to the United States; it's now clear when. After little Regan is completely possessed by Pazuzu and is tended to by Damien Karras an exorcism is sought from the church. Karras gets permission for it, but is considered to inexperienced in such matters to perform the exorcism. The name Lankester Merrin is bandied about; how about him? He'd done one before but the experience. He's elderly but they figure he's imust be in good health since he's been running around digging up tombs. In fact he has a very serious heart condition. But Merrin is summoned (he was expecting it) and he goes off to do the exorcism when almost killed him as a younger man. The inexperienced Karra, wallowing in guilt and struggling with his faith, and the elderly Merrin with his serious heart condition....not exactly the best choices to perform and exorcism to drive out a powerful demon. No wonder they both ended up dead.

^^ it’s a stupid story

It’s all shit, R402, except for the original book and film.

The first film was excellent. Still holds up. Don't we all know someone who could use an exorcism, if only in a passive-aggressive way?

One thing that used to bug the heck out of me before the Google era was the excruciatingly annoying ragtime song that everyone is singing at Chris’s party just before the carpet urination. I could never understand any words apart from “that’s my home, sweet home.” It’s “Down On 33rd & Third” (pronounced “thoity-thoid and thoid”—ugh).

More about the song at the link below.

I also always wonder what song Burke Dennings is drunkenly wailing as he’s being helped out of the house by Chris and Sharon after his row with Karl. “On the vee-tree line, on the bee-tree…” Ugh! He deserved what he got.

Hot!

Poor Linda Blair. Her attempts to reinvent herself as a sex symbol failed spectacularly.

R408, she could have poked fun of herself. She could have pretended to still be possessed by Pazuzu and then exposed her tits.

[quote]She could have pretended to still be possessed by Pazuzu and then exposed her tits.

Maybe she didn't want to cheapen the one great movie she made.

She should have posed nude with only a crucifix to cover her womanhood.

She never had cheekbones despite all the free blow. Breeders don't care though, all they care about are tits. Blair got tons of dick just from playing the demon.

LMAO! You're saying guys got hard thinking of her as pazuzu?

r414, I resent that! 🤨

Get back in the toaster and wait for your fucking cue, demon.

We know how the little slut got a bad back. It wasn't from THAT bed.

She's a super freak!

The last several posts in this thread are utter garbage. Yes, we know Blair had a terrible career post-Exorcist and made bad decisions in her personal life. None of that is news, and none of these posts are amusing or even relevant to the topic.

Did Blair's promiscuity in real life have anything to do with the adult-themed character she played as a pre-teen?

I mean, R420, it could be said that playing a role like that would fuck with someone mentally, right? I totally buy that. Being feared and made fun of by everyone could drive a girl to drink/drug. Especially the masturbation scenes. Peeing on the floor wouldn't make you popular either.

Friedkin wanted a child actress with these two attributes: the right "look (very innocent and cutie pie)" and a stable mentality that could withstand playing a vomiting, cursing, demonically possessed child who rammed a crucifix and her mother's face into her cooze. Acting talent was secondary. Blair got the look right with her chubby, sweet little face but turned out not to be mentally stable but totally fucked up. Little Regan became a druggie slut.

Sweet interview with Linda. She says the world is in crisis right now, apparently unaware that she's on FOX.