I’ve yet to find a person who wasn’t at least a little wigged out by this devilish movie. Whether it’s because of the subject (this is what affects my Catholic school girlfriends) or the thought of the innocent teenage Linda Blair playing such an evil character, The Exorcist has a place in almost every scary movie roundup. When two priests are called to the house of a little girl, they discover it appears she’s been taken over by the devil. After attempting a few exorcisms and surviving some graphic scenes that will make your head spin, the priests question whether they’re strong enough to get rid of the demon within.
Fun & Freaky Facts:
• In the scene where Ellen Burstyn is thrown away from Linda, Ellen is in a harness that is meant to jerk her away from the bed. Unfortunately, the harness pulled her too hard and she ended up hitting the wall hard enough to receive permanent spinal injuries. When she screams during this scene in the movie, she’s really screaming because she’s in pain.
• During its release, an audience member fainted and broke his jaw on the seat in front of him. He then sued Warner Brothers and the filmmakers, claiming that the use of subliminal imagery in the film had caused him to pass out. The studio settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
• Father Dyer is played by Reverend William O’Malley, an actual priest who still teaches to this day at Fordham University.
• The bedroom set was refrigerated to capture authentic icy breath in the exorcising scenes.
• The liquid that Linda vomited at Father Damien Karras was made of thick pea soup.
