Hasitha Fernando on the story behind The Exorcist as it turns 50…
The Exorcist is a horror film that requires no introduction even 50 years later. Its impact on genre filmmaking and the horror genre as a whole is indisputable, whether you like to admit it or not. The movie’s supposedly cursed production and behind-the-scenes drama that transpired have now become the stuff of legend. So, without further ado, let us dive right in and take a look at what happened all those years ago during the making of The Exorcist, as we celebrate the seminal horror classic.
The novel was inspired by a real-life exorcism
William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist was a horror novel published in 1971 that detailed the demonic possession of an eleven-year-old child and the subsequent efforts made by two priests to exorcise the evil entity within. The book was inspired by the supposedly real-life demonic possession that took place in 1949 and the series of exorcisms conducted by one Father William Bowdern on the 14-year-old boy concerned.
Blatty had heard about the incident as a student in Georgetown University class of 1950, and as a result his story too takes place in Washington D.C., in the vicinity of Georgetown University. Blatty never had the opportunity to interview Father Bowdern when writing his novel, and as a result one can infer that what he’d penned was undoubtedly a sensationalized account based on hearsay and rumor. However, all of this is now irrelevant, as what Blatty wrote has become the stuff of pop-culture legend and the inspiration to an entire generation of budding horror writers.
William Peter Blatty undertook 16 hours a day to finish his book
Blatty became drawn to writing a possession themed novel after he watched Roman Polanski’s adaptation of writer Ira Levin’s book Rosemary’s Baby in 1968. The author believed that he could improve on the climax of Rosemary’s Baby by making the spiritual struggle of his story’s protagonist the central theme of the narrative. Blatty pitched his story to an editor at Bantam Books at a cocktail party, and impressed by what he heard gave the writer a $25,000 advance to put his ideas into paper.
And thus began the arduous creative process, at Blatty’s home in Encino, California, which he expected to last around 10 months. The creative put in 16-hour-work shifts to finish the novel as soon as possible, and even resorted to taking stimulants to accomplish his task. As Blatty wrote, the story which he originally envisioned playing out largely as a court room drama, instead moved out of that setting and into one of urban familiarity, metamorphosing into something darker and more sinister.
Studios showed no interest in the property before publication
Studios and filmmakers frequently option manuscripts if they see potential in said property, however, in the case of Blatty’s novel no party showed active interest in The Exorcist. Even with Blatty’s past experience as a fairly successful screenwriter on Blake Edward’s efforts like A Shot in the Dark and Gunn, no one saw the potential of what the writer had crafted. Wanting better creative control over the project Blatty was adamant that he produced the adaptation, and this further dissuaded the handful who were interested in the affair to pursue other projects. Even actress Shirley MacLaine, a close friend of the author, lost her passion to get involved because Blatty wouldn’t agree to let anyone else produce.
Picking the right director wasn’t an easy task
Many top filmmakers of that time period including Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde), Stanley Kubrick (Spartacus), Peter Bogdanovich (Paper Moon), John Boorman (Excalibur) and Mike Nichols (The Graduate), were considered for the gig but none of them expressed overt interest in the project. Nichols parted ways with the effort since he was doubtful if a young actress would be able to carry the film. The studio finally settled on Mark Rydell (On Golden Pond), but Blatty was adamant that it should be William Friedkin as he was quite impressed by what accomplished with The French Connection. Warner Bros. changed their stance when they saw the commercial success of The French Connection, and the roaring success it achieved come awards season.
Casting the lead performers was a time-consuming process
The casting process proved to be a tedious one, especially when it came to choosing the lead performers. Although many major stars of that era were considered for the roles, Blatty and Friedkin ultimately went with lesser-known character actors much to the chagrin of the studio. Chinatown star Jack Nicholson was considered for the pivotal role of Father Karras and even Hollywood legend Paul Newman expressed interest in the role, but Stacy Keach ended up being Friedkin’s initial choice. However, when the filmmaker met with stage actor and playwright Jason Miller and screen tested him opposite Ellen Burstyn that Friedkin realized Miller’s “dark good looks, haunted eyes, quiet intensity, and low, compassionate voice” were exactly what the part needed. The studio then bought out Keach’s contract.
For the role of Chris MacNeil many A-list actresses of the era were in contention, including the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Anne Bancroft and Jane Fonda, but all passed on the opportunity. Friedkin wasn’t a fan of Blatty’s friend Shirley MacLaine either, since the performer acted in a similar themed horror movie called The Possession of Joel Delaney in 1972. Ellen Burstyn received the part after she told Friedkin she was “destined” to play Chris, discussing the Catholic upbringing she had later rejected. Studio head Ted Ashley vigorously opposed casting her but relented after no other alternatives were submitted by Friedkin.
The casting of the Regan MacNeil proved to be the trickiest and a number of child actresses who already had successful careers in film and television were considered. Denise Nickerson, who played Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory turned down the offer because she deemed the script too dark. Psycho alum Janet Leigh didn’t want to let her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis audition either.
Frustrated Friedkin considered an older actresses until Elinore Blair walked in unannounced with her daughter Linda, whose credits were primarily in modeling and a single soap opera role. Friedkin was taken by how precocious Blair was and asked if she knew what The Exorcist was about, and she told him “It’s about a little girl who gets possessed by the devil and does a whole bunch of bad things.” Friedkin knew then and there that he’d found Regan MacNeil then and there and cast her in the role.
SEE ALSO: A Conversation with Linda Blair – Her Career, Humanitarian Work, and The Exorcist: Believer
William Friedkin wasn’t an easy fella to work with
Along with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet, the works of William Friedkin pretty much defined the decade of auteur filmmaking that was the 70s. During this era movie directors were given absolute carte blanche to do whatever they wanted – how they utilized their budgets and how the cast/crew were managed. Because of this, filmmakers resorted to some truly unorthodox practices and unconventional techniques, that would have led to multiple lawsuits in the modern day. Friedkin was such a director, who’d do anything to achieve the desired effect and his filmmaking objectives.
Once when he was dissatisfied with a particular scene Father William O’Malley’s character was playing at the latter half of the film, Friedkin slapped him hard across the face to generate the required response, which of course didn’t sit well with the Catholic crew members. He also unloaded blanks near Jason Miller’s ear without any prior warning, in order to elicit the look of genuine shock he wanted from the actor’s character Father Karras. This led to a major verbal confrontation between Miller and Friedkin, who told the filmmaker that he didn’t need a gun to act surprised or startled.
In another instance Friedkin told Miller that Regan’s vomit – which was made of porridge colored to resemble pea soup and pumped through a concealed tube – would hit him in the chest during the film’s projectile vomiting scene. But during filming, the plastic tubing misfired and hit Miller’s face instead of the chest, which resulted in the performer’s authentic reaction of shock and disgust that we see in the movie. Whether this was intentional is unknown, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.
Friedkin’s frequent tendency of pushing his cast to the limit, however, came at a steep cost to some of the performers. Both Burstyn and Blair sported traumatic back injuries for the rest of their lives following the grueling shoot. Burstyn’s accident occurred during the scene where a possessed Regan threw Chris across the room. This resulted in a fractured coccyx and the actor was unable to film for two weeks, going about in crutches. Blair suffered a lower spinal fracture during the aggressive bed rocking scene and developed a lifelong aversion to cold from her extended time spent in the refrigerated bedroom set during production.
The Exorcism scenes were a major challenge to pull off
One of the most challenging aspects of the difficult shoot was to successfully pull off the exorcism scenes involving the possessed Regan. Being the exacting filmmaker that he was Friedkin insisted that the room had to be cold enough to see a performer’s breath, as described in Blatty’s novel. A massive refrigeration system costing $ 50,000 was installed to cool the bedroom set to a frigid temperature of −20 °F (−29 °C). But the hard part was that they could shoot only three minutes at a time because the lighting equipment warmed the cool air. Coupled with frequent breakdowns in the cooling system this meant only five shots could be finished each day. Because Blatty opted to shoot the entire scene chronologically, in the order of the script, the arduous process to an entire month to complete.
An iconic scene was influenced by a series of famous paintings
One of the most iconic, pop-culture images seared into our collective memory was Father Merrin’s arrival at the MacNeil residence. This was filmed during actor Max von Sydow’s first day on set. The scene saw Sydow’s Father Merrin arriving at his destination, stepping out of the cab to be greeted by a beam of light streaming down from a bedroom window as he’s silhouetted by a misty streetlamp’s hazy glow. The iconic nature of the image prompted the film’s marketing team to use it for its posters, as well as the numerous home release formats.
This unforgettable moment was influenced by a succession of paintings done by René Magritte in 1954 titled “Empire of Light” (“L’Empire des lumières”). DOP Owen Roizman, who collaborated with Friedkin on The French Connection, was given an entire day to visually capture how Blatty had described Father Merrin during this particular scene, which likened him as “a melancholy traveler frozen in time”. Fortunately, Roizman and his camera crew were able to satisfy Friedkin’s lofty requirement from the first take itself.
A troubled production and a purported curse
From the get-go the production of The Exorcist was plagued with innumerable delays and problems. As a result, the film that was originally scheduled for 85 days of principal photography took over 200 days to wrap and went over budget by about $2.5 million, ultimately costing the studio $12 million ($64 million in 2022). One notable delay concerned the 10-foot statue of Pazuzu being mistakenly shipped to Hong Kong instead of Iraq, which delayed production by two weeks.
Other delays took place due to injuries sustained by cast and crew by unfortunate accidents such as what happened to Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair, which resulted in lifelong injuries and chronic pain. But where things get real interesting, and the supposed curse pops up, was through the deaths of people connected with the film or family members of the cast and crew. Blair’s grandfather died during the first week of production, and von Sydow had to return to Sweden after his first day shooting when his brother died, further delaying shooting. One of Miller’s sons also nearly died when a motorcycle struck him.
SEE ALSO: Seven Famous Cursed Movie Productions
Box-office triumphs, critical acclaim and awards honors
Initially Warner Bros. had quite low expectations for The Exorcist, since it was a horror film and had no big-name talent attached. The film also ran way over budget which added to the laundry list of problems the studio had to deal with. Because of this Warner opted to show the movie on a relatively small number of screens without even previewing it for film critics. But soon they realized they had to expand to a 366-screen wide release to accommodate the massive crowds.
Made on a production budget of $12 million the effort went on to garner $441 million at the worldwide box-office as of 2023. This made it the highest-grossing Warner Bros. film at that time as well as being the second highest-grossing movie behind Universal Picture’s The Sting headlined by Hollywood legends Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Adjusted for inflation The Exorcist remains the ninth highest-grossing film of all time in USA and Canada, to date.
Unsurprisingly, upon release the film received mixed critical reviews. Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote, “This is the scariest film I’ve seen in years—the only scary film I’ve seen in years”. Joe Dante who’d go on to direct such cult-classic horror flicks as Gremlins, Piranha and The Howling called it, “an amazing film, and one destined to become at the very least a horror classic,” in the horror-film magazine Castle of Frankenstein. Legendary film critic Roger Ebert gave the flick four stars but was conflicted about how the effort would appeal to audiences, “I am not sure exactly what reasons people will have for seeing this movie; surely enjoyment won’t be one … Are people so numb that they need movies of this intensity in order to feel anything at all?”
At the 46th Academy Awards The Exorcist received an astounding 10 nominations and won two – for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound. The movie remained the only horror flick to ever receive a Best Picture nomination until Jordan Peele’s 2017 psychological horror piece Get Out upset the applecart. At the 31st Golden Globe Awards it won four of the seven prizes it was nominated for, including Best Motion Picture – Drama.
A hot bed of controversy and a lasting legacy
The Exorcist stirred up a proverbial hornet’s nest when it debuted in cinemas across North America and Canada. The crucifix scene, the demonic imagery and the unfettered blasphemy of the possessed were material deemed sacrilegious to Catholics. Several other Christian communities also expressed their discontent regarding the movie and its content. Evangelist Billy Graham told the National Enquirer that “the Devil was in every frame of that film”, a remark later characterized as Graham hilariously believed the print of the movie itself was possessed by the Devil. Protestant groups around the country picketed the film and offered support to those who might be disturbed by it. The situation got so bad that Warner Bros. had to hire bodyguards to protect Linda Blair for six months after the film’s release, since the young actress received death threats from religious zealots who believed the movie “glorified Satan”.
Over in the UK when the flick was originally released a number of town councils imposed a complete ban on the showing of the effort. It drew nationwide protests around Britain from the Nationwide Festival of Light, a Christian public action group. Local clergy and concerned citizens handed out leaflets offering spiritual support afterwards to those queuing for the film. These led to the bizarre spectacle of “Exorcist Bus Trips” where enterprising travel agencies organized tour buses to take interested groups to the nearest town where the film was being shown.
There were issues with the R-rating given to the movie as well, since many detractors of the effort were of the opinion that the graphic and intense nature of the content warranted an X-rating, despite the absence of sex or nudity. However, the censorship and controversy only sparked people’s interest in the film, bolstering its notoriety and contributing to its box-office success. Rumors of extreme audience reactions – with people fainting and vomiting after attending screenings – added further fuel to the spreading wildfire, igniting a level of interest that was unprecedented.
The resounding success of The Exorcist had an enduring impact on genre filmmaking. For the first time in the history of Hollywood a horror film was appreciated by the highest echelons of cinema, and that was a benchmark achievement which would only be duplicated four decades later with Jordan Peele’s powerful psychological horror drama Get Out. The movie’s impact on the horror genre became immediately evident by the numerous exorcism and possession-themed outputs that followed in its wake.
Some, like 1976’s The Omen helmed by Richard Donner further cemented The Exorcist’s legacy through their expert craftsmanship, but others like 1977’s Audrey Rose and 1979’s The Amityville Horror merely recycled ideas, coming off more like pale imitations of the seminal effort that inspired them. Nevertheless, the treasure trove of creativity that Friedkin & co. unleashed in The Exorcist became the template that all exorcism and possession-themed films embraced, referenced and tried to emulate, even 50 years later. Its impact was such that certain filmmakers resorted to spoofing and parodying the genre tropes established in the movie.
The cultural impact of the effort extended beyond the film itself, stimulating discussions regarding religion, morality and the boundaries of cinematic horror. At the time certain scholars attributed the success of The Exorcist to the growing social angst that followed the cultural, social and political upheavals that took place in the 1960s. Veteran horror novelist Stephen King even described the effort as a “social horror film” in his 1983 treatise on the genre Danse Macabre. Many viewers even drew parallels to the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War by what they saw onscreen, finding meaning in Friedkin’s visual language and the terrifying images the gifted auteur conjured.
Quite ironically, The Exorcist also led to a spike in church attendance following its release, with some people who had lapsed in their faith even undergoing spiritual crises. However way you wish to see it, there’s no doubt that The Exorcist was a gutsy endeavor that pushed the cinematic norms of its era, to give us a genre defining masterpiece that would stand the test of time.
SEE ALSO: The Essential Exorcism Movies of the 21st Century
What are your thoughts and memories of The Exorcist? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.
