108 Fun Facts About The Exorcist

In which year was The Exorcist released in US cinemas?

The Exorcist opened in US cinemas on December 26, 1973, the day after Christmas, in a small number of theatres before expanding as queues and word of mouth built.

Who directed The Exorcist (1973)?

William Friedkin was not the studio's first choice: Warner pursued other directors and came round only after The French Connection became a hit.

Who wrote the 1971 novel The Exorcist and won an Oscar for adapting it?

William Peter Blatty was a comic novelist and screenwriter first; he had wanted to write about the 1949 case since college, but for years his agent and publisher would not hear of it.

Who played the possessed 12-year-old Regan MacNeil?

Linda Blair got the part when her mother brought her in without an appointment; the makers had been auditioning older girls, doubting that a 12-year-old could carry the film.

In which Washington, D.C. neighbourhood is The Exorcist set?

The author heard about the real 1949 case as a Georgetown student in the class of 1950, so he set the story by the campus.

What is the name of the demon that possesses Regan?

Pazuzu was a real Mesopotamian wind demon, but a useful one: pregnant women wore his image as an amulet to keep the baby-snatching demoness Lamashtu away.

What does Regan use to contact the 'friendly' spirit she calls Captain Howdy?

A Ouija board also figures in the real 1949 case behind the story: the boy is said to have been introduced to one by an aunt who dabbled in spiritualism.

Which instrumental piece by Mike Oldfield became famous as the theme of The Exorcist?

Tubular Bells had sold slowly until the film borrowed its opening piano theme; the album then became an international hit and reached number one in the UK in 1974.

The Exorcist was the first horror film ever nominated for which Academy Award?

Best Picture had never had a horror nominee, and this one came from a studio that expected little: Warner opened it on only about 30 screens, then watched it collect ten nominations and two Oscars.

Which of these really happened when The Exorcist was first released?

Audiences fainted and vomited in cinemas, yet the queues only grew: people waited for hours in the cold, and reporters stood in lobbies to interview those coming out.

Which 2017 film finally overtook The Exorcist as the highest-grossing R-rated horror movie?

It, the Stephen King adaptation about a child-eating clown, needed just two weeks in US cinemas to pass a domestic total The Exorcist had built up over 44 years and two re-releases.

What is the famous image of Father Merrin arriving at the MacNeil house, used on the poster, based on?

A René Magritte painting gave the shot its look: his Empire of Light series shows a lamp-lit house at night beneath a bright daytime sky, and the film kept the lamp, the house and the dark.

Which film director, played by Jack MacGowran, is found dead below Regan's bedroom window?

Burke Dennings, the hard-drinking director of Chris MacNeil's film, is the demon's first victim; Jack MacGowran died of influenza soon after finishing the part, one of the deaths that fed talk of a curse on the set.

Which 2023 legacy sequel brought Ellen Burstyn back as Chris MacNeil?

The Exorcist: Believer was an expensive bet: Universal and Peacock had paid about $400 million for the rights to a new trilogy, and its opening weekend was reported as a disappointment against that price.

The Exorcist's novelist insisted on which job on the film before he would sell the rights?

Producer was his condition for selling, and it cost him: an early offer for the rights and one interested star both fell away over the demand.

Which voice actress supplied The Exorcist's demon voice after raw eggs, whiskey and chain-smoking?

Mercedes McCambridge, an Oscar winner for All the King's Men, had herself tied to a chair to sound like a demon straining at its bonds; she was left off the first prints and credited only after she protested.

Which actor originally signed to play The Exorcist's Father Karras had his contract bought out?

Stacy Keach was under contract when a playwright who had studied for the priesthood insisted he was Karras and begged for a screen test; the director watched it and told the studio to pay Keach off.

Which actress did the novelist use as the model for Chris MacNeil?

Shirley MacLaine, the novelist's friend and neighbour, recognised lines she had once said in Chris MacNeil's dialogue; the director passed over her because she had just made another possession film.

Warner Bros. wanted which star to play Father Merrin, only for the director to refuse?

Marlon Brando was the studio's pick for Merrin, but the director refused, fearing the film would become 'a Brando movie', and cast Max von Sydow, who had played Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Where were The Exorcist's opening archaeological-dig scenes shot?

In and near Mosul, Iraq: the US had no diplomatic relations with Iraq, so the director dealt directly with the ruling Ba'ath Party, which let him film if he hired local crew and taught them to make film blood.

Why was Regan's bedroom set refrigerated during the exorcism scenes?

The set was chilled 'So the actors' breath would be visible' on camera, signalling the demon's supernatural cold; air-conditioning units froze the room so hard that the crew worked in winter clothing.

How was the sound of Regan's head rotating created?

By twisting a leather wallet full of credit cards, a sound-effects man made the crack of Regan's turning neck; the team shunned electronic sounds and built the film's noises from real recordings such as dogs and a trapped bee.

How did The Exorcist's director startle his actors into looks of real shock on camera?

By firing a gun on set without warning: he let off blanks to jolt Jason Miller in one take, and cast members remember him doing it again and again during the long, gruelling shoot.

Which famous Exorcist scene was cut before the 1973 premiere and restored in the 2000 director's cut?

The spider-walk, performed by stuntwoman Ann Miles, was cut before the premiere; the director later said the wires holding her had shown, and they were erased digitally for the 2000 version.

Which makeup artist designed the ageing makeup that turned Max von Sydow into Father Merrin?

Dick Smith added some 30 years to an actor still in his forties, with hours in the chair each morning; some joke that the old priest wears more makeup than the possessed girl.

Which composer's avant-garde works, including Polymorphia, were used on The Exorcist's soundtrack?

Krzysztof Penderecki wrote these pieces for the concert hall, but after this film horror cinema adopted them: Polymorphia turns up again in The Shining.

Which line do the priests chant as Regan rises off her bed in The Exorcist?

The power of Christ compels you: the two priests shout it again and again while Regan floats above the bed, a shot done for real with the young actress lifted on wires painted to disappear.

Which director made the 1977 sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic?

John Boorman had turned down the original, which he disliked, then agreed to make its sequel, and ended up recutting the prints while they were already playing in cinemas.

Which actor replaced the late Lee J. Cobb as Lieutenant Kinderman in The Exorcist III?

George C. Scott played the detective in a sequel first shot without any exorcism; after test screenings the studio had a new climax written and reshot to add one.

The murderer in The Exorcist III was partly modelled on which real-life criminal?

The Zodiac Killer inspired the film's Gemini murderer, and he was a viewer too: in January 1974 he mailed a San Francisco newspaper his own verdict on The Exorcist.

Who directed the 2004 theatrical Exorcist prequel, Exorcist: The Beginning?

Renny Harlin was hired to reshoot most of a finished film: the studio had shelved Paul Schrader's quieter version for lacking scares, then released it anyway a year later as Dominion.

Which composer scored Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)?

Ennio Morricone's music outlived the sequel: Quentin Tarantino reused its 'Regan's Theme' in The Hateful Eight, the film whose score finally won the composer a competitive Oscar.

What was the pseudonym given to the Maryland boy whose 1949 exorcism inspired the novel?

'Roland Doe' (also 'Robbie Mannheim') was the pseudonym used for the Cottage City, Maryland boy; the Skeptical Inquirer identified him in 2021 as Ronald Edwin Hunkeler, who had died in 2020.

The priests who carried out the 1949 exorcism behind The Exorcist belonged to which Catholic order?

Jesuits from Saint Louis University carried it out over several weeks, led by William Bowdern; one of them kept a diary of the rite, and the novelist later got hold of a copy.

The Exorcist sold poorly as a novel until its author went on which TV programme to debate the devil?

The Dick Cavett Show booked him only because another guest dropped out at the last minute; within weeks the book topped the bestseller list, and it stayed on the list for more than a year.

Whose death leaves Father Karras wracked with guilt in The Exorcist?

His mother, left alone in a New York tenement and briefly committed to a Bellevue psychiatric ward, dies while Karras is away; the guilt torments him, and the demon later taunts him in her voice.

Which metal band's 1992 album Vulgar Display of Power takes its title from Regan's taunt to Father Karras?

Pantera lifted the phrase from the demon's excuse: asked to prove itself by making Regan's straps vanish, it replies that this would be much too vulgar a display of power.

In which 1990 comedy did Regan's actress spoof her own role as a housewife in need of exorcism?

Repossessed cast the original Regan as possessed housewife Nancy Aglet, with Leslie Nielsen as her exorcist; this time the devil gets into her through a televangelists' broadcast.

Eileen Dietz, whose white-painted face flashes on screen as The Exorcist's demon, had which other job on the film?

Doubling for the young star in scenes judged too violent for a child, she later said she had done more of the possession than she was credited with, a claim the director disputed.

Which composer wrote a score for The Exorcist that was rejected before the film's release?

Lalo Schifrin, who wrote the Mission: Impossible theme, said his trailer music had frightened preview audiences and that a request for something softer never reached him; his score was dropped for existing recordings.

Which two words rise in welts on Regan's stomach in The Exorcist?

Help me rises on her skin while she lies strapped to the bed, and it is this plea, shown to him by her mother's assistant, that convinces Father Karras to ask the Church for an exorcism.

Which evangelist claimed that an evil power lived in the very celluloid of The Exorcist?

Billy Graham warned that there was a power of evil in the fabric of the film itself, and the remark hardened into a legend that the reels themselves were possessed.

Why did Warner Bros. hire round-the-clock bodyguards for The Exorcist's young star after its release?

She received death threats from religious viewers offended by the film, so the studio paid for bodyguards to live with her family for about six months.

In which year were all UK home-video copies of The Exorcist withdrawn after the BBFC director vetoed it?

In 1988 Warner withdrew all UK video copies after BBFC director James Ferman made clear he would not certify it under the Video Recordings Act; it was finally passed uncut with an 18 certificate in 1999, after his retirement.

Which soup supplied The Exorcist's famous green projectile vomit?

Pea soup, thickened with oatmeal, was pumped through a hidden tube; Jason Miller had been told it would hit his chest, so his disgust when it caught him full in the face is real.

What term did a psychiatrist coin in 1975 for the breakdowns The Exorcist triggered in some viewers?

Cinematic neurosis was James Bozzuto's label for four patients whose symptoms began after seeing the film; his suggested treatment used the film itself to find what had set each patient off.

When police seized The Exorcist at a Hattiesburg, Mississippi cinema in 1974, they arrested the manager and who else?

The projectionist was arrested with him, though only the cinema chain stood trial; in 1976 Mississippi's supreme court threw out its conviction, ruling that the state's obscenity law reached too far.

In 2023, biologists named what after The Exorcist because part of it spins like Regan's head?

A protist in a termite's gut: the top of this single cell rotates steadily without tearing itself apart, a rarity in biology, so its discoverers gave it a demon-themed name.

Which network's 2016-2017 Exorcist TV series revealed its character Angela Rance to be the adult Regan?

Fox held the twist back until the fifth episode: Geena Davis's Angela Rance, a mother seeking an exorcism for her own daughter, turns out to be Regan MacNeil living under a new name.

How many Academy Award nominations did The Exorcist receive in total?

'Ten' nominations, spanning acting, directing, writing and technical categories, produced two wins: Adapted Screenplay, and Best Sound for Robert Knudson and Chris Newman.

Which play led the director to approach its author, Jason Miller, to play Father Karras?

That Championship Season, about a basketball team's reunion, won the Pulitzer Prize; its author had never acted on film, and the part was already cast when he talked his way into a screen test.

Which animals' cries were mixed into the demon's voice in The Exorcist?

Pigs on their way to slaughter were recorded for the demon's shrieks, along with dogs and a trapped bee; the sound team wanted real noises rather than electronic ones.

What reportedly started the fire that destroyed most of The Exorcist's house sets?

A bird flying into a circuit breaker is the cause usually given; the blaze spared only Regan's bedroom, the room where the exorcism is staged, which did nothing to calm talk of a curse.

Which part of her body did Ellen Burstyn injure when a harness yanked Chris backward?

Her tailbone was fractured, she says, after she had warned that the rig was pulling too hard; the take stayed in the film, screams and all, and she finished the shoot on crutches.

Which US institution added The Exorcist to its National Film Registry in 2010?

Library of Congress staff add 25 films a year judged culturally, historically or aesthetically significant and commit to preserving them; The Exorcist joined in 2010.

Father Karras, the younger priest in The Exorcist, is also trained in which profession?

Psychiatry makes Karras a sceptic: he sprinkles Regan with tap water he says is holy water, and when she reacts violently he suspects she is not possessed at all.

Which Paul Newman and Robert Redford film edged out The Exorcist as the top rental earner of 1974?

The Sting opened on Christmas Day, one day before The Exorcist, so the two ran head to head for months; reissues later lifted The Exorcist's worldwide total far past it.

Which Exorcist filming location did Washington, D.C. honour with a commemorative plaque in 2015?

The stairs Karras falls down, a steep stone flight built in 1895 beside a cable-car barn, got their plaque when the mayor unveiled it with the film's director and author looking on.

Which TV comedy star did The Exorcist's director want as Chris MacNeil before the studio turned her down?

Carol Burnett impressed him in a meeting as having range far beyond her sketch-show persona, and the author agreed. The part went to Ellen Burstyn, who said she was destined to play it.

The Exorcist opened in American cinemas on the day after which holiday, a date its director resented?

Christmas had just passed when it opened on December 26; he had wanted an earlier date. The timing helped anyway, since most filmgoers had the week off and queued in freezing weather.

The Exorcist's demon statue was mistakenly shipped to which city, delaying the opening scenes by two weeks?

Hong Kong received the 10-foot figure by mistake while the unit waited in the desert. Daytime heat there reached 130 °F, so filming was confined to dawn and dusk.

A real hospital technician seen in Regan's medical tests in The Exorcist was later convicted of which crime?

Killing a journalist, Addison Verrill, put Paul Bateson in prison several years after the release. He appears uncredited in the film as the radiologist's assistant.

Which comedian played the priest when Saturday Night Live parodied The Exorcist during its first season?

Richard Pryor took the Father Karras role opposite Laraine Newman as the possessed girl. The show returned to the film in 2023 with Jenna Ortega in the bed.

Which future star was not allowed by her actress mother to audition for Regan in The Exorcist?

Jamie Lee Curtis was kept from auditioning by Janet Leigh. The director was weighing older actresses until an unknown 12-year-old walked in unannounced with her own parent.

Regan's young actress in The Exorcist lost the supporting-actress Oscar to which even younger winner?

Tatum O'Neal won for Paper Moon aged 10, the youngest person ever to take a competitive Oscar. She had played a child con artist opposite her real father, Ryan.

Which NBA star makes a cameo appearance alongside his old college coach in The Exorcist III?

Patrick Ewing turns up with his coach John Thompson among the film's surprise faces. The same list includes the model Fabio, Larry King and a young Samuel L. Jackson.

Which 1984 comedy nods to The Exorcist when a possessed woman with a husky voice levitates above her bed?

Ghostbusters has Sigourney Weaver's character, in the grip of an evil spirit, growl and float over the mattress while Bill Murray's scientist chats to her.

What did The Exorcist's director fire without warning on set to draw genuine shock from his actors?

Blank cartridges went off unannounced to startle Jason Miller for one take. A stand-in recalled the same trick during the scene where Regan lashes out at her doctors.

Some in the press complained that coverage of The Exorcist was distracting Americans from which unfolding scandal?

Watergate was closing in on President Nixon as the queues formed, and one later critic suggested the film's spectacle mirrored it. The audience became as big a story as the picture.

What first name does The Exorcist's Father Karras share with the Antichrist child of The Omen?

Damien Karras came first: the troubled priest appeared in the 1971 novel, five years before The Omen gave the name to the boy Damien Thorn.

Besides being a Jesuit priest, The Exorcist's Father Karras is trained in which other profession?

Psychiatrist is his day job at the university, so he first meets Regan with professional scepticism. The novel has him cite medical cases that once passed for possession.

Which drug prescribed for Regan drew unintended laughter from audiences at The Exorcist's 2000 re-release?

Ritalin being proposed as her treatment provoked giggles a generation on, when the film returned in a longer cut. Reviewers still found the acting effective.

Which Chicago critic gave The Exorcist four stars yet doubted anyone would see it for enjoyment?

Roger Ebert praised the acting and effects in the Sun-Times, then asked what it said about filmgoers that they wanted an experience this punishing.

Besides its screenplay award, The Exorcist won its only other Oscar in which category?

Best Sound went to Robert Knudson and Chris Newman, the film's first win of the night. Its famous ageing make-up had no regular Oscar category to compete in.

Which Welsh star took the lead as a troubled priest in the sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic?

Richard Burton stepped in as Father Lamont after Jon Voight left over differences about the role. One critic later mocked his performance as unintentionally funny.

With what material were the outdoor steps padded so a stuntman could film Father Karras's deadly fall in The Exorcist?

Rubber half an inch thick covered the stairs, and a false front was built onto the house so the double could fall straight down them.

Before The Exorcist, the Washington stairway now called the Exorcist steps was nicknamed for which director?

Alfred Hitchcock lent his name to the stairway, a nod to the master of suspense, long before a priest tumbled down it on screen. The steps date from 1895.

The actress who played Regan in The Exorcist later founded a WorldHeart Foundation devoted to which cause?

Rescuing animals became her main work: the foundation rehabilitates abused and neglected pets and finds them homes. She also turned vegan and co-wrote a book about it.

The album whose piano opening became The Exorcist's theme was the first release on which British label?

Virgin launched with the record after other companies passed on it, and the boost from the film helped bankroll the label's rise into a business empire.

Before The Exorcist, Max von Sydow was known for playing a knight who challenges Death to chess in which film?

The Seventh Seal made him an international name, the first of eleven films he made with Ingmar Bergman. Make-up later added about 30 years to turn him into the aged Father Merrin.

Which star of the vampire film The Lost Boys is the son of the actor who plays The Exorcist's Father Karras?

Jason Patric is his elder son, which also makes him a grandson of the comedian Jackie Gleason. He later acted on Broadway in a revival of his father's best-known play.

Which director turned down The Exorcist, doubting a child actress could carry it, and later regretted it?

Mike Nichols passed for exactly that reason. The studio weighed a long list of big names before the author pushed for the man behind The French Connection.

The demon's voice in The Exorcist was blended with dogs, hamsters, pigs and the noise of which insects?

Bees joined the menagerie that four effects men mixed under the rasping vocal performance. The audio work took four months and was the last part of the film to be finished.

What did The Exorcist's director do to a real priest acting in the film just before the last-rites scene?

Slapped him hard across the face, to get a solemn and literally shaken take from an untrained performer. The blow offended many Catholics working on the set.

Which 1983 novel by The Exorcist's author was later filmed by him as The Exorcist III?

Legion follows the detective Kinderman rather than the possessed girl, and both book and film ignore the events of Exorcist II, which the author had panned.

Which One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest actor plays the Gemini in The Exorcist III?

Brad Dourif alternates in the role with Jason Miller, who was added in reshoots after the studio insisted that a film with this title needed an exorcism.

Which Oscar winner plays Angela Rance, a woman hiding her past, in the 2016 Exorcist TV series?

Geena Davis led the first season, whose fifth episode turned the show into a direct sequel to the film. She did not return as a regular for the second.

Which actor plays the young Father Merrin in both Exorcist prequels released in the 2000s?

Stellan Skarsgård led a version the studio rejected as too slow, then stayed on when most of it was refilmed with a new director and supporting players.

Which director's rejected Exorcist prequel was eventually released in 2005 under the title Dominion?

Paul Schrader took over when the original director withdrew for health reasons, only for the studio to shelve his cut as too slow. The novelist thought it much the better version.

On which Groucho Marx quiz show did The Exorcist's author win $10,000, letting him write full-time?

You Bet Your Life paid out while he was posing as a Saudi prince, a masquerade he had kept up around Los Angeles. He quit his job and never held a regular one again.

Which Blake Edwards comedy featuring Inspector Clouseau was written by The Exorcist's future author?

A Shot in the Dark was one of several scripts he wrote for the director in the 1960s, when reviewers knew him purely as a comic novelist and screenwriter.

Which 1968 horror film, whose ending he found schlocky, spurred The Exorcist's author to write his novel?

Rosemary's Baby impressed him by keeping viewers unsure what was real, but he felt its finale reduced the Devil to a joke and believed he could do better.

Which Cannes best-actress winner plays Sharon, Chris MacNeil's assistant, in The Exorcist?

Kitty Winn had won at Cannes two years earlier for The Panic in Needle Park, opposite Al Pacino. She returned as Sharon in Exorcist II.

Which UK broadcaster gave The Exorcist its first terrestrial television showing, in 2001?

Channel 4 screened it only two years after British censors finally passed it for home video, uncut, with an 18 certificate.

In ancient Mesopotamia, amulets showing the demon later used in The Exorcist were worn for protection by whom?

Pregnant women wore his head on necklaces to keep a rival, child-stealing demoness away. The film's villain was, to those who first invoked him, a guardian of the home.

What did a priest advising on The Exorcist do when the director asked him to exorcise the set?

Blessed the cast and crew, judging that a real exorcism would only make everyone more anxious. The request followed a run of accidents and deaths around the production.

Which musical did Warner Bros. executives expect The Exorcist to overtake as the studio's most successful film?

My Fair Lady was the benchmark executives named after only a month of takings. The horror film did go on to become the studio's biggest earner up to that time.

Which magazine panned The Exorcist on release, then ranked it No. 1 among horror movies in 2022?

Rolling Stone first dismissed it, in Jon Landau's review, as a gaudy piece of schlock. Nearly five decades on, its list of the 101 best horror movies put it top.

What does Father Karras admit he really sprinkled on Regan in The Exorcist while passing it off as holy?

Tap water still made the girl writhe, which leaves him doubting for a while that anything supernatural is at work. Words that later rise on her skin change his view.

What does a linguist conclude about the strange language Regan speaks on Father Karras's tape in The Exorcist?

Reversed English is the verdict: the words are perfect once the tape runs the other way. Karras had recorded the outburst while testing whether she was truly possessed.

On which part of Regan's body do raised words pleading for rescue appear in The Exorcist?

Her stomach shows the plea as if written from the inside, the sign that persuades Karras an exorcism is justified. The effect used a latex model whose scratched letters vanished when heated.

How does the elderly Father Merrin die while continuing the ritual alone in The Exorcist?

A heart attack fells him while Karras is out of the room; earlier he is seen trembling and taking pills for his condition. Karras returns to find the girl laughing beside the body.

What does an enraged Father Karras demand of the demon just before his fatal plunge in The Exorcist?

To be taken instead of the child: the demon obliges, and Karras hurls himself from the window before it can make him harm her.

A medallion of which saint is torn from Father Karras's neck in The Exorcist's climax?

Saint Joseph is on the medal the demon rips away as it enters him. Chris MacNeil later hands it to his closest friend as the family leaves the house.

Which priest, a friend of Karras, gives him the last rites at the foot of the steps in The Exorcist?

Father Dyer is at his dying friend's side on the stairs, and in the final scene the recovered Regan, seeing his clerical collar, kisses him on the cheek.

In what state is the film director's head found after his fatal fall from the MacNeil house in The Exorcist?

Turned fully around, the detective reports, which rules out a simple accident. He concludes the man was pushed from the girl's window by someone unusually strong.

What private struggle does Father Karras confide to a colleague early in The Exorcist?

A loss of faith torments him before the case even begins. The author saw his final sacrifice as an act of love that reaffirmed his belief.

Why is Father Merrin summoned to lead Regan's exorcism in The Exorcist rather than Karras alone?

He had done one before, and the Church allows the rite only on condition that an experienced priest leads it. In the novel that earlier battle took place in Africa.