In Search of The Exorcist

The man stands in the gate of a dimly lit home, his silhouette carrying what appears to be a physician’s bag. He pauses beneath a blurry streetlamp, though his path inward is illuminated by a hazy shaft of light emanating from the upstairs window of a young girl. A street sign on the lamp post forebodes: No Parking Anytime. The man is the Exorcist, and the setting is Washington, DC.

This image became iconic by 1974 after the film “The Exorcist” was released in 1973. “The Exorcist” was to become the first horror film ever to be nominated for Best Picture by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

I was 11 years old, going on 12, when I coaxed my Mom into taking me to see this “R rated” film. By 1973, I had already gotten my adolescent hands on a paperback of “The Exorcist” and devoured it from cover to cover. I then wrote a book report that surprised and impressed my 6th grade teacher. Armed with this accomplishment and insider’s view of the story, it didn’t take long for my Mom to capitulate to my constant pleas to see what was arguably the movie going event of the early 1970's (soon to be followed by “Jaws”).

I recall that the theater in Port Jefferson Station on Long Island was packed and made “barf bags” available for those with weak stomachs. Ironically, I had thrown up not long ago less than a mile from the theater after boarding three carnival rides in quick succession. This too had been the result of convincing my Mom to let me do something that she was wary of. With that memory just far enough in the past, I let my Mom be the one to accept the barf bag (as she had recent experience using them on a flight to The Bahamas).

When the lights started going down, the audience went instantly silent, breathlessly waiting. The theme song “Tubular Bells”, already popularized on the radio, set an ominous tone. I tried to let go of my desire to take my mother’s hand, not knowing whether that would be of more benefit to her or to me.

William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty, director and author respectively, knew exactly what they were doing as they detailed a mother and daughter’s lives slowly invaded and then infected, seemingly from within. Regan’s transformation from innocent girl to demonic child, capable of saying and doing the most shocking acts, was horrifying. Yet, I began to breath and kept an eye on my Mom as she fingered the barf bag in her purse. I think one or two people left the movie in mid-stream, but no one fainted nor vomited. The feeling at the end was one of having witnessed something almost pornographic though not titillating. It pierced our Long Island perceptions with a voyeuristic view into the darkest of stories that is resolved, yet without ready explanation.

After a recent game night with a couple of friends — the first live one since COVID-19 overtook our comfortable lives — we talked of our want-to-watch, or re-watch, film list. I have only made such a list this year as I tended to focus on new releases in the past. Our game night hosts love “The Exorcist” and claimed that they could quote the film chapter and verse. So, we exchanged bawdy one-liners as they led us into the guest room to see their Ouija Board, prominently displayed on a shelf. Out of its protective box, the board awaited a spirit to move the device into spelling out a message as it did for Regan.

I bought a Ouija board as a teenager (without my mother’s permission) probably inspired by “Dark Shadows”, the gothic horror soap opera. I don’t think I truly believed in its power, but I recall tossing it out on purpose once I became a “Born Again Christian”, however briefly. I was encouraged to do this by my minister, along with tossing multiple issues of the magazine “Man, Myth, and Magic”. Sadly, I complied in the name of Jesus protecting me from possession or other dreaded effects.

A few years earlier, I had held a makeshift séance in the Vermont farmhouse owned by my Aunt and Uncle. I suggested to them that we play a trick on my cousin. I pretended to channel George, the previous owner of the farmhouse, in what was to become my best theatrical performance ever. Clearly, I had been on a slippery slope, this path of dark magic. Or was it just the magic of imagination developing in my theatrical mind?

Watching “The Exorcist” again after many years, I was newly struck by the crowd scenes requiring all the “extras” in Iraq and in Washington, D.C. And more so, by the medical process that Regan undergoes. It vividly depicts this young girl as she is subjected to increasingly invasive procedures and sharp diagnostics that fail to accurately pinpoint what plagues her. The limitations of science and, of medicine specifically, are hauntingly displayed as is the quick transition from psychiatry to exorcism as the only remaining path to pursue.

The Washington, D.C. setting drew me in, though Georgetown is not an educational beacon in this film. Knowledge neither wins out nor saves the day. Like the current occupation of our capital by a demagogue, there is both a malevolent force a foot and an inescapable gravitational pull away from humanity and a sorely needed integrity.

For Regan to live on uninhabited, she must enter another host. Father Karas beckons to the demon to take him, to leave his young host and occupy him. And when it happens, he plummets to his death out the bedroom window and down the deadly steps.

Lethal powers that succeed by demolishing their host, ready now for a new victim. Where will this demonic force go next? As Trump resists relinquishing his psychotic grip on our nation’s capital, where will he go if ousted? And who will be demolished in the process?

I long for the days when going to a movie was an easy escape. When magic happened in the name of goodness and justice. When my imagination could conjure up endless possibilities and believe in them, however magical they seemed. But my mother is gone and so is a nation once divided yet still indivisible. Maybe I am the one who is possessed today or maybe we all are as we await a savior of sorts. Something to rescue us from our worst, this nightmare that has befallen our country. Someone to cast out sickness and to restore our imagination to health and hope.