Good afternoon Phoenix! It’s Movie Monday time!
Today, I’ll give you some 411 on one of the scariest movies
of all time – The Exorcist.
For those that have been on another planet and have never
heard of this movie, here’s the plot:
When a teenage girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her
mother seeks the help of two priests to save her daughter.
Trivia:
• Actress Mercedes McCambridge, who provided the voice of
the demon, insisted on swallowing raw eggs and chain smoking to alter her
vocalizations. Furthermore, the actress who had problems with alcohol abuse in
the past, wanted to drink whiskey as she knew alcohol would distort her voice
even more, and create the crazed state of mind of the character. As she was
giving up sobriety, she insisted that her priest be present to counsel her
during the recording process. At William Friedkin's direction, McCambridge was
also bound to a chair with pieces of a torn sheet at her neck, arms, wrists,
legs and feet to get a more realistic sound of the demon struggling against its
restraints. McCambridge later recalled the experience as one of horrific rage,
while Friedkin admitted that her performance--as well as the extremes which the
actress put herself through to gain authenticity--terrifies the director to
this day.
• Father Dyer is played by William O'Malley, an actual
priest who until 2012 taught at Fordham Prep, a Jesuit high school.
• William O'Malley has told students that the movie is
approximately 80% true. He claims the big discrepancies between the movie and
reality were: it was a boy who was possessed, not a girl; the possession did
not occur in Georgetown, DC, but outside the city in Maryland; and the color of
the "pea-soup vomit" was not green. He claims most everything else in
the movie did actually occur.
• Upon its initial theatrical release the film affected many
audiences so strongly that at many theaters, paramedics were called to treat
people who fainted and others who went into hysterics.
• Producers sought to have Jamie Lee Curtis audition for the
role of Regan MacNeil but her mother Janet Leigh refused.
• One of the most famous scenes in the movie and the shot
used for the posters and the cover of the DVD/VHS releases was inspired by the
1954 painting "Empire of Light" ("L'Empire des lumières")
by René Magritte. It is the scene where Fr. Merrin steps out of a cab and
stands in front of the MacNeil residence bathed in an eerie glow.
• Ellen Burstyn received a permanent spinal injury during
filming. In the sequence where she is thrown away from her possessed daughter,
a harness jerked her hard away from the bed. She fell on her coccyx and
screamed in pain.
• Christian evangelist Billy Graham claimed an actual demon
was living in the celluloid reels of this movie.
Goofs:
• Once, in the Iraq sequence, the shadow of a microphone is
visible on Father Merrin's hat.
• William Peter Blatty closely modeled the exorcism scene on
the actual rite of exorcism in the Church's "Rituale Romanum". Father
Merrin can be seen opening a copy of the Rituale in the scene in question.
However, the priests depart from the Rituale in two important details. First,
there should have been four people (apart from Regan) in the room during the
exorcism: the exorcist himself; an assistant priest to take over in case the
exorcist died midway through; a member of the victim's family of the same sex
as the victim, to help restrain her; and a doctor, to (among other things) administer
any medication that was needed. Due to the "2 Priest rule", Fr Merrin
should have delayed the second round of the exorcism and phoned the bishop to
get a replacement for Fr Karras, instead of trying to tackle it on his own.
• The cigarette that Chris stomps out in the park is back in
her hand a moment later.
• During the exorcism scene, the pillows underneath Regan's
head disappear and then reappear.
• Wires holding Regan can be clearly seen during the
exorcist levitation scenes.
Have a ghoulishly fangtastic day my friends!
<3 Brock V"""V
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