There are many elements of The Exorcist that shock people, one of which is sex, as the dialogue in the movie touches on this theme with extreme vulgarity. In the article titled “The Turn of the Screw and The Exorcist: Demoniacal Possession and Childhood Purity”, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, examines the sexual undertones of The Exorcist and maintains that it is a major theme in the story.

Beit-Hallahmi parallels demonic possession with “forbidden aggressive and sexual drives” (296). Through the jokes and perversions, he writes that The Exorcist portrays a distortion of sex, which turns into evil. Essentially, the source of evil is seen outside of one’s self, though the sexual drive arises from within; he argues that we have to protect ourselves from the returning evil, which we must exorcise. And so, he concludes, the major theme in The Exorcist is a protection sexuality projected onto evil.

Regan is the only character that represents good, life and asexuality, while all other characters are mixed. The Demon represents evil, death, sex, and bad religion. Beit-Hallahmi claims that Regan thus serves as a battlefield for good and evil, and that only asexual adults (the priests) are able to save children. He urges the ideal of keeping children pure and innocent by saving them from sexual development. Although Beit-Hallahmi holds an unconventional analysis of the film, it is interesting to understand the vast diversity in opinion that emerged from the film. The vulgar treatment of sexuality is in the movie more for shock value, but according to Beit-Hallahmi, provides a deep meaning and lesson to Blatty’s story.

Dempsey, Michael. "The Exorcist." Film Quarterly. Vol. 27, No. 4 (Summer, 1974): 61-62.

The Exorcist was extremely popular among the viewers, driving out millions to see the spectacle of the film. Though sensationalized in the media and among the viewing public, the critics had a much different view. The review in Film Quarterly expresses a critic’s opinion compared to the masses, showing that the film produced just as strong a negative effect.

Michael Dempsey opens his review with the line, “The Exorcist is the trash bombshell of 1973, the aesthetic equivalent of being run over by a truck” (61). He proceeds by criticizing first the public response of the film; he believes that people inappropriately associate shock value with film quality. As William Zuckerman noted that people went to the theater to be stimulated by fear, Dempsey blames William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty for manipulating “the most primitive fears and prejudices of the audience” (61).

Dempsey also criticizes the filmmakers, in particular the ideas that Blatty attempted to reveal in the film. In regards to theology, he calls Blatty’s portrayal “idiotic”. The use of an exorcism of a young girl does not prove the existence of God, as Dempsey writes “…faith, faith in what? In a God who allows an innocent girl to be tortured?” (62). He asserts that Blatty’s faith stems not from the love of God, but from the fear of hell. Dempsey also evaluates the originality of the film, citing a list of movies with similar elements, and the acting, calling Linda Blair’s performance a “film technician’s Frankenstein” (62).

Although Dempsey’s review is from a rather extreme point of view, it is important to understand the full range of response to the film. The explosive response to The Exorcist came from many diverse viewpoints, Dempsey representing the opinion of the film from a cinematic perspective.

The Exorcist, released on December 26, 1973, created an enormous response from viewers and critics, from loving the film to hating it, all for different reasons. People reacted to all aspects of the film . religion, violence, gore, and sex. A phenomenon had been created. The sensationalism surrounding the film was perpetuated by moviegoers and journalists, who had reported of fainting, heart attacks, vomiting, and miscarriages during the film. The Exorcist was even blamed for a murder in the UK. The extreme emotions evoked by the story is generally attributed to the more superficial elements of the film, but William Peter Blatty, writer of the original novel and of the screenplay, had intended it to be much deeper and thought-provoking. The annotated bibliography contains sources that reveal multiple layers of the film, attempting to capture a piece of the full range of responses.

Marriott, James. Horror films. London: Virgin, 2004.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.H6 M323 2004

 

The Exorcist succeeded in large part due to the hype surrounding the film. In fact, there was just as much controversy within the filmmaking process as there was about the film. In the section titled “The Exorcist”, James Marriot provides details behind the making of the film, from inception to the post-release reactions. In it, it is revealed that the film may well have been a product of the director, William Friedkin, rather than that of William Peter Blatty.

Blatty initially wanted to write a factual case history, based on an article he had read in the Washington Post in 1949, but the family had no interest. Producer Paul Monash offered Blatty $400,000 for a six-month option to film his novel, who then sold the option to Warner Brothers for a reported $641,000. After Monash was cut from the project, Blatty wanted an agnostic director but ended up with William Friedkin, a Jewish director who forced Blatty to create a second draft of the script in order to work with him.

Friedkin was a difficult director; having no connections to Iraq, he had to make additional promises to Iraqi filmmakers in order to shoot the opening scenes there. He opted to have all mechanical effects and little optical effects – for the exorcism sequence, the entire room was enclosed and refrigerated. Blatty criticized many of Friedkin’s techniques, such as the spinning head sequence which he deemed unnecessary, saying that “supernatural doesn’t mean impossible” (qtd. in 132). There were additional dangers on the set: a rig that was attached to a mold that had been made for Linda Blair came loose during shooting, requiring back treatment. Friedkin used these difficulties to show journalists and the public that the movie was cursed, increasing the buildup of attention around the film.

After the film’s release, which opened in only 30 cinemas, the term “cinematic neurosis” became popular, when psychiatric problems were exposed from disturbing films in people with no history of mental illness. The movie was blamed for criminal and suicidal acts, including one incident in the UK in October 1974, when a 14-year-old boy blamed for the movie for his murder of a 9-year-old girl. The MPAA changed the rating from R to 17 certificate from increasing public pressure, and the UK gave it an X rating. The public was so caught up in the hype that the movie became the highest grossing horror movie internationally. In this section, Marriott explains the creation and perpetuation of that hype that would dispel any oddities surrounding the movie.

Magistrale, Tony and Michael A. Morrison, ed. Dark Night's Dreaming : Contemporary American Horror Fiction. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1996.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PS374.H67 D37 1996

The Exorcist is based on the book of the same name written by William Peter Blatty, who also wrote the screenplay. Chapter 6, “Casting Out Demons: The Horror Fiction of William Peter Blatty” details Blatty’s inspirations for writing the novel and his thoughts on the reaction to his work. Even the book had an enormous impact, spending 55 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. From this, the more serious intentions of the story can be understood without the visual stimulations of the movie to distract.

Douglas E. Winter writes that Blatty brought a new legitimacy to the horror genre, that he “ushered the reign of Stephen King and the stylized horror genre in the late 1970s and early 1980s” (84). Blatty was raised as a Roman Catholic, having attended a Catholic grammar school, a Jesuit high school, and a Jesuit university – Georgetown. Before writing The Exorcist, he had already published 8 books and produced 11 film scripts, and was known as a comedy writer. It wasn’t until 1971 that he wrote the book based on a successful exorcism he had read about in the Washington Post in 1949. Blatty said, “It seemed a validation of what we were being taught as Catholics, and certainly a validation of our hopes for immortality. Because if there were evil spirits, why not good? Why not a soul? Why not life everlasting?” (qtd. in 87). It was this confirmation that Blatty tried to evoke through his novel, though he concedes that “the real point of the book is nowhere to be found in the film” (qtd. in 91).

Winter praises The Exorcist as a book that confronts religious issues in a thought-provoking manner. He also discusses the social undertones of the story, of women's liberation and the rebellion of youth. The popularity of the book can be attributed to its sensationalism and to the pronounced taboos, but Blatty's real intention, as shown by Winter, was to reveal his hopeful attitude of what the exorcism implies about the justification of religion and the afterlife.