|Allison Vincent|
The Exorcist plays at the Trylon Cinema from Sunday, October 26 to Sunday, Tuesday, October 28. For tickets, showtimes, and other series information, visit trylon.org.
Honeymooning in order to see as many haunted houses as possible is, admittedly, a bit eclectic. Because we were COVID brides, my wife and I had to make a LOT of changes to our wedding plans, including moving our date three times. The third time was the charm though! In addition to reprinting save the dates, renegotiating contracts as vendors closed during the shutdown, and navigating a global pandemic, our honeymoon plans changed as well.
Initially we were supposed to go to Greece and Italy. I’m a planner, so I had it all organized. Flights, hotels, dinner reservations, all of it. Then the world shut down and slowly, but surely, all of those plans were scrapped. What we actually did for our honeymoon was go to an all inclusive in Mexico for a few days—highly recommended for anyone dealing with immense decision fatigue—and then to Universal Studios in LA for Halloween Horror Nights.
My wife is a GIGANTIC Mike Flanagan fan and when I found out the big featured haunted house that year was a Haunting of Hill House experience, I knew we had to go. She had worked so hard for three years planning this fucking wedding and needed a jolt to the system. That’s one of the things we both love so much about spooky media. No matter what’s going on in your life, how many worries you have, how badly you’re spiraling about the goddamn linen color palette for the tablescapes, people in horror movies have got it way worse. We get to activate that fight or flight response in a controlled environment. As Stephen King says, “We get to go insane for a little while.”
Mexico was the “power down” time we needed after one of the most wonderful and stressful days of our lives, but Halloween Horror Nights was going to be the jolt that reset our nervous systems. If you’ve never been, it was incredibly fun. As a theater person, I was blown away by the production. The costumes, prop design, set dressings, all of it was truly impressive. Also, I loved how as the park got darker, so did the tone. What started as a family-friendly day where you might run into Beetlejuice quickly morphed into giant stiltwalking forest wraiths chasing kids around with chainsaws. Of the houses that were offered, most were worth the price of admission. Obviously the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house worked incredibly well, though I thought the pop up “Grandpa’s BBQ” joint across the street from it was a bit much. The Haunting of Hill House was super fun and lived up to all of Leslie’s expectations. But, the one I was most excited for, The Exorcist, fell completely flat. As we left the house, my wife asked, “What did you think? Scary, right?” And I could only shake my head, crestfallen.
For me, The Exorcist, remains one of my “scariest” movies. Every time I watch it, I’m tense. Even though I’ve seen it a hundred times, even after reading the book (fun fact: the author, William Peter Blatty, narrates the audiobook), even though I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, the movie still scares me. It works every time. I think it gets scarier the older I get. It is one of the rare films that I firmly prefer to the book. After the haunted house experience, I now realise that part of what is so stunning and effective about the film is the mesmerizing horror of essentially a single room set.
It is deeply unsettling how the immense power of the demon trapped in Regan’s body is, in fact, limited to this small room in her mother’s rented house. In a traditional haunted house story, you’ve generally got a mansion, if not a very large old house to explore. In possession, or haunted person films, the victim is usually ambulatory, and able to move around, hide, attack, etc. But The Exorcist limits all the explosive potential and danger of the story to this little girl in her small room.
This made moving through the haunted house…bizarre. The designers opted to repeat the room over and over again with different moments from the film featured. For example, in Room 5, Regan’s head spinning around led you into Room 6, where Regan makes the book shelves topple over. It was as if the viewer were looking at single pages of a flip book, or more accurately, single frames of a film. The movement didn’t make sense because there should be nowhere to move through. What makes the movie, and novel, work is being trapped in that room with Regan. The dread of bearing witness to her small body being overtaken by inhuman forces and seeing how drastically and quickly her body and environment succumb to the dark forces at play. Also, many of the rooms featured animatronic Regan’s body slamming themselves on beds and mannequins of Father Karras and Merrin looking aghast and, well, still. Despite being well made, they just didn’t work. Practically, I get it. You wouldn’t want a repeat of Linda Blair breaking her back for the effects’ sake during the film. But the heart and soul (pun intended) of The Exorcist are the living, breathing actors working their asses off showing us how awful and difficult beating the demon back to hell is.
I’m not trying to shortchange the movie. The color of the 70s styling, William Friedkin’s incredible eye for shots that keep the same little room fresh and terrifying, and, of course, the haunted lore of the film install it in a position of admiration and terror in the horror canon. There are a myriad of documentaries and think pieces that range from excellent to trash on the subject. But, for me, it’s the acting that keeps this movie as fresh as the first time I saw it. Linda Blair is an absolute beast. Like, her performance is genuinely incredible. I fully forget that she was FOURTEEN YEARS OLD when she shot The Exorcist. Jason Miller as the tortured Father Karras delivers a haunting performance and shows how internal demons can be just as terrifying as literal ones. The rest of the cast is equally excellent and the themes of losing faith, succumbing to evil, helplessness, loss of innocence, and self sacrifice are almost overwhelming. The substance of the film as well as the performances give The Exorcist a texture and depth rarely seen in most horror movies.
The one positive that came from our trip was that my abject disappointment piqued Leslie’s curiosity to finally watch the film. Being a late bloomer of a horror fan, Leslie always asks for me to pre-screen movies for her. I have a pretty good sense of what is in her wheelhouse and what will keep her up fuming mad at me in bed. Once in a while I do miss the mark (most recently Hell House LLC.) but in general, I’m a pretty solid curator. The Exorcist is one that gave me pause. The part of me that is a perpetually frightened kid squared up with the pretentious little film nerd part and duked it out. Needless to say, the nerd won.
It’s a weird movie to say, “I loved that,” because it’s so affecting. Leslie did, I think, but only after the initial Jesus Christ reaction that generally follows a first viewing. Although I don’t always watch The Exorcist every year, it is a movie that lives rent free in my head. The frosted breath of the fathers in Regan’s room, the demon parroting Father Karras’s mother’s voice, Regan spitting on Father Merrin’s stole. Of all the movies that have spooked me, this one is the reigning champ. And, Friedkin and co. managed to pack all of that into one, small room.
Edited by Finn Odum