| Genre: | Horror |
| Year: | 1973 |
| Rating: | R |
| Length: | 121mins |
| Country: | USA |
| Cast: | Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb, Jack MacGowran, Kitty Winn, Ellen Burstyn, Roy Cooper, Ron Faber, Robert Gerringer, Barton Heyman, Vasiliki Maliaros, Peter Masterson, Mercedes McCambridge, Jason Miller, Rev. William O'Malley, Jay Robinson, Wallace Rooney, Rudolf Schuendler, Robert Symonds, Titos Vandis, Max Von Sydow |
| Credits: | Directed by William Friedkin. Producer & Screenwriter, William Peter Blatty. Cinamatography, Gerry Fisher, Owen Roizman & Billy Williams. Music by George Crumb & Jack Nitzsche. Edited by Norman Gay, Jordon Leondopoulos, Evan Lottman & Bud Smith. Production Designer, Bill Malley. Executive Producer, Noel Marshall. Set Decorator, Jerry Wunderlich. Makeup & Special Effects by Rick Baker & Dick Smith. Assistant Director, Terry Donnelly. Sound by Jean-Louis Ducarme, Buzz Knudson & Chris Newman. |
| Awards: | Academy Award nominations for Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Picture, Best Sound. Academy Award Winner for Best Sound. Golden Globe winner for Best Director, Best Film (in Drama), & Best Supporting Actress. |
Synopsis
Novelist William Peter Blatty based his best-seller The Exorcist on the last known Catholic-sanctioned exorcism in the United States. The little boy in the true-life 1949 incident was transformed by Blatty into a little girl named Regan,
played in the film version of The Exorcist by 14-year-old Linda Blair. Suddenly prone to fits and bizarre behavior, Regan proves quite a handful for her actress-mother Chris MacNeill (played by Ellen Burstyn, though Blatty based the character on his next-door neighbor Shirley MacLaine). Psychiatrists cryptically suggest that Chris seek the answer to Regan's outbursts from religious experts. When Regan gets completely out of hand, Chris calls in young priest Father Karras (Jason Miller). Subjected to Regan's violent deportment and verbal abuse (we choose not to repeat any of her well-known epithets here), Karras becomes convinced that the girl is possessed by the Devil. There is nothing for it but to bring in an exorcist: namely, one Father Merrin (Max von Sydow). You know what happens next: that's why you haven't eaten split-pea soup in the past 20 years. If you don't know what happens next, suffice to say that Regan can only be saved if someone else makes the Supreme Sacrifice. Considered the ne plus ultra of horrific special effects in 1973, The Exorcist is kid's stuff compared to the cinematic gorefests that followed in its wake. Still, it is easy to see why this film was a gigantic hit, raking in $89,000,000 in North America alone. Linda Blair might have won an Academy Award for her bone-chilling performance, had the public not been made privy to the fact that her low, demonic moanings were actually performed by an uncredited (and, by her account, underpaid) Mercedes McCambridge (the famous head-turning scene was, of course, accomplished by a dummy). While it smacks of publicity puff, it is quite true that the production of The Exorcist was plagued with accidents, and its cast members were weighed down with personal tragedies during filming. The only "curse" imposed on the 1978 sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic was a lousy script.
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