Forget the effects. This is why The Exorcist will scare you through Halloween and beyond

I felt it. But it wasn’t really there. The silence of the soupy air hanging heavy on my body. The snap crackle of the night twinging every hair. My breath booming to me alone.

Do you feel it?

I can feel something watching and waiting. Watching and waiting.

Breathe in.

It’s nothing. Nothing is there. Just my mind betraying my need for normalcy. The clock remains faithfully on guard. The TV, slumbering. The door locked shut. I am safe, and I am in control.

What I can grasp with my hands makes sense and creates a feeling of understanding and comfort. This is what we hold onto when the realm of the mystical starts to creep in and rock the boat.

The Exorcist begins by surrounding us in desert sands, where the earth can be taken in your fist and it grounds your every step. And then to Georgetown USA, a young girl sleeping in her cozy bed while her mother takes care of her and the house. The window is shut closed, the covers pulled up, and love abounds. All is good. The bumps in the attic? Rats. The cold in the air? Fall dropping in.

And then the bells. The distinctive, tubular bells of the now infamous theme music slides around the skeleton scale, poking its way through the cracks. It’s at this moment we remember that life can’t only be about pumpkin pies and cozy sweaters. Slowly, the unease begins to manifest bit by bit and eventually things will not be so easy to explain.

The movie takes place in a nice, American town among a loving family with a solid place in the community. Mother, Chris, and 12-year old daughter, Regan, are at the core. Then we learn, as a lot of people have done, that cute-as-a-button Regan has decided to play with a Ouija board to see what will happen. Nothing much does, barring a friendship formed with an imaginary Captain Howdy.

But then that unease starts to unveil itself. Regan’s behaviour begins to shift. Small things at first, leading to more and more unmistakable deviations. Her mother tries to find real explanations for what’s going on. She reaches out to find something to grasp onto. It must be in Regan’s mind and it must be treatable.

And yet, it continues day by day, becoming more and more unbearable and less and less human. Increasingly irrational and vile. Tricky and unreal. Like it’s slithering between your fingers while weighing your whole being to the floor. Darker than the night with your eyes closed.

Regan descends into a barely recognizable figure confined to the bedroom, at times shaking, writhing, and gutturally groaning, but perhaps most chilling when motionless, foul breath curling through the stiff air.

Could she really be possessed by an evil force? Or is her mind creating a truth that’s not there?

I won’t give away too much of the plot here, because I know you’ll be watching it soon.

You’ll feel the play around reality, science, the supernatural, forces bigger than us, and what niggles at your brain when you’re home alone in the dark. These things dance around all of our minds.

You’ll know quickly that the movie drips with an evil we’re shy to speak of, just in case. And there’s just something about it. Something in the air that crackles like the electric night of winter.

Demons? No. The devil himself.

But it’s ok. It’s just a movie.

Then there’s the curse. It’s said that the movie's production was plagued by awful happenings. Filming was delayed when the set caught on fire, although we’re forced to take a pause when noting that Regan’s bedroom was left undamaged. Ellen Burstyn (Chris) was injured when Regan threw her to the ground. Linda Blair (Regan) was also injured filming another scene. Actors Jack MacGowran and Vasiliki Maliaros followed their on-screen characters by dying before the movie was released. More deaths during production include Linda Blair’s grandfather and Max Von Sydow’s (Father Lankester Merrin) brother, who died on Max’s first day of shooting. The son of Jason Miller (Father Damien Karras) was almost killed by a motorcycle. When the movie was first released, some audiences waited for hours through rain and sleet to see it, only to then experience nausea, vomiting, or fainting.

But it’s just a movie.

It’s said that the story, originally a novel by William Peter Blatty, was inspired by an exorcism performed on a 14-year old boy in 1949 by Jesuit priest, Father William S. Bowdern. Friedkin, the movie’s director, consulted family members and diaries of the priests involved.

But it’s just a movie. Made in the early seventies with arguably dated effects compared to its contemporaries.

This is true, but I think that’s missing the point. What’s lurking under the skin of this movie is an energy that can take over anyone. If it happened to Regan, why not anybody? Is there really such a thing as evil? Do demons and the devil exist? Can a person be possessed? Who can answer these questions with complete certainty, even quietly to themselves?

The evil of this movie was borne of the earth. It made marks on a body, changed faces, and lives were lost. A child and her mother gripped and grasped onto anything they could to stop them from losing themselves. It didn’t matter. What they could grasp couldn’t keep them safe. It still seeped in.

And what is Halloween? A time when the veil is at its thinnest. What was already possible is even more so. What are we letting in?

Just a movie. Hopefully you’ll remember that the next time you glimpse a stony face in your peripheral, hear a tap tap tap from above your room, or feel that icy finger trace up the back of your neck.

Sources: http://www.the13thfloor.tv/2015/12/02/is-the-exorcist-movie-cursed/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exorcist_(film)

Image: https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/showbiz/exorcist-40th-anniversary/index.html