A Good Day for an Exorcism

Lt Kinderman and Karras discuss confession

Karras took a dive for Regan's soul

Karras assists Merrin in attacking Pazuzu

Karras leaves Chris MacNeal's film scene

Kinderman ascends the iconic steps

Karras tests Pazuzu to verify Regan's condition

Karras needs guidance of a spiritual kind

Pazuzu awaits Merrin

Karras looks defeated

 I've spent the better part of five hours with the synapses firing trying to coalesce just the right words about The Exorcist (1973). There are these individual scenes, or moments, whatever, that really set off the mind wandering. Like Regan approaching the astronaut at her mother's party, possessed clearly, telling him he'll die up there in space before urinating on the carpet. There is Kinderman finding the sculpted piece at the end of the stairs nearby where film director, Burke Dennings, "fell to his death", his neck twisted, head completely turned round. Burke at Chris's party, very drunk, accusing her manservant of being part of Hitler's Gestapo. The nightmare where Father Karras sees his mother from across the street at the subway, unable to reach her before she descends. Karras seeing his mother on Regan's bed in a demonic trick vision. Karras hearing his mother's voice according to Pazuzu. 

Friedkin with the Northern Iraq opening has Merrin heading towards that final image of the giant idol statue of Pazuzu when a horse cart carrying a grieving woman nearly hits the priest. Karras and his encounter with the beggar in the subway claiming to be an old altar boy, the train light beaming his desperate face. The lost dementia patients in the hospital where Karras' mother was sent by his uncle, her brother. The impoverished block with the deteriorating buildings where Karras travels to visit his mother before her declining health, wanting her to be moved to better living conditions. Karras sees his mother in the hospital and tries to comfort her but being taken from home against her wishes, she won't look at him, never forgiving him. Even worse, we learn at Chris's party from Father Dyer that Karras' mother was found two days after her death, seemingly forgotten about by a busy, overworked staff.

Beyond the demonic makeup effects from the legend Dick Smith, eye contacts, shock scenes involving blasphemy, all the infamy caused by what "Captain Howdy" does to Regan in that damned bedroom, there is so much more. Chris walking through her rented apartment in the dark, pulling up where nearby cops and paramedics are active, finding Regan alone with her window open...I remember this from "Terror in the Aisles". That and Regan slapping her mother as a chair rushes across the room to halt the door. Kinderman talking movies and free passes with Karras and later Dyer, while also interviewing Chris about the death of Burke, trying to get to the truth. So much more beyond just the memorable demonic terror perpetrated on poor Regan, unknowingly opening a door with the Ouija Board, her missing father unfortunately replaced by Pazuzu posing as Captain Howdy. 

Science, medical and psychiatric, used in every way possible, including the detailed arteriogram squirting blood from Regan's neck, eventually vanquished by Pazuzu's relentless hold on the girl. Something quite extraordinary seeing a staff of the finest medical workers in their field unable to determine what is wrong, stuck with offering potential exorcism as a means to counteract the "powers of suggestion". 

Burstyn as the broken mother just wanting her baby to be okay as Chris reaches the hearts of parents who are close to their kids; it's a performance that hits the mark. The bruise under her eye, clearly at the breaking point saniry-wise, begging Karras to help while earlier chastising the medical staff of failing her despite so many attempts to find a lesion or some scar on the brain that might encourage bad behavior. But doctors seeing Pazuzu active really were grasping at straws. It is a fascinating combat here, too. Science and religion. When science seems unable to find the answer, what next? And how exorcism isn't embraced but frowned upon, with Karras, a priest psychiatrist tasked with leading other priests in their battles against losing their faith and how they must find strength when seeing so much darkness, such irony, not exactly kind to taking that option when raised by Chris.

The film does a lot. Offers a lot. For those of us intrigued by what almost each and every scene Friedkin meticulously crafts from start to finish, "The Exorcist" continues to be an acquired taste, but I still remain more than captivated by it.