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The Exorcist (1973)
8 Plays3 months ago
We are joined again by Kelly to discuss the 1973 classic, the "scariest movie of all time," The Exorcist! We'll get into the religious themes, the gender perspective on the story, and whether or not the exorcism even worked.
It's an excellent day for an exorcism!
Books Referenced: Men, Women, and Chainsaws, Gender and the Modern Horror Film (Carol J. Clover), The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (Barbara Creed), Night Mother: A Personal and Cultural History of The Exorcist (Marlena Williams)
Episodes available on YouTube or Spotify!
Intro Music: Body in the trunk by Victor_Natas -- https://freesound.org/s/717975/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
Outro Music: drum loop x5 by theoctopus559 -- https://freesound.org/s/622897/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
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Transcript
Introduction to 'What Haunts You' Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah, he's like, I know this guy. we've we've We've tussled before. Like, this is our round two.
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome to What Haunts You, a podcast about the stories that haunt our dreams. Find us on Instagram at whathauntsyoupod and find all of our episodes on YouTube and Spotify.
Cultural Impact of 'The Exorcist'
00:00:41
Speaker
I'm your host Carly and today my friend Kelly is back who's done a couple of episodes so far already and we are going to be talking about The Exorcist. So welcome back.
00:00:51
Speaker
Thank you. I'm excited to be back. So why The Exorcist? why Why did you want to talk about this one? Oh, I think it's such an incredible movie on so many levels. I think it's one of the scariest movies ever made. i think it has really interesting themes. It has a really interesting like place in our culture.
00:01:14
Speaker
It's an extremely impactful film. it's It's also just very well made. And I think and there's a lot to talk about here. So I tried to keep my notes a little sparser than last time. So hopefully we'll keep it at a reasonable length.
00:01:27
Speaker
But that means that you probably have double the notes that you had last time. So see how it goes. Maybe not double, but I feel like I didn't get quite as detailed in my plot notes because i just don't feel like this movie like warrants that almost. like i got I went through everything, but I didn't put as much detail because I feel like just watch the movie. That's like really kind of like like with this one, I feel pretty much like just watch the movie.
00:01:50
Speaker
um We'll obviously still talk about the plot, but I feel like this movie is such a classic and it's like so ubiquitous that it doesn't need... quite as much explanation of every single scene. you know what i mean? Like if I say like the hospital scene, we'll talk more about it than that. But like I didn't explain it all in my notes the same way. So we'll see how the time goes.
00:02:08
Speaker
But one of the reasons I definitely will have more than I might have otherwise is because I have like three relevant books for this. So one of the books I've referenced like in other episodes, because I think it's an amazing book,
00:02:23
Speaker
um It's Carol J. Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws, Gender in the Modern Horror Film. um i If you're, like, interested in critical analysis of horror, I cannot recommend it enough. It's a little dated. Like, it's very, you know, gender binary and sex binary. but And then i also read Barbara Creed's The Monstrous Feminine, Film Feminism and Psychoanalysis.
00:02:46
Speaker
So she's kind of, like, trying to one-up Freud a little bit on, like, how should we be interpreting these things, which is fun and super weird as like any psychoanalytic perspective will be.
00:02:57
Speaker
And then the third one, which it's a little less technical than the other two, I think is called night mother, a personal and cultural history of the exorcist by Marlena Williams. And That book is partially critical exploration of the movie, partially information about why this author relates to the movie, and then partially information memoir about ah her mother dying of cancer so her mom kind of like was terrified of this movie and like framed it as this like really awful scary thing to her and then she saw it and so she has these like associations with the movie and her mother and this thing that she went through and it's really really interesting so it's it's a pretty multifaceted book and and it's an interesting read for that reason
00:03:44
Speaker
But there's a lot of good stuff in there. Super excited to hear more as we go through. you you want to start with the plot a little
Versions and Commentary
00:03:53
Speaker
bit? or Or I guess first talk about what versions we watched.
00:03:56
Speaker
The first time i watched this, I watched the original theatrical cut. This time I rewatched it with the 2000 director's cut, which I think is much true better I think prior to this, I'm not actually sure that I had seen the theatrical cut, but I rented it and wasn't really thinking about like it being the director's cut or not. And so I rented the theatrical cut and i don't really remember like exactly what was missing because I'm sure some of it was just like scenes being a little bit longer and different shots of things.
00:04:28
Speaker
But the ending in particular, which like we'll get to when we get to, i think is like much, much stronger in the director's cut. So I was like, kind of what like I like i felt a little underwhelmed when it ended um in the theatrical version.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I agree. i i listened to the director's commentary on this movie yesterday as well, which I would not recommend to anyone for the most part. It's mostly him going through and recapping or summarizing the scenes that are currently on screen, repeating dialogue that has just been said or saying, oh, and he's about to say this.
00:05:11
Speaker
Stuff like that. Like, it's really bad. Like narrating more than commenting on. Yeah. Yeah. But he did talk a little bit about, you know, creating the director's cut. And it was really at the request of Blatty, the writer, who was very unhappy with the theatrical cut and and thought that basically the heart of the movie had been cut out. So he finally convinced him to release the director's cut, which is really the writer's cut.
Religious Themes and Exorcism Protocols
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, because Platy wrote it as essentially like Catholic propaganda. His kind of goal with the book was essentially like to show the existence of God by showing the existence of evil or the devil.
00:05:52
Speaker
And so he was like really in it for people seeing the God in the story. And the movie, I think, doesn't do that quite as much I don't feel like that works for me anyway because and like whatever this is like a spoiler but like we're going to talk about the whole plot so I don't care the exorcism doesn't work so like to me it's not very good it's not effective propaganda but I also am coming from such a different cultural lens than a lot of people because I have like no cultural Christianity in my system so I don't know if that's just me a me thing or what
00:06:26
Speaker
No, it'll be interesting to to bring that into, you know, I was raised Christian, not Catholic, but Lutheran and ah Episcopalian first, then Lutheran. um So I'm curious to hear kind of the differences in like what we learned about demons and stuff like that growing up.
00:06:44
Speaker
Nothing, literally nothing. That's the difference. Yeah. Well, and and very little for me, too. Like, i i i think it's one of those things that you don't really talk about or that doesn't really seem real. Like, I felt like the devil was real, but didn't.
00:06:59
Speaker
never really thought demons were real but I was researching it and apparently both the Episcopalian church and the Lutheran church do have protocols for exorcism so it it's done but it's not talked about so I don't know how frequent it actually is but like the Catholic church both protocols first require going through a thorough medical evaluation before you do an exorcism which And I do think that after this movie came out, there was like an uptick in people looking for exorcisms, which is pretty interesting.
00:07:35
Speaker
Also sort of like vaguely understandable in the way that people now are always still kind of looking for like a like a quick fix, like a you know, yeah, like a miracle year for whatever like ails them. So I think it's, you know, more of more of the same more of just humans being humans.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think it increased awareness around exorcism as a concept. So probably people who were, you know, dealing with chronic issues that were not being seen by doctors or not being helped by doctors.
00:08:05
Speaker
um I could see that increasing the likelihood that they would you know, go out and try and get an exorcism as a last resort. um But I do want to circle back to whether or not the exorcism works at the end, because I have ah some different theories about that. So um I do want to get into it, but we can circle back to it.
00:08:25
Speaker
Okay, fun. i'm I'm excited for that. So in Night Mother, one of the things the author talks about is how there are so many ways to watch this movie. There are like so many ways in to take that make the movie feel really different. And so you're kind of watching several movies depending on who you're the most focused on and like what elements you're the most focused on. So one of the things she says is The Exorcist is one of those films that explicitly asks its viewer to take up the task of interpreting. It is in part a movie about movies.
Interpretations and Symbolism
00:08:56
Speaker
So it's about the way that we watch movies, right? And that we are kind of actively participating in the watching of movies. And that's not always true, right? Some movies ask you to be more passive and just kind of like let it wash over you. And I don't think this is one of them.
00:09:10
Speaker
And then she says, The Exorcist can be interpreted as a reflection of the male fear of the maturing female body, An exploration of the sexual repression inherent to the American nuclear family, a warning against the diminishing presence of religion in the United States, or a symbol for the backlash against a steadily liberalizing American culture.
00:09:30
Speaker
So that being said... there are a lot of ways into this movie. There are a lot of things you can focus on. And sometimes, sometimes they also overshadow each other, i think. And so one of the things that I like to do with movies like this is to watch it with different ways in and like have a different focus. But I'm curious, I guess, what is your way into this movie? And like, what are you the most focused on?
00:09:54
Speaker
Oh, gosh. Yeah. Yeah, all of those are really interesting. i mean, i think I find the religious themes to be particularly interesting. um Not that I agree with their takeaway bla i mean, Blatty, like you said, wrote it as propaganda, essentially.
00:10:14
Speaker
But I do think exploring faith crisis is very interesting. We follow Karis through a faith crisis in the movie, and I relate to that, even though I don't. And the same way, i find his his faith crisis relatable.
00:10:30
Speaker
But I think all of those things are interesting. I think the more layers a film has, the more fun it is talk about. Yeah. Totally. And I think that even even what you just said, like ah one of the things that Carol k Clover talks about in ah Men, Women, and Chainsaws about like occult films generally, and I have some quotes about this like later in my notes, is that they often tell a male story by way of a female story. So like, again, this is all, everything in that book is like very sex binary. So it is what it is. That's the language that we're working with. But Basically, that, like, they are telling this story of a possessed girl. They're telling this, like, cult story of the female body as a way to more more seriously inspect the story of this man and his crisis of faith, right? Like, that's the central actual issue of the movie, even though, obviously, a lot of the spectacle of it is Reagan and the possession and the exorcism.
00:11:24
Speaker
The issue to resolve is more about his faith than her possession. Yeah, I agree with that. So let's let's start with the plot, right? um So the director's cut starts slightly differently from the theatrical cut in that the director's cut has a brief shot of DC before we go over to Iraq.
00:11:45
Speaker
So there's a shot of the window of the house, the stairs, the the Virgin Mary in the church. It's all very brief. And then we cut over to iraq and that's where the original theatrical film begins.
00:12:01
Speaker
I think this opening is just one of the most interesting scenes in the movie. We get introduced to Max von Sydow as Father Marin, who of course was also the main character of the seventh seal that I made you watch last time.
00:12:17
Speaker
So come full circle. I didn want to read this quote from Roger Ebert's review of the movie about him. ah he says, And the casting of Max von Sayo as the older Jesuit exorcist was inevitable.
00:12:32
Speaker
He has been through so many religious and metaphysical crises in Bergman's films that he almost seems to belong on a theological battlefield the way John Wayne belonged on a horse.
00:12:44
Speaker
There's a striking image. There's a striking image early in the film that has the craggy Vonsaito facing an ancient evil statue. The image doesn't so much borrow from Bergman's famous chess game between Vonsaito and death in The Seventh Seal as extend the conflict and raise the odds.
00:13:05
Speaker
Wow. That feels true. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me, right? Like it's it's his, it's essentially his typecast and he does it well. Yes, he does. And he was actually only, I think, in his 40s when they made this movie. So they majorly age him up. my god It's like all makeup. Yeah, he looks very old.
00:13:26
Speaker
He was not that old. That's so funny. It doesn't look like me. It's good makeup. i It's really good makeup. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. If you want to see that actor really old, you can watch his brief cameo in The Force Awakens, which i think is my last movie. That's so random. That's so random. So we get, like, we learn about the demon, ah like not learn about, but we get a glimpse of the demon during this opening.
00:13:54
Speaker
And one of the things that I'm curious about, and I have literally no real, like, elaborate thoughts on, but I guess I'm wondering if you have thoughts on, is, like, This seems to be a deity that is older than Christianity. And I guess I'm like curious why they would do that. And like, is that to specifically pick other religions and belief systems against Christianity? Like, I'm just I guess I like wonder if you have thoughts about like why that would be.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's interesting. i think so Pazuzu is based on or inspired by a real demonic deity from Babylonian Assyrian culture.
00:14:34
Speaker
um it does predate Christianity. I think the battle of good versus evil in the Bible also like predates Christianity, right? And that the whole Old Testament, as Christians call that part of it, right? um All takes place before Jesus is even around.
00:14:58
Speaker
But i I do think it's interesting how Judaism and Christianity, their mythology, are both significantly influenced by ancient mythologies of the past. Totally.
00:15:10
Speaker
Right? And so i in terms of using that demon, I think they were trying to come up with something that felt real and and using a historical deity made it feel more real.
00:15:24
Speaker
I also do think like a big part of the film is the clash between modernity and faith and going back to that time brings you back to a place where faith is omnipresent, faith is everything, like religion is like the story that we have for the world and why things work the way that they do.
00:15:47
Speaker
And so i think starting in that context gives the story like a ah longevity and like a continuity back to ancient times that I think is interesting and helps convey those later themes as well.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. It is funny that how sexual the the statue actually is. And this is also based on the actual demon, but he has a snake-headed penis. mean, really, that's the main sexual part. but um It's giving fertility. got wings. Yeah.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah. Another thing that I think is interesting about setting it there is that you like that actual location where they filmed. So they actually did film in Iraq, which was difficult at the time because the U.S. did not have any kind of um diplomatic relations with the country. There was no embassy there or anything. The director actually approached the ambassador of Iraq to the U.N.,
00:16:50
Speaker
and asked him for permission and they gave him special permission as long as he would help train local filmmakers and the place where they filmed is very close to the tomb of Nebuchadnezzar he's a very significant person in Judaism and Christianity um and it's also very close to Nineveh also okay super important in Judaism and Christianity yeah That's cool.
00:17:17
Speaker
um So I heard they weren't allowed to bring in the Americans on the crew for that part. They used like a fully British crew. It was interesting. That was before um Saddam Hussein was in power, but i feel like his party was in power at the time. so I think it was pretty, um maybe not as intense ah of a dictatorship, of very like strict at the same time still.
00:17:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:43
Speaker
But the best part of the opening is, I think, after, you know, he finds the the little object in the archaeological dig, and he um spends a little bit of time in that room with the other priest. I don't...
00:18:01
Speaker
I don't know where they're supposed to be exactly just like an office or something. i don't think they would be able to have any actual religious center there. Um, that makes this setting even more interesting. Yeah.
00:18:14
Speaker
Right. He walks past a group of people praying, um an Islamic group of people specifically. but he's like still surrounded by this religiosity.
00:18:27
Speaker
He passes by like a carriage, a horse and carriage with this really old woman in it, which is another like symbol of death and then confronts the demon um and this like very literal physical standoff between good versus evil that foreshadows the rest of the film.
00:18:46
Speaker
And then the dogs barking and everything is super creepy. Another death symbol. um So I think it's interesting. Like Georgetown has a lot of interesting symbolism, but it feels so much closer to our modern society and our reality. Like that whole scene the beginning is you're just steeped in history, steeped in religion, steeped in symbolism.
00:19:13
Speaker
yeah And it's like, I think a very effective way to start things off. Totally. And I'm not going to get all the way you know into this, but I think, like, have you seen the like the prequel? um I have not. Oh, i actually think you should. It's actually pretty good. um But there are actually two versions of the story of what happens with him there. So because there's like Dominion prequel to The Exorcist, and then I forget what the other one's called, but they're like...
00:19:40
Speaker
have the same premise but go a little bit in different directions and they're both good like i actually like both of them So i would I would check
Character Introductions and Dynamics
00:19:49
Speaker
that out. But that kind of gives you more of what happened there. So that's kind of interesting if you're more curious about the backstory.
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, that is. So that's our open Priest. And then we have our open on Chris and Reagan, right? So Chris McNeil is an actor. She is in a movie that's like about the protests that are going on at schools at the time.
00:20:12
Speaker
And she is also a single mother to her daughter, Reagan. Reagan's father seems to be like overseas. It doesn't get too far into it, but like they pretty clearly do not get along. She has like some staff at the house and the main other person involved in their life seems to be her like also female assistant. And so that's where some of that fear of losing the traditional American family stuff comes in. This is an all female household situation.
00:20:38
Speaker
And one of the things that in Night Mother she says is, by horror movie logic, the female-led household in The Exorcist, much like the one in Cary, is inherently more penetrable, more open to invasion by an evil outside force than a household with a strong male at the helm.
00:20:54
Speaker
So, like, we live in this patriarchal society, and this was a time where there, mean, we're still in a time like this, but this was a time where people were really afraid of the shifts that were happening and, like, the consciousness-raising elements of this time period and...
00:21:07
Speaker
ah I do think that's like very much here that the only man who's involved in the household is like the kind of like butler and he is mostly very passive um right he's not taking much of an active role even of the staff right because I would say that that assistant has more serious responsibilities than he does so it's a really really like really heavily female household.
00:21:31
Speaker
That's super interesting. um I hadn't thought about that, but that makes sense. There are a couple things very early on that I think are interesting to to point out. When we first see her on the movie set and she goes and gives that speech or whatever she is, she so she's like a teacher in the movie this is from this coming from the the director's commentary um she's a she's a teacher in the movie and she's trying to encourage the students to calm down not storm the building and like work within the system and this is a movie about working within the system right yeah the line you can know the only line you can really hear in her like speech in the movie is if you want to affect change you have to do it within the system
00:22:14
Speaker
And that's like the only thing you really hear. Everything else is pretty like whatever, like jumbled up with all the yelling and stuff. Yeah, yeah. And then that can apply to her trying to take care of her daughter. It can apply to Karis trying to do good in the world, working through the church. um Either way, it's like, I think, sets up a lot of themes later on. And then the other part shortly after is when she goes through that peaceful sort of walk through the neighborhood and you hear the Exorcist theme song for the first time and all of that.
00:22:48
Speaker
um She passes by keis and Father Dyer, I think, having a conversation in a courtyard, and she tries to listen into them, and it's drowned out by the sound of a plane, which I think you can interpret as um modernity, like making it harder to hear or connect with Yeah.
00:23:10
Speaker
She's literally trying to listen to these priests and it's drowned out by technology. And that's not the only time in this movie that technology is super, super loud. Later it's a train, medical equipment, um probably other examples that I'm forgetting.
00:23:26
Speaker
But then, yeah, it comes comes back and we get that conversation with Reagan um about getting a horse. And you get the scene of...
00:23:38
Speaker
she she like steals cookies from the cookie jar and her mom chases after her and like play tackles her on the ground and and they're fighting but it's like play fighting and it you know obviously like echoes later in the movie in a much darker way but in that initial scene everything is normal but there's that still little like threat of violence.
00:24:02
Speaker
It manages to set up the things you're talking about while also setting up this like very loving and cute relationship that they have that is very like playful and affectionate. I think all of our introductions to characters in this are just really, really effective.
00:24:17
Speaker
And one of the things in Monstrous Feminine that she talks about is reagan's namesake so reagan is named for one of king lear's daughters um meaning sharper than a serpent's tooth and so she says through her name reagan is associated with the snake christian symbol of women's disobedience unbridled sexual appetite and treachery it is the body of this serpentine child that is possessed by pazuzu the devil and consort of the snake goddess so The snake imagery from the scene in Iraq where we're getting introduced to the demon is also there in the backstory of Reagan's name, which I think is really, really cool. I actually didn't know that until I read that book.
00:24:58
Speaker
That's super interesting. Huh. It all feels very deliberate. And I think it's even kind of interesting that her mom is named Chris and like has this gender neutral name that is like I would say skews more masculine even than fully neutral. Right. Like I think there are a lot more men named Chris or who go by Chris. I guess it's like a short, you know, it's more of a nickname. But I do think that feels kind of intentional, too, in a way.
00:25:24
Speaker
Yeah, and she's got short hair too. But also Chris, of course, is short for like Kristen or Christopher. Like it's a Christ-derived name as well.
00:25:35
Speaker
So oh yeah, like it just all feels really, really deliberate. So that's our introduction to Chris and Regan. And then we meet Father Karis, Damien. And he is with his mom. He's visiting his mom,
00:25:50
Speaker
Oh, talk the train on the way to the mom. Oh, yeah. You talk talk talk about the train on the way to the mom. Helping all other boy out.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, right. Right. So he goes he goes down to take the train up to New York, I guess. Or maybe he's already in New York taking the subway. i don't know. And of course, someone ah ah ah homeless man asks him for money. come on help of an old altar boy oh And he does not give him any money. He looks horrified, i think, by his own kind of indifference to the situation. Like, he he he feels guilty, but not enough to do something about it.
00:26:33
Speaker
And then that is also, i think, true when he visits his mom, right? And she's... talking to him and she's you know telling him about someone who came to visit her and he's like when did they come and she's like last month so you have to imagine that he hadn't been there in at least a month but I also think like saying last month makes me think he maybe hasn't been there in a few months right like because it wasn't like oh pretty soon after I saw you not like whatever people talk how they're going to talk but I think the implication there is really that he is not visiting her very often and she's there and she's old and infirm and not, you know, she's not really healthy. And I think the same thing where I think you, his guilt over his mother is through this entire movie, I think is probably a significant part in his crisis of faith, but he isn't really ready to change. Like he isn't really ready to do anything different at the beginning of the movie. Yeah.
00:27:27
Speaker
Right, right. She asks him not to put her in a home. The next time we see her, she's in a hospital. So he's not ready to do the work to actually help her, and that haunts him.
00:27:40
Speaker
Yeah, and then I think shortly after that, there's another scene with him. He's talking to an older priest in a bar about how all people priests keep coming to him with their faith crises and it's making him doubt his faith.
00:27:58
Speaker
The fun fact that other priest in the bar is actually a real priest. but I actually have the quote of what he what he says to Father Dyer. He says, it's more than psychiatry and you know that.
00:28:09
Speaker
Some of their problems just come down to faith, their vocation, the meaning of their lives. And I can't cut it anymore. I need out. I'm unfit. I think I've lost my faith. And even in him talking, right, we move from talking about these other people and the problems he sees them going through, but those problems are his exact problems.
00:28:28
Speaker
He probably is seeing people like that. I think that that makes sense, but right, he's also really saying, like, this is what I'm dealing with, and he does, he does, you know, after talking about it in the third person say, like, I think I've lost my faith.
00:28:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's so interesting. I imagine that because he seems surprised that this is something that he would have to deal with is other people's faith crises. And I don't know if it's that, like when you're going through a faith crisis, you think that you're alone in it. You seem that no one else is thinking that way. And then coming and being confronted with the people who are supposed to be the most religious and the most faithful, they are all having these faith crises.
00:29:08
Speaker
Like what is he supposed to do about that? Like that, i mean, there's no hope for him. If he, if you were surrounded by people who could help lift him back up you know it would be a lot easier for easier for him but he's the lifter right like he's the one who's supposed to be helping right helping people through that which doesn't necessarily mean restoring their faith right like it kind of depends on the person what they need but it's his job to be the support like to be the person who is trying to make things better for these people And you can't like one of the things that they say, like whatever, like that therapists will say is like you can only take someone as far as you're going.
00:29:44
Speaker
And so like if he has not resolved this for himself, like how is he really supposed to help someone else resolve it? Yeah, that's a good point. There are a number of scenes in the movie of Karis walking upstairs at rising up hills. That was another thing that the director referenced as symbolic of his rise to heaven later on in the movie. Okay, interesting. You will constantly see him rising. Yeah, there is. I do feel like stairs are like a big motif of the movie, so that makes sense that that was deliberate.
00:30:16
Speaker
It's deliberate stairway to heaven, I guess. Yeah. So, yeah, we kind of get to know him a little in his crisis of faith. We learn back, like with Reagan and Chris, that Reagan has been playing with a Ouija board, the ghost that she's interacting with. She calls Captain Howdy and Chris...
00:30:36
Speaker
is like, I thought you need two people to play. And she's like, no, no, no, it works. And the the board seems to not want Chris to play, right? Like it seems to not want her to touch it. And then even when Reagan is the only one touching it, it doesn't work when her mom is there, which I think is pretty important, right? It was like, no, we're not including her in this.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's trying to isolate Regan. It's trying to keep her away from the people who love her, who can protect her. and and and I think it's also emblematic of the trickery that this demon employs throughout the movie. um It's not dumb.
00:31:16
Speaker
It knows what it's doing. It knows how to manipulate people, which it does, especially later in the movie with Karis in a number of different ways. But...
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah, another thing that is interesting from that scene you have, Reagan is basically created out of clay, this bird figure that looks a lot like the demon um from earlier in the movie. And the desecrated statue at the church later on looks a lot also like the demon and the bird she makes.
00:31:49
Speaker
Yes. They mentioned also that Reagan's birthday is on Sunday and and they're like, oh, nice, no work. We can do whatever you want, which kind of implies they don't go to church if their Sundays are free.
00:32:02
Speaker
Yeah. And they also have a conversation in that same scene about Burke being, you know, a potential new father figure, which is just a ah worry in Reagan's head. Her mom doesn't really seem interested in Burke like that at all.
00:32:19
Speaker
But plants seeds for her to kill him later on. right and and kind of implies both through that and with her watching her mother swearing and things like that, that the the demon is not, like it is taking over Regan and causing Regan to do things that she doesn't want to do, but it's also taking the things and the conflicts that are already there and worsening them.
00:32:47
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. It's picking out flashpoints in their lives and in their relationships to grab on to. Yeah. And that's like when, you know, like we get some of the beginning of like the haunted house seeming stuff, right? Like that's where we start to see the noises are in the attic and, you know, Chris thinks it's rats and the butler guy is like, it's absolutely not rats, whatever.
00:33:07
Speaker
And then like, that's where we start with Reagan going into her mom's room at night being like, I can't sleep. My bed is shaking. So this is like where we start to get some of those like earliest hints of things. And then,
00:33:19
Speaker
as that's unfolding is when we also see father karis visit his mom in the asylum right she's not just in the hospital she's really in like a like a like an asylum i don't even want to call it like a psych hospital because that would be too generous um she's in this like very rundown place it's all old women who are totally out of it like some of them are catatonic some of them are scream a lot of them are screaming a lot of them are you know, coming up to him and, like, grabbing onto him because he's dressed in his... ah Tell me the name. What's it called? Do we have a name?
00:33:54
Speaker
ah priest outfit? I don't know. Priest outfit. a Special collar thing. um I'm sure there's a name. Someone is probably, like, screaming it right now if they're listening to this, but... We're not Catholic, so... like Literally zero frame of reference. But he's in his priest outfit.
00:34:11
Speaker
And, you know, like, I think that would be enticing for people who are in a dark place. And he's kind of pushing them off of him and, like, just kind of trying to get to his mom. And she's strapped to a bed.
00:34:25
Speaker
And she's like, why would you do this to me? Like, how could you do this to me? And, you know, his brother even is like, you know, if you weren't a priest, like you would be some fancy psychiatrist making tons of money and she could be somewhere nice instead of here.
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah. And he says it in a way where he he says she could be in a penthouse instead of, and he doesn't finish, but I think the implication is the madhouse, right? Like she could be in a penthouse instead of the madhouse. And I think that It is really sad, right? Like, it's really, it's, it's a really sad moment because she is obviously unwell in multiple ways. They say she was like screaming at her radio and stuff like she's kind of delirious.
00:35:04
Speaker
She's injured. She is also feeling incredibly betrayed. by her brother and her son because they put her in here even though i don't know how much of a choice they had. I mean, I think that ideally maybe someone could have stayed with her or he could have moved her closer to him. You know what i mean? Like there might have been other things.
00:35:23
Speaker
Once she reached that level of unwell, I don't really know what else they could have done. And that's just like a really horrible situation for all of them altogether. But I think it was one of those things where they didn't figure it out ahead of time.
00:35:35
Speaker
And so it was the worst version of events. yeah Yeah, I think so there are institutional problems, obviously, at play. I mean, or in the earlier conversation, I think Karis asks to be transferred to New York, and he he can't be for whatever reason, but...
00:35:55
Speaker
I'm sure it's not anyone's like first choice but i think that the visuals in that scene are super interesting um he's wearing like all black his priest outfit and everything else in the room is white it's like he's on a trip to another realm or something it's very strange and and kind of the opposite of what you would expect right like the the good guy in all black and an all white room in a horror movie.
00:36:25
Speaker
No, it's like the good guy dressed in all white in a dark room is what you would expect. And I like that it plays with those expectations. Yeah. We have that scene and that, you know, just kind of further cements his current situation. Like I said, I think what's going on with his mom is a big part of his crisis in faith. That's very often...
Exploration of Faith and Crisis
00:36:45
Speaker
I think how crises in faith go, right? Like you, it's hard to reconcile what's in front of you with what you believe. And when those, don't when when those things don't line up, it's really uncomfortable in our brains. And so we go into crisis and try to renegotiate everything.
00:37:00
Speaker
And after that is when we get the party scene with Chris and Reagan. And, you know, there Chris is having this party at her home. And actually, like, there are little shots, nothing too detailed, but there are little shots of Reagan at the party before she's sent to bed where she's just, like, being normal. Like, it we don't hear any conversation, but it just seems like she's...
00:37:25
Speaker
being a normal, maybe not a normal kid, but like a normal kid of a celebrity. Like she's just there. And then eventually, you know, later in the night, she comes down in her nightgown and she looks at the astronaut that is there and says, you'll die up there and pees on the floor.
00:37:43
Speaker
And it's pretty upsetting. Like it's a pretty, it's like a pretty upsetting scene because, know, you know she's not a little she's not a little kid it's like I think anytime you see someone above maybe not like right above potty training age but like once you like when you see like an adolescent or older losing control of their bladder or like deliberately peeing somewhere that's not a child like that's that's pretty alarming and pretty like immediately concerning and then obviously like what she said was also pretty concerning
00:38:14
Speaker
um So that's kind of a tipping point where I think that's where you think I think start to really take seriously that like something is very wrong with her. Whereas before it's like little hints of stuff. Yeah, well and and that's one place where the director's cut is a little bit different because because the director's cut before that scene even happens has a medical scene. um And that there are, I think, many more medical scenes in the director's cut than there are in the theatrical release.
00:38:43
Speaker
But this one was so interesting to me. it It's the first one where she... is like mouthing off to the doctor trying to take her temperature she's like oh that is that is in this version and I think I skipped over it okay okay okay she's like humming in the hall right but that's where they're like giving her riddle in you know what i mean they're like oh she's a nervous kid here's some riddle like like I feel like it's very trivial well I thought that was so interesting right like the whole like ah disorder of the nerves I don't know so it sounded like ADHD to me like prescribing riddle yeah
00:39:18
Speaker
I don't know. um I don't know if like, was ADHD not a thing back then? And like, maybe it wasn't i don't as big as thing. I don't think so. I'm not, I'm honestly not Ritalin was really new.
00:39:30
Speaker
Yeah. I also think that like many new medications, Ritalin definitely had its phase where they were like, let's just throw Ritalin at this kid. So you know what i mean? Like it's, It was something that I think, I think, like, ADHD diagnosis was, it was, like, overdone and underdone because it was, like, overutilized with people where that wasn't appropriate and then, like, maybe not given to people who would have benefited from it, actually. so yeah, but but they're they're kind of, like, poo-pooing everything with her, I think, until...
00:39:59
Speaker
the party night. Like the doctor is pretty like, yeah, like you said, it like a disorder of the nerves. And I think there's also the element throughout the whole thing, coming back to like, right, the female puberty theme, which I think coming from a different cultural context of being Jewish, like I think, the like I'm, I think more about like the puberty and like the, like the fear of the female and all that. Like that's what I'm usually thinking about a little bit more when I watch the movie. And I think that that is all wrapped up in teenagerhood, right? Where,
00:40:30
Speaker
your kid is not like so little and sweet anymore and they're using language that you've never heard them use and like doing things and like things you know like doing things that you've never seen them do before and like act a little more chaotic and a little more obscene and it's easy to brush off some of it as like a maybe dysfunctional version of that process instead of something bigger Yeah, yeah, no, that's a good point.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah, before that, in the party, you know, she's pretending to sleep, and you see that she's actually still up. Obviously, that scene is the most alarming, but she asks, like, what's wrong with me? Like, she knows that something is going on, and her mom just says, like, take your pills and you'll be fine, but i don't but i don't think the mom really believes it anymore. Yeah, i don't I don't think, I don't even know if the mom believed it at first, and It's so sad because I think there's just such a helplessness in that scene where both of them are feeling helpless.
00:41:31
Speaker
But what is Chris supposed to say at that point? i mean, I think today we would hope that she would maybe give more comfort, even if she couldn't give answers. I think like there was a different time and people didn't really know how to do that.
00:41:43
Speaker
But also she had no answers. Like neither of them knew what what was going on. Neither of them knew what to do about it. So it's just like a very sad moment between the two of them.
00:41:55
Speaker
Yeah, and at this point, there, there still very well could be something going on psychologically or going on physically. it's it's right after that, though, that the mom sees the bed shake.
00:42:06
Speaker
And I think that is one of the most significant turning points for her, right, is that that now I'm seeing something and that like physically is not possible. Right. And when she's talking to the doctors, they're like, oh, it was probably like muscle spasms. And she was like no like, no, it wasn't. She was like, I was there. It was definitely the whole bed was lifting off the ground. So that solidifies it as something really, really um not normal, something supernatural, possibly. i no they're not saying that yet. Right. But I think that that's that's where we're starting to wonder.
00:42:38
Speaker
that and obviously you know I think like so something I think about is like what would this have been like to see if you didn't know what it was but this movie is called The Exorcist so like I think as you're you know there's not a lot of like oh I wonder what it'll be like you know what i mean like it's obviously she's gonna be possessed and like have an exorcism but it's still like watching and I think watching the process of them get to that conclusion is the hardest part to watch of the movie you know what mean the the exorcism is not actually that long in relation to the runtime of the movie and i don't think it's the most upsetting actually in night mother one of the things she talks about is like how the reactions that people had to seeing the exorcist are so like legendary like people were throwing up people were having seizures panic attacks people were claiming they had miscarriages and like heart failure you know what i mean people were
00:43:24
Speaker
were really yeah that was a big part of what was going on I think it was the arteriogram that did it for people I don't think anyone was like having that kind of reaction it's an actual medical procedure that is like the worst my literal next quote in my notes is The point in The Exorcist, which many people started to vomit and faint and generally lose control, was not in fact during any of the head-spinning, crucifix-defiling, God-defaming scenes of terror and sacrilege we've come to associate with The Exorcist.
00:43:56
Speaker
In fact, it happened before any of the hardcore possession stuff even begins to kick in. It happened during the cerebral angiography, is what the test, I guess, is called. One of the tests is called.
00:44:08
Speaker
um I don't know if i said that right, but... and angiogram and arteriogram I think are similar procedures but yeah I think you said it close enough it's one of those yeah I'm I'm ah i'm comfortable with saying it wrong yeah I'm okay with that and they used real doctors for that scene I also freaking the director was saying that they've used that video to train doctors since the movie That's like horrible to me. That's so disturbing. But I, but like all that being said, i have, I mean, I think you know this about me. Like I have trouble with doctors. Like I have a lot of like medical, and not like health anxiety, but like, like anxiety about like procedures and doctors and tests.
00:44:54
Speaker
And stuff like that. So I really, like, I've never not struggled with that scene. I like a lot of the time, like, and this is me talking, right? But like, I very often like look away during that scene because I, when they're like threading a fucking long ass wire needle, like into her throat, neck, whatever, I like...
00:45:13
Speaker
my whole body like revolts
Medical Realism and Horror
00:45:16
Speaker
against it. So like, like you said it before I got to the quote, like when I read it in the book, I was like, yeah, this makes sense because that scene is fucking horrible.
00:45:24
Speaker
And she's awake. You know what i mean? She's like a little girl. She's not like a little girl, but she's like a little girl. She's like, ah like tween, teen, like early teen going through this really awful test.
00:45:37
Speaker
And then there's like, you know, the loud machinery wearing around her. And like, you see you get a lot of like, visuals of her face and she really is ah good actor and so it's like really hard to it's really hard to watch Yeah, I can't imagine watching this movie as a parent, like ah just to imagine your child going through that. It's scary enough to imagine yourself going through that, but to imagine you your child going through that and you being so unable to help them like that.
00:46:04
Speaker
Is there anything scarier than that for a parent? i don't I doubt it. I mean, I even think about like my pets, right? And like when they they need to have something done and you can't explain it to them. really and stuff you know what i mean so I can only imagine like ah like your literal human child yeah and yeah it's horrible and then like obviously that's got to be horrible for her and then like things just keep getting more horrible so it's like she doesn't even get like a break it's it's terrible Yeah, yeah. and And while this is going on, we're going back and forth between her and Karis.
00:46:39
Speaker
um there Karis has a dream that I believe was cut from the theatrical version where he sees, you know, the coin from the beginning that was found in the dig. He sees...
00:46:51
Speaker
his mother like walking up the stairs of the subway and then like yells at her if she can't hear him and she walks back down There's a barking dog similar to the beginning and the Pazuzu statue i think makes an appearance as well.
00:47:07
Speaker
So it's obviously ah haunting him and going after him from early on before he's even met Regan. yeah and I wonder like Are there any theories about how the Virgin Mary got desecrated or like who did that? i don't know. I mean, I feel like we're supposed to think maybe she did it herself, but like, I don't really know how that would work. don't really understand the mechanics of that.
00:47:35
Speaker
It's like, how could she have? Yeah. Yeah. So it seems like this thing is having like an influence, not just on Reagan, but about on everyone around her as well. Yeah. Well, I'm like going back to what you said about like the demon or like knowing what it wants and like being smart. It's like, it like it's the, the point is essentially like he's bringing,
00:47:58
Speaker
the other priest in like he's trying to create a situation where he will like again face off with this other priest because the priest like faced off with this demon and iraq like however long before in the like prequel and everything so it it is like creating this larger force right to bring a lot of things together so it's like I think you're right. Like it is, it isn't just like I'm possessing Reagan. It's like, I'm creating this scenario where i will get to have the battle I'm trying to have.
00:48:26
Speaker
Yeah. Reagan is kind of incidental. You know what I mean? Like Reagan is just like who it happened to be but. Yeah. Although i do think that the conversation that they have later in the director's cut about why Reagan adds to the to the why her as well but another like another scene we get in here is him doing communion like it like it's very quick like the back and forth at this point between reagan and karis but but he's he's doing communion in a very like robotic kind of way like he's not actually really thinking about what he's saying and this is contrasted to like a later scene where he does delivers communion again and this is after he's you know encountered reagan and he's like thinking through every single word that he's saying and doing it much more cautiously and carefully. So those are both very brief scenes, but I think they they show kind of what he's going through psychologically at different points in movie.
00:49:28
Speaker
Definitely. And then like in between his scenes, we're so getting like more scenes with Reagan of like the possession indicators. And that's where we even have like the scene that really fucked up Linda Blair's back.
00:49:39
Speaker
So the scene where she's like flailing up and down on the bed. she was like strapped into like a device that flailed her around. And so, and someone else was like control, know what i mean? Like someone was controlling it. And so it's this interesting thing of like her character is being possessed and like flung around outside her will. But like she was literally being flung around outside her will.
00:50:01
Speaker
And something was wrong with the harness in one scene or like the straps or how like what however she's attached into it. And she like really fucked her back up. And they used some of that like some of that footage in the movie. But in, i don't know if you've heard of it, there's there's a show called like Cursed Films.
00:50:19
Speaker
And i walk there's there's an episode about the exorcist. And there's a clip of her and like the after, like like immediately after. that when they get like when they start to realize that she's actually her and it's really it's like very upsetting to watch it it's like one of those things where you're like this is like really fucked up and hopefully wouldn't happen today but she like got pretty injured because an external force was literally manipulating her body like which is so scary to think about and she was so young
00:50:50
Speaker
ah Yeah, it is crazy that some of the things that they had her do um as a 12-year-old. There were scenes where where there was a body double used, um like, I think for the masturbation scene, she did parts of it, but not other parts, I think.
00:51:07
Speaker
um And there was a dummy. There was, like, a dummy for some things. But one of the one of the things that Nightmother also talks about is Just what it must have been like for her to like watch her own face change when she got the makeup done and like how that could be really, really distressing and confusing for like such a young person. But then also that they had the dummy live in her trailer.
00:51:30
Speaker
So she's like having to get her makeup done like this. She's having to like look at her actual self like this, but she's also like sitting with this disgusting and like evil looking and decaying kind of version of herself like in her trailer, which I think for...
00:51:46
Speaker
such a young girl is so fucked like I can't like that's like torture Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting because i I've seen some stuff with her but backstage. um There was like a making of documentary and she's back there like getting her makeup put on and she's like in such good spirits, like so relaxed. And she's like, oh, and here's this head of me, you know, like it it's very possible they found like one of the most mature 12 year olds out there, but it's still she she had to go through
00:52:17
Speaker
ah a lot. And I think like when you hear her talking, when you watch different things or listen to different things of her talking about it, there's a lot of inconsistency in how she relates to it. And I actually, and I think that's people have been like critical of that. But I think ultimately, like she was 12 or whatever. She was so young. So like, I actually think it makes a lot of sense that like, probably a lot of it was very fun. Probably a lot of it was very disturbing. Probably a lot of it was traumatizing. Probably a lot of it was really informative for her. And like, whatever, you know what i mean? I think she probably just had such a complex relationship with the entire thing that like it was probably like one of those like it was the best of times and the worst of times things where like I'm sure so much of it was so exciting and cool and then obviously it was hard and then you know she talks a lot about how in the aftermath people were really scared of her as a person
00:53:07
Speaker
And like there was this kind of dichotomy of like people who were just scared of her and people who like thought she would have answers for them about things that like nobody, let alone like a child, would have answers about.
00:53:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah and And she had went on to have like a very complex coming-of-age, teenhood, young adulthood. i mean, she was 15 when she dated Rick Springfield, who was 25 at the time.
00:53:40
Speaker
um ah she was addicted to... I can't remember what drugs, but she she struggled with addiction for a long time as well. now it seems like she's in a much better place she does like a dog rescue charity and like goes to conventions and meets fans and stuff but I don't know how much of the of all of that you can point to like this movie versus like being a child celebrity in general which is bad for like every child who we watch go through it very very true
00:54:14
Speaker
But so after more medical tests, right, and they finally give up and they're going to move to psychiatry, we have the scene where Chris is driving home.
00:54:26
Speaker
She passes a big crowd outside, drives up, find out what's going on. The lights are flickering in the house. You see the demon's face up in the background. And then we basically find out that Reagan killed Burke, the director of the movie.
00:54:48
Speaker
Something I mean, I'm sure I'm not the only I'm sure i'm not the only person, but I yeah, you find out he's dead and like obviously like it feels pretty obvious he like fell from her window. So it feels yeah, like it feels pretty given that she killed him.
00:55:01
Speaker
I do think she killed him. Why was he in a little girl's bedroom? i I'm still not over that. I know she was sick. I know he was watching her for a little bit. but Why are you all the way in this little girl's bedroom? I That feels super weird to me. And I like think about it every, every time I watch the movie, I'm like, how, like, what were you really doing in there?
00:55:22
Speaker
And like Reagan's possessed, like she could have enticed him. and what I don't know. You know what i mean? She could have gotten him to come in there with like, I need help or I need this. I need that. Right. Like, i mean, he could have been trying to read her a bedtime story.
00:55:35
Speaker
It doesn't really seem like he knows her like that, though. Like, it doesn't he doesn't have like it doesn't seem like he has that type of like relationship with her. So it's it. Yeah. Well, I get the sense that he like is interested in Chris romantically, perhaps it's not requited. And so maybe like ah he shows up to the house in the first place. Why is he even showing up to the house? Like, like,
00:55:58
Speaker
He's trying to perhaps like insert himself into this family dynamic, um which I can see upsetting Reagan and then, you know, the demon and taking over.
00:56:11
Speaker
i do wonder that too, like, could it it be something where, you know, she's more emotional and and upset, like she becomes more vulnerable and like it's able to influence her more emotionally. could be part of why that's connected to like what she says earlier about birth but um then we get the spider crawl yeah down the stairs in the director's cut only the reason that's only in the director's cut is because the wire was not possible to be removed in the in the 70s footage it was like too bright so
00:56:43
Speaker
because the way that they would do the wires in general is that they would paint them like dotted lines so that the light parts would fade into light and dark would fade into dark but the lighting and the stairs just did not allow for it and they weren't able to to hide it so then they finally got to remove it with cgi for the 2000 directors cut and we get what has become the most iconic scene the movie it was very weird for me not really knowing that background when i watched it for the first time and watched the theatrical version and i was like wait isn't there a scene in
Iconic Scenes and Practical Effects
00:57:17
Speaker
this movie where she walks upside down downstairs
00:57:21
Speaker
but Yeah, it's like it's like one of those things that everybody knows. So it's it is interesting that it's not in the theatrical cut. And it is, it's like very scary. It's like pretty alarming.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah, it is i i that That, I think, was a stunt double. I mean, the the level of coordination that you'd have to have to like walk like that, even on wires. Yeah, I would assume that that was the body double.
00:57:50
Speaker
And it doesn't look like her face. It's like one of the only times in the movie where ah you look at the face and it's like, that really just does not look like her at all. yeah Well, and you can see her face really well, which isn't true whatsoever.
00:58:02
Speaker
of some of the other places where they use the body double where it's like not as like fixed of shots on her face yeah yeah that's funny that that's like the one non-practical thing I think in the whole movie is they had to for the director's cut erase the wire that's the best way to use cgi is to just touch up practical effects that's what i feel very strongly about i agree right like this movie has like a ah tangibility and realness to it that i don't think is delivered by cgi like yeah you have to
00:58:39
Speaker
like It just feels so much more real when you see it physically. Even if it's a dummy head. like the The dummy head is pretty impressive. And it's in the room. yeah it's like i I'm like obsessed with the movie The Thing.
00:58:53
Speaker
And like they made that prequel of it. And the prequel is like good, but it just doesn't... It's all CGI. It just does not hit the same. And that's also why this movie is so timeless. right Because we're not going to like in 20 years be like, oh, those are bad effects. like They're just...
00:59:07
Speaker
doing the stuff there is you know what i never noticed this before but in the scene in one of the exorcism parts where she has like the pea soup not like projectile vomit but like just like kind of pouring out of her mouth you can totally see the tube on her face i've never noticed it until this watch probably because i was just watching really closely because i was like taking notes and whatever but you can like really see the tube on her face And I was like funny I did not notice I was like how have I I was like I've seen this movie probably at least 20 times like how have I not ever noticed that but i haven't and I was like um my god but it's like the only moment in the movie where you like really skeptical of like anything you know and it's like two seconds like quick it's it's over really fast.
00:59:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's hilarious. yeah so Yeah. So after burke Denning's death scene, really his death scene, the aftermath of his death scene um is when we get like into the... She goes to therapy and they do the hypnotherapy on her, which is obviously kind of a disaster for everyone involved, yeah as everything here tends to be.
01:00:17
Speaker
Yeah, she like grabs the guy by the balls so hard he falls to the ground screaming. Yeah, it's It's pretty aggressive. And then she's like trying to like, she's really like going for his genital area.
01:00:31
Speaker
Like after she, like she grabs him and he goes down, but then it like looks like she's going for his pants. Like it like kind of looks like she's going to do something. out Is that the first time she's yelling? Like, fuck me, fuck me.
01:00:43
Speaker
Also. Maybe. I think probably it's, she's definitely yelling something like, like in that book. That's where we're starting to see more of that. She growls a bunch.
01:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, that seems disturbing. cut away also to the priest running around the the track and we're introduced to the detective character.
01:01:05
Speaker
who is great. He is like utterly delightful. I have to say, I'm not usually a super big fan of cop characters, but he is he is so delightful. He is. The closest ah um parallel I can think of is Loomis in Halloween. Totally. Like, they both have very similar, like, old grandpa energy. And I love his movie thing. Like, he's obsessed with movies. Like, it's really, yeah he's, like, always like, you want to go see this movie with me? i have I have passes to the movie theater. And it's just, like, a very, I mean, I like movies. So that's probably why I find it so endearing. But it is. It's, like, so endearing that he just, like, wants to share movies with people. I relate.
01:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, I totally, I agree. I think it's awesome. um It's very sweet. He always, like, is trying to make friends. He obviously, he thinks that Charis can help him since he's the priest's psychologist, and he he thinks that this murder was done by a priest.
01:02:00
Speaker
But I like that Karis claims, you know, he can't claim therapist client privilege in a case like this, but he can claim religious privilege um or confessional.
01:02:14
Speaker
And I'm just going to say someone didn't do their research because it's not true. Really? Interesting. You can't report something that's already happened. You can report a plan. If somebody showed up and said, I am going to kill Burke Dennings, you would have to report it.
01:02:28
Speaker
But if they were like, I have already killed this person, you do not report Oh, that's very interesting. It's only if you can prevent something. Like, it's essentially, like, you are you have a duty to warn. So if there's no one to warn, yeah you actually can't. Like, so so, and when he says it, um he says whatever. Like, a psychiatrist recently went to jail or whatever.
01:02:49
Speaker
And my guess is whatever case they were referencing was something... that established the duty to warn, i would guess that in whatever case he's referencing, the psychiatrist or therapist or whoever it was heard about it before it happened and not like after it happened. Because it's not our job to help catch people.
01:03:08
Speaker
You know what i mean? It's our job to protect people. So I yeah always kind of, I get a little chuckle out of that moment because I'm like, that's just not even true. I ranted. Oh, you cops cops are notoriously honest too. Right. Right.
01:03:21
Speaker
I want to believe that Detective Kinderman is honest, though. He's so sweet. And I feel like he probably was being honest and just didn't know. And, like, whatever, different states. Like, maybe it is different. i don't You know what I mean? I don't know. Different time period.
01:03:35
Speaker
I was also wondering if, like... Maybe even if you don't have duty to warn, could you still be like subpoenaed if ah potential quiet committed a committed violent crime? Like, could you be subpoenaed in their court case to perhaps provide information about their psychological state at the time that the crime was?
01:03:56
Speaker
um It's possible. um We're basically taught to just assert privilege over and over until they basically tell us that like we will be in contempt if we don't answer. So you're supposed to fight it like every step of the way until basically they're like, no, you literally don't have a choice.
01:04:13
Speaker
So like you could be subpoenaed. I don't know that everyone who gets subpoenaed actually ends up having to testify. like I don't know how... I haven't been in that situation. Thank thank goodness. Hopefully knock on knock on wood. But you're supposed to always fight it if you are. You're not supposed to like necessarily, you have to respond, right? Like you have to respond to a subpoena, but you're supposed to like initially be like, I like I'm asserting privilege on behalf of my client and I'm not going to share this information, whatever, whatever.
01:04:40
Speaker
But like once it hit, like once they're like, no, you have to, like you have to. So we're finally at the point where exorcism is recommended by the doctors. um Not because they believe that exorcisms work, but because they believe there's like a basically a placebo effect and that if people believe in it, that...
01:04:59
Speaker
that it will work and I think that's probably true I think probably a lot of people are helped by exorcism I I really will say like I think it sounds like it would be quite a cathartic experience and I think if you think it's gonna like we know that things work if you think they're gonna work even like a lot of therapy modalities are like that like if you don't buy in it doesn't work if you do buy in and commit it does like it's you have to give yourself to a thing for it to work and so Yeah, I mean, I actually think it makes a lot of sense that they say that.
01:05:28
Speaker
But it's funny because yeah it's funny because it is true. And like, we kind of at this point believe it to be true. And like, they don't believe it. But they're like, hey, you might as well. And it's kind of funny, like a funny moment.
01:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny because it also it's like you're you're talking about a presumably atheist family. Like they don't seem interested in church at all. um So where would she get this belief in the first place that she was possessed?
01:05:57
Speaker
Although I do think they kind of drop hints here and there, like the... the made but putting a a crucifix under her pillow would imply that perhaps she was religious so Reagan still could have been exposed to that stuff without it coming from her mom yeah right or she could be exposed to it at school or you know in her immunity or whatever still possibility I also wouldn't even be surprised if Reagan like went to a Catholic school just because like Or does she even go to school? I don't know. I've kind By the live-in assistant. I'm not clear about that.
01:06:31
Speaker
I'm not clear about that. Because they are traveling, presumably, all the time while she's on movie sets. So I could see it being like a private tutor. That is probably true. Potentially. That's probably true.
01:06:45
Speaker
Yeah. Which would make it all the more alarming that that she's being influenced by something from outside of the house. Yeah. Yeah. In theory, know everything about her education and what she's learning.
01:06:57
Speaker
And the detective comes in and and basically tells her without telling her that he thinks that Reagan had something to do with Burke's death.
01:07:09
Speaker
I like that scene a lot. Both of the actors are conveying so much underneath the words that they're saying to each other, especially the mom. yeah And I think Kinderman seems so sympathetic to their situation. you know what I mean? Like there's almost an unspoken energy of like, I don't necessarily need to see this through.
01:07:31
Speaker
Like, we're going to talk about it, but, like, I don't necessarily need to see this through. Like, as he's finding out that she's sick and he's like, is it serious? And she's like, I'm afraid it is. You know, there is, ah like, it feels like there's a lot of empathy for their situation from him.
01:07:46
Speaker
Like, that is also under there. The question of, like, do we actually do anything with this information or do we just try to get this sick kid some help? And the mom is obviously horrified and coming to the realization.
01:08:00
Speaker
i like when she asks him if he wants more coffee, like as like a, can you move please leave? Yeah. And he's just like, yeah, I'll have some more coffee. Yeah. And he's like a little star. struck by her right he's a movie guy she's a movie star so he also will like asks her autograph yeah he asks her for and it's really cute because he's like can I get it for who is it for you who does he say it's for he says it's for someone his daughter and then like right before he leaves he was like I lied it was for me and it's like kind of a cute like it's like he's being a little annoying but in an endearing way like even Chris kind of thinks like it seems like she's like a little annoyed and she's kind of like okay i don't really like need this right now but she's also like okay you're kind of nice like let me
01:08:38
Speaker
give you your autograph and whatever yeah it is it is a good scene though it's really effective yes it is um the realization that that her daughter's not only suffering but has like caused this horrible tragedy um I think is what probably what pushes her to actually finally look into the exorcism and Or if not that, this immediate subsequent scene, which is like the most disturbing scene in the movie other than the arteriogram, probably, which is the crucifix, bloody masturbation scene, if you can even call it masturbation.
01:09:18
Speaker
I don't know that I even like that word. I would call it self-harm. yeah I think that's more accurate. It's like a sexualized self-harm, but it's definitely closer to self-harm. And she's, you know, yelling, she's yelling, let Jesus fuck you, which obviously I imagine is like, like for, I'm sure like when Catholic people at the time saw this movie and heard that they were probably like, holy shit.
01:09:42
Speaker
That's actually probably not what they were thinking, but you know what I mean. And then she, like, her you know, her mom comes in and she is, like, saying, she, like, grabs her mom's head and, like, holds it to her crotch and is like, lick me, like, as she's, like, bleeding from this.
01:09:56
Speaker
And I think there's also, like, a little bit of the question of, like, is some of it menstrual blood? Is this, like, more of the female puberty stuff, like, mixed into the cell farm? So, like, I don' whatever, but... It's really, it just, like, very appalling, and it's a different type of disturbing than the scene with, like, the testing. Like, that's just, like, kind of straightforwardly disturbing because it's scary and, like, a really intense test and whatever, but this is, like...
01:10:21
Speaker
the self-harm element the like bound the intense like boundary violation happening around two things right like like consent essentially but also like this mother-daughter barrier being really like fucked up by this moment and like she throws her mom like a like clear across the room and I guess she actually got a little bit hurt in that scene like that um so you know it it but it's it's it is it's like a really it's like a gruesome scene and I think is that the scene that also has the furniture moving I believe i think Chris falls to the floor and then like the the dresser or the wardrobe thing like starts to come towards her and she like flees out of the room and gets out before it like squishes her against the door yeah so yeah I think I think it is that scene
01:11:09
Speaker
ah Yeah, because all of that, I think, has to go down all at once, because the next time we see her, she's tied down. Yeah. So that she can't hurt her anymore. So, yeah, right after that, she goes to Karis, and she's hiding her black eye and her sunglasses and, like...
01:11:27
Speaker
is so embarrassed to even be asking him. Like, it's so funny, like, the way that she asks him, like, have you heard about, or what do you think about exorcism? Like, she says it, like, so casually, i or, like like, covertly almost. It's, like, the way that you would ask him, like, ah so so do you do drugs? like She's looking for her exorcism dealer.
01:11:52
Speaker
yeah yeah Exactly. And he says he's never met anyone who' who's done it. Like, it doesn't happen because science has provided an explanation for basically everything that was that needed an exorcism in the past.
01:12:09
Speaker
Which I would be curious to see exorcism rates before and after the movie, but I think that's really hard data to get because it's something that the church is still very secretive about and has always been secretive about. It's not like they're publishing, like...
01:12:24
Speaker
all of their data, but... and the the fact that he's Jesuit, I think, is relevant to, right? Like, the Jesuit priesthood, they founded Georgetown, they founded Loyola, near where he used to go.
01:12:41
Speaker
Like, it's a very education-oriented priesthood. um And so I could imagine it being even more taboo in that context when there's so much emphasis on science and learning and higher education. Okay, that that is actually pretty helpful context for me because I don't think... I knew that they founded the schools and stuff, but I guess I didn't really think... I didn't just didn't think about it really at all. So I didn't think about, like, those the implications of, like, what that would...
01:13:08
Speaker
mean for like how they view things and like their value on education so that is actually yeah that makes like that it would be even more taboo because they do have more reliance on like what we have learned academically and scientifically Yeah. Like he says, it was the church that put him through um medical school as well.
01:13:28
Speaker
And even to provide like a psychiatrist to their priest, as opposed to just a priest, like, you know what I mean? Even just like that, like offering that, I feel like seems interesting. Like, I don't know what word to put there, but like, like that's something.
01:13:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely putting stake in science, not just in faith. Like there, there's an, an acceptance of both or like seeing how they're compatible rather than viewing them as opposed. Which is kind of interesting in this context of like, there is a battle between medical science and faith in
Science vs. Faith
01:14:02
Speaker
this movie. Right. And so it's kind of interesting that it's framed around this person who should be seen as like the integration of these two things, but it's very much, it very much turns into like being strictly supernatural, metaphysical, whatever, you know, like strictly in that realm. Yeah.
01:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, that is interesting. It's like, does this movie inherently put science and faith in conflict or does it show how they work together? Because because it's ironic because the it's the medical doctors that actually recommend the exorcism.
01:14:35
Speaker
And it's the church that's like very hesitant about it. Not that it's the first thing that the doctors recommend, but it is funny that like that's where the the recommendation comes from for her, not from ah religious authority. Yeah, it is kind of interesting. it's It's kind of conflict and also like interplay at the same time.
01:14:54
Speaker
And so he comes to the house to see her and does a like an interview with her in which she claims to be the devil. I think this is an example of the kind of trickery of the the demon because like being possessed by the devil himself versus the a demon ah you i would think would probably complicate his interpretation of whether it's real or not right like well I think and and okay so I'm going to preface this with saying that this this thought comes only from information accessible to me via horror movies so take with a huge huge like take with like 15 grains of salt
01:15:36
Speaker
But I feel like in a lot of movies, like I feel like I've heard and I can't like think of one off the top of my head, but I feel like I've heard more than once, like nobody is actually possessed by the devil. Like that's an indicator that it's a lie and not an indicator that it's real. Yeah. but But like I said, that's literally like from other exorcism movies. So like, don't quote me.
01:15:55
Speaker
I am not expert on this. i believe I believe that's probably the case, but I was trying to look into this as well and was having trouble finding clear answers because they do talk about being possessed by the devil in certain literature, but like it's more as if like the devil is influencing your thoughts or like tempting you, not like literally possessing your body. Right. That makes sense. And...
01:16:22
Speaker
I also think, like again, not an not an expert on possession, not an expert on exorcism, not an expert on Christian spirituality um or like systems. But I would also think like um the devil would have like bigger fish to fry, kind of.
01:16:39
Speaker
Like, especially for something as small potatoes as this situation seems to be, like, there aren't really, like, grand implications after this for, like, the world. I mean, the demons are, like, tools that the devil uses. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of how I would do it. Right, to do his bidding. Right, he's delegating, right? He's, like, you take care of this stuff. I have bigger things to do.
01:17:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And is it i mean it's sort interesting, like, the the ways that demons and the devil appear in the Bible, which is, like, not that much, actually. Like, in the in the New Testament, at least, like, I think there's almost nothing regarding demons in the Old Testament.
01:17:21
Speaker
um But in the New Testament, there are references to Jesus, like, casting out evil spirits. which certainly is not casting out the devil, right? Like that's casting out spirits.
01:17:33
Speaker
um But he himself like faces the devil. in the desert, not unlike the opening of this movie, um where he's subjected to like temptation for a series of days. And the devil like offers to grant him riches and all these things. And he fights the temptation.
01:17:54
Speaker
So I feel like that when the devil's working directly, it's more like temptation. And when it's full-on possession, demons. That's how it seems. But I'm sure there's variety, right, with different faiths, yeah like different denominations. And like, okay, I'm not an expert on this either, but like my understanding of like possession and exorcism and Judaism is like more that it it's a ghost of like a person.
01:18:19
Speaker
And like there's some unresolved shit with the person it's like a very it's just like a really kind of like fundamentally different uh thing so I mean at the end and I think like one of the things to me like I find the medical scenes really scary but like I don't actually find this movie that's scary I really like it I think it's really really effective I find it really jarring and like alarming but I like I just like don't feel scared of it because I don't think any of it's real like obviously any horror movie like you have to like have have like a suspension of reality for like I also don't think that the monster in it follows is real and whatever but um I just like connect so much less to Christian iconography and Christian symbolism and like the the faith issues around Christianity specifically um because it's a much more strict
01:19:08
Speaker
faith than I grew up with where I wasn't necessarily told so much what to believe so i just like don't it's hard for me to buy in I think and enough to be really really scared of it unless it's like giving me cheap like like the conjuring movies scare me even though those are also demons but they are like relying on like jump scare like they're relying on environmental scares and jump scares and stuff like that and like that's what scares me more than like the concept if that makes sense Yeah, no, I mean, I agree with you. um
01:19:39
Speaker
it' i don't i'm sure if i literally believed in demons, i would feel differently watching this movie. but I agree that i agree that What's scary is watching a child suffer or seeing like these medical procedures,
01:19:57
Speaker
um experiencing like, like the the idea of things being out of your control, not literally, oh gosh, people can be possessed by demons and that could happen to me.
01:20:09
Speaker
Yeah. and i didn't think I didn't think that's what you meant. i just i just know that I just know some people have, I think, an easier time buying in even if it's not totally their belief system. And then I think I'm like a little curious what it's like watching for people who are actually Catholic and like what their experiences of the movie would be. um like I have asked that question, not about this movie particularly, but about this kind of like you know sub-genre.
01:20:34
Speaker
And I do think it's like much scarier if you're if you're Catholic. which makes sense. I'm sure. yeah So when she's talking with Karis, she mentions his mother spews vomit at him um He asks why, if she's the devil herself, like why she can't undo her own straps. And he, and he says that it, it would be too vulgar a display of power, which is hilarious.
01:21:04
Speaker
to me. And she does say when he's asking her to do stuff, she's like, in time, in time, which is so ominous. Yeah. Yeah, right. And then I think this is when he's trying to like like ask if she speaks different languages or maybe he comes back to the recording later. but but I think all of this is just him, the demon, screwing with him and trying to trick him to thinking that this is fake.
01:21:32
Speaker
yeah And in the director's cut, there's a scene of him listening to an older recording of Reagan's voice and comparing that to what he heard and and noticing the differences. So there's like a little bit more of background detective work as he's trying to figure out what's really going on. oh yeah, the one to her dad. There's like the recording of the tape to her dad or something right where she's like, what am I supposed to say?
01:21:58
Speaker
Yeah. yeah that what yeah this one's that it had the part where he plays back the recording of when he was there and they play it and it's like her speaking backwards it does have that but it doesn't have the older recording of her yeah Yeah, yeah.
01:22:15
Speaker
That scene is also where he says, what an excellent day for an exorcism. and that, you know, having an exorcism would bring them together. Again, hinting that Karras is who he's really after here, not just reagan It reacts to fake holy water.
01:22:35
Speaker
like fucking him. like fucking with him But interestingly, not just reacting in the sense of like screaming and yelling, but like there are slashes on her body. Like so it manifests the reaction, I guess, that you would expect if it was actually Holy I'm not like totally clear on that, but but it does manifest like actual physical damage to her, which is kind of interesting.
01:23:00
Speaker
Yeah, that is really interesting. um And you would think that he would like notice that part and be like, okay, how did that how else could that possibly happen? Yeah.
01:23:12
Speaker
but yeah
Exorcism and Personal Battles
01:23:14
Speaker
finally at some point around here I think right like he asked for the church for permission and they send in Maren who is like out in the woods on a walk like kind of just waiting to be called um I like that he's like out in nature it's fall like kind of symbolized like he's coming to the end, you know?
01:23:38
Speaker
And i mean, he's like, I wish he were in the movie more. i think when I first watched this movie, I was really disappointed that he, he wasn't in it more, but he does a lot with the time that he is in the movie. He really, yeah he really does.
01:23:52
Speaker
yeah And then we like get into the various actual exorcism scenes, right? Which are very intense, very emotional. They're very physical scenes. Yeah.
01:24:03
Speaker
In Men, Women, and Chainsaws, one of the things she says about occult films is they do their best in much the way pornography does to make the female body speak its experience through moaning, vomiting, fevers, hypnotic revelations, swearing, swaggering, swelling, and the sudden appearance of rashes, bruises, and scars, sometimes spelling out a message.
01:24:23
Speaker
The woman is made to bring forth her occulted self. So... when we see these scenes, they are heavy in the body, right? Like we're talking about a spiritual battle, but it is not an invisible spiritual battle, right? Like it's not a spiritual battle happening on a spiritual plane. It's a spiritual battle happening in a very, very bodily and physical plane, right? She's all fucked up looking like she's kind of decaying while she's alive. yeah She's like rotting, you know, and, and she's,
01:24:51
Speaker
You know, projectile vomiting, vomit is like leaking out of her mouth. She's, you know, screaming and moaning and thrashing. And it's this very like visceral experience, even though it's like within the realm of the spiritual.
01:25:06
Speaker
Yeah, but I guess before Maren is even called in, it's where you get help me um across her stomach as well. Like, it's just one of the most disturbing physical things. Like, I don't know, like, is that something that Regan's soul has carved into her body? Like, what is going on there?
01:25:24
Speaker
What are the mechanics here?
01:25:29
Speaker
But yeah, it's super disturbing. ah One thing I noticed too is the way that the whole atmosphere of the house has shifted from the beginning of the movie to now. like It used to be colorful and the walls the walls still have flowers on them, but the color grading is so dialed down towards the end of the movie that it's just like so gray and lifeless and dark, in this house.
01:25:56
Speaker
and you get that iconic shot of the lamppost and the fog as he arrives like he's stepping into the threshold or something of this like other world but that change I think happens gradually so like you don't even really notice it any specific point but if you look at the inside of the house towards the end of the movie you look at it at the beginning of the movie it could be a different house totally And I think I think the gradual like element is why it is so effective, because you don't really feel it happening.
01:26:27
Speaker
But you're just kind of like all of us like but it's and it's like in the exorcism, like the deep exorcism scenes that you're like, oh, man, it's so like dark and dull and like, drab in there in a way that it hasn't been but you Yeah, you don't feel it happening. You don't like feel the progression of it.
01:26:42
Speaker
I love when movies use color grading in this way to like set the tone and like I think all movies do to like an extent but I like when they rely i think more heavily on it. There's um a movie that Katie and I covered called Clock.
01:26:58
Speaker
um I guess like kind of spoilers for that but there I'm gonna like tread lightly but there there's yeah don't spoil it too much yeah but there is a reason that the color gradient is really like toned down and it's very drab and dull and there is a like within movie reason to like snap back to full color and it's such a cool like and i think most movies wouldn't benefit from like that sharp of a transition but it like makes sense plot wise and it's like such it's like such a cool me it's like it's just like um
01:27:32
Speaker
it's like eye candy it's like so cool that's awesome yeah and I mean I think like they you know the whole coldness factor too where like obviously they kept it like actually cold because they have like oxidation of breath like where you like look like you know you have like you can see your breath when it's really cold and I think that is like so that's like so effective right they're in this house they're in this kind of cozy looking house but you can always see their breath like every moment and it just like really adds to that and I think between the toned down color and that it's like gives you this really kind of cold barren kind of sense
01:28:12
Speaker
Yeah, and and to get that effect, because they were using air conditioning, which also dehumidifies the room, they had to bring it down to, I think, negative 20 to get it to be visible. Because yeah the colder it gets, the drier it gets. Oh my god, that's a nightmare. That's like a nightmare.
01:28:30
Speaker
Yeah, awful. Yeah, but it does it does work. Yeah. But I love how when Maren arrives, like... kera is like look do you want the background like let me tell it like tell you about he's like no he's like I just want some brandy yeah he's like I know exactly we've we've we've tussled before like this is our round two yeah yeah Yeah, I don't need the background. i already know what's going on. like All he needs is his faith and his like will, basically.
01:29:02
Speaker
um But I do love that he has like some brandy. You see that he's still human. yeah and I think he even says when she offers it to him, she he's like, the doctors say I shouldn't, but I'm weak, or whatever. like i that's not he said, thank God my will is weak. Yes, which I think is really nice. And I do really love...
01:29:21
Speaker
i do really love when spiritual leaders are really positioned as human in film. Like, I really, i like appreciate that a lot because I think some films, some stories more broadly can just overdo the piety and the purity and all of these things. And I i just don't think that's as effective.
01:29:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I agree. He has gravitas, but he also, he feels very human. So he warns him that the demon will attack with with both lies and the truth.
01:29:53
Speaker
And this dynamic continues of Karis trying to, like, bring the science into it and Mary, like, shut up. like Yeah. Yeah. I think that's even like an element of why he doesn't want the backstory, right? Like if you're going to take a medical or psychological approach, you need the backstory. But like, if this is just a demon we're interacting with, I don't need to know about Reagan. Like, I just know that this demon is here and I have to get rid of it.
01:30:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You have the full bed levitation. You have all the stuff going around the room. Like, everything dials up to ah huge level here.
01:30:34
Speaker
She's levitating. Maren throughout this is, like, clearly perturbed. Like, it's not like facing this in the past has given him any kind of, like, confidence.
01:30:45
Speaker
And and i I like how you see him, you know, having to go off and take his medicine. This is and and another way he's still human. But I think also points to, you know, when he's revealed to have died, that that that could easily have been like a natural death in a sense.
01:31:06
Speaker
Like a ah heart attack, I think, is is what the pills are for. Even if it wasn't natural causes in the sense that like he would have died at that moment anyway, it could have been like stress induced rather than like a spiritual attack, so to speak.
01:31:23
Speaker
Yeah, and I think he knows going into it that this is the end. Yeah, because I feel like when he goes to the bathroom to take his meds, which this is kind of an interesting time to have this, but I do feel like he has this like look on his face.
01:31:36
Speaker
And he still takes his meds, which is like kind of funny. But I do feel like at that moment, he does seem to kind of know. And maybe that's, you know, hindsight 2020. Like, I know he's going to die. So maybe I'm reading that into it. But I feel like in that moment, he is like thinking that.
01:31:52
Speaker
Yeah, and I think he knows it's a possibility even from the very beginning when he sees the statue and he knows he's going to have to face Pazuzu again. Like, he's waiting for him.
01:32:03
Speaker
Like, he leaves ah Iraq before he ever gets the letter because he already knows it's time. And so I think if he doesn't know, he knows it's like a sure possibility because he knows how hard it was last time. He knows like the physical condition that he's in now. And he he knows that like perhaps the demon's gotten smarter too. Yeah. but before that, Karras sees his mother in the bed. i think, is that in the um theatrical cut as well? i think so. I know he hears her voice. I'm trying to remember if he actually sees her.
01:32:35
Speaker
but I don't remember. It's hard because I've seen the director's cut so many times. Yeah. so I like can picture all of it pretty clearly. So it's kind of hard for me to you know.
01:32:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the cut to watch. Yeah. If anyone's listening to the podcast and hasn't seen it, I don't know why you're still listening, but ah that's the version you should watch.
01:33:02
Speaker
I definitely agree. So he has to take a break and and when ah Chris asks him if she's going to die, that's kind of what snaps him back and like, okay, like I need to stop feeling bad for myself. need to stop feeling guilty. I needed to go Mm-hmm.
01:33:19
Speaker
ah um And he has that final confrontation where he's basically just yelling and saying, take me. And the demon possesses him instead. And he jumps out the window and falls down the stairs.
01:33:34
Speaker
So let's talk about whether or not the exorcism worked. Okay. What? Yeah. what What are your thoughts? Because Tori and I were also debating this um when we watched it. So it's funny that you you brought it up also.
01:33:48
Speaker
so I think there's like something to that because clearly the ritual is not what is the deciding factor at the end, right? Like that, that doesn't cause directly the success it's possible. It like contributed to it or helped it.
01:34:08
Speaker
Right. Cause they get the demon out of Reagan. Right. but I think the idea of an exorcism isn't to have it hop right into another person. Like, I think you're trying to get it to leave. Yeah. Right, right. and And when I was reading about exorcism, I found this distinction. So and Catholic dogma, exorcism is a sacramental, but not a sacrament, and unlike baptism or confession.
01:34:35
Speaker
I don't know what any of that. I know what baptism and confession are, but I don't know what a sacrament is. Yeah. So sacrament is like a religious ritual that has like significant meaning and importance and has to be done a very specific way. Right. so with baptism, if you don't follow the steps, you're not baptized.
01:34:58
Speaker
Like, Unlike a sacrament, this says, exorcism's integrity and efficacy do not depend on the rigid use of an unchanging formula or on the ordered sequence of prescribed actions.
01:35:12
Speaker
Its efficacy depends on two elements, authorization from valid and licit church authorities and the faith of the exorcist. Dang, it's Father Callahan from Salem's Lot. Okay, i that's cool. Sure.
01:35:26
Speaker
I think if you interpret exorcism as that and not as a series of steps and rituals, it does succeed. And the reason that it succeeds is because finally at the very end, Karras' faith has returned to him and he believes and he becomes the exorcist.
01:35:44
Speaker
There's my pitch for why it really works. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it's hard for me because that like level of stock and the validity of the church is like not it's like pretty hard for me to attach myself to even like for the sake of the movie.
01:35:57
Speaker
But i think that makes I think that makes sense. I think in my mind, I'm like, if everybody who tried to help died, like maybe that's not a success. But it's a success in that, yes, like Reagan gets to go on with her life and like not be possessed anymore. So I don't agree, but I think that's i i see the validity of that take for sure.
01:36:12
Speaker
And I mean, we take the movie for what it is, like it is possession and an exorcism, right? So like, if we're going to buy into the theology of the movie for the sake of watching the movie, I think the message that it has.
01:36:28
Speaker
is that the rituals and the specific words and specific steps are not i important. yeah What's important is our faith and our belief in the, in the fundamental values and, and healing.
01:36:44
Speaker
Kara sacrificing himself to save this girl is a very like Christ-like thing to do. i also guess like in the end because he falls down the stairs and then Father Dyer is there and offers to give him like last rites.
01:37:00
Speaker
Yeah. And he like squeezes his hand like to say yes please do it or i whatever like he acknowledges it and they're doing that. So I guess like he's going straight to heaven, which is like another thing. yeah like I think it's just like hard, it like, again, it's like hard for me to like ah really think too hard about these types of things because they feel really far away to me.
01:37:19
Speaker
But guess like it's true that in a lot of Christian faiths dying is sort of a good thing like not like you have to like it but like you know dying is kind of if you if you died by sacrificing yourself for someone else and and what died like a true believer and ah yeah I mean right you you go to heaven and so that's going to have good you know so like that's probably better than his life was so i think that makes like I think everything you said makes sense I don't think it's my view of it but like I i do think like everything you just said makes perfect sense
01:37:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And it's it's not my view on life. I definitely see that distinction too. But I think that's what I mean when I say like some of the concepts are so far away to me that like it's hard for me to attach to them even for the sake of the movie. And so I think that's like just ah a difference in my like viewing experience of the movie. But yeah, I mean, can I spoil something from Salem's Lot by Stephen King?
01:38:18
Speaker
Okay. Is that okay? Yeah. okay yeah So they're like that's a vampire story. And um the priest of the town is kind of also in crisis. He's an alcoholic. He's not admitting he's an alcoholic, but he is. And like he is one of the only people left. like the The vampires really like take over the town, essentially. And he basically confronts like the head vampire with his cross. And his cross starts glowing and like is magic-y.
01:38:48
Speaker
And the vampires basically like cast off your symbols. like If your faith is so strong... get rid of the cross and let's face each other. Like, you don't need that if you really believe.
01:38:59
Speaker
And, like, the cross dims back down and, like, he loses his power because his he doesn't have the faith that he needs to have to make it happen. And so this is kind of, like, an opposite of that where, like, he's able to channel that faith at the very last second even though it hadn't really been present for him for a while. he was, like, able to tap back into it. yeah And that reminds me, yeah I can't believe we skipped right over the best scene in the director's cut slash film.
01:39:25
Speaker
the real movie, ah which is the conversation between Karis and Maren outside on the stairs before the final confrontation where Karis asks him, like, why her? Why this little girl?
01:39:40
Speaker
and he says, it's to make us see how ugly we are. i see ourselves as animal and vile. And I should have pulled up the exact quote, but that little scene freaking wanted to cut it from the movie because he felt like it was too explainy, like too much. Like here's what the whole movie is about. Like you should have already gotten it, but here's what it's about anyway.
01:40:08
Speaker
But I think like, Given the fact that you're talking about ah horror movie where there's a lot going on it's not that obvious what the message is. And you are dealing, in a lot of cases, I know this is not your approach and a lot of people's approach, but there's a lot of people who go into a horror movie not expecting to think about it.
01:40:30
Speaker
They're expecting to be scared and then forget about it a couple times. weeks later yeah or whatever right so I don't think it hurts at all I think it helps the movie Even if it weren't a horror movie or dealing with that bag like genre baggage, um I still think would be a good Yeah, I tend to struggle less with exposition than a lot of people do. um I like things to be thoroughly explained.
01:40:54
Speaker
I don't necessarily feel like it's missing when it's not there, but like i a lot of the times when there's like a scene in a movie or a book and people are like, this is too much exposition, I'm like, oh, I liked it. like I thought it was...
01:41:05
Speaker
I don't know. I think it's interesting. It's like a thesis statement, right? Like, I think it's naming it. And i I always think that's interesting because I'm curious, I guess, how they would put it if they were going to put it directly.
01:41:16
Speaker
You know what I mean? And yeah is I actually do find that really interesting and informative, even if the theme and message are clear throughout the movie, how would they present it? Yeah. And I think one aspect that makes it a lot more palatable is that when they have that conversation it sounds like something they would actually say to each other it feels like a real conversation certain directors I think Christopher Nolan does this a lot and it really irritates me that has he has characters say things that like they would never say just to like expound the feeds of the film yeah it has to be done well people's throats and
01:41:53
Speaker
Whereas here, it's like, we're expounding the themes of the film, but also, like, we're having a real conversation, and, like, you're having a real faith crisis, and you're asking me why right this horrible thing is happening, and I'm telling you my view of why that's happening, because, like, we're in this together. Right, and this whole world of exorcism is totally foreign to Karis, so it it, yeah, like, it makes sense, like, there's a seasoned guy here that he would be asking these questions because he doesn't understand, like,
01:42:21
Speaker
I don't think that it like takes away from the movie or feels like too much or anything yeah yeah and I'm i'm sure there are lots of interesting like feminist reasons or or thoughts on why Reagan is is the one that's subjected to this I obviously I think like the innocence of a young girl, like the poster child for vulnerability, right? Like ah ah a girl needs to be protected. a girl open and vulnerable. And like, it's that much more disturbing when she behaves in a way that doesn't fit with that. Right.
01:43:00
Speaker
But I don't have a problem with it. I have a problem. I think it's a... I honestly think the feminist read on it isn't like, oh, this is misogynistic. I think it's about misogyny in a way when you read it. I don't know that that was the intention, right? But when I'm looking at it from a feminist lens, I'm looking at other people's fear. I'm not really like, oh, they're depicting this in a gross And i also... yeah it's But it is interesting because that you know it's like loosely based on a real case that happened.
Character Arcs and Gender Roles
01:43:28
Speaker
And the case the real case was a boy. i so i I touched on this towards the beginning, but like the male story and the female story in a cult movies, like interact with each other, like in possession movies and haunting movies and stuff. And so one of the, in Men, Women, and Chainsaws, like one of the, I guess, functions of the possessed or haunted person being a girl is in like a kind of reworking of masculine and feminine. So she writes that The remapping of the masculine in the occult film entails a kind of territorial displacement in the world of gender.
01:44:01
Speaker
This expulsion of the bad masculine goes hand in glove with the expansion of the good masculine, the redefined masculine or the new man. That this expansion encroaches on and appropriates characteristics traditionally located in the feminine, and that the boundaries of the feminine are correspondingly displaced into territories of distaff excess.
01:44:22
Speaker
Crudely put, for a space to be created in which men can weep without being labeled feminine, women must be relocated to a space where they will be made to wail uncontrollably. For men to be able to relinquish emotional rigidity and control, women must be relocated to a space in which they will undergo a flamboyant psychotic break.
01:44:41
Speaker
So we have to create room because because a big part of this is like, right, like Father Karras' crisis of faith is so rooted in like emotional repression around his guilt around his mother and like,
01:44:52
Speaker
What does it mean that his mother is going through this and that he's unable to help her and all of this stuff? And he is like pushing it down right at the beginning. He's very kind of emotionally numb and dull and checked out. And if we move him into a place where he gets to feel those feelings and like have those feelings, then we need to move the woman or the girl into a space where she's even more extreme.
01:45:12
Speaker
which I thought was really interesting. Wow. Yeah, i like don't I don't have like a lot of elaboration on that, but I thought that was like really interesting. Yeah, that's fascinating. That's fascinating. Huh.
01:45:26
Speaker
And it like says, and like one of the other things which I think is interesting is, She says, unlike the male story which for all its variation is an essentially coherent account of a change of heart the female story ricochets from extreme to extreme flailing as narrative and as a system of sympathies in much the same way the woman herself flails as a character What the films define as a woman's openness is in its moderate expression, in its correct degree, the subject of awe.
01:45:52
Speaker
Especially in the possession films, however, moderate slides into excessive, appealingly open becomes monstrously open, emotionally i impressive but impressionable becomes mentally ill, charmingly pregnant becomes hideously pregnant, and so on. So it's like more about like we're moving everyone into a state of heightened emotionality,
01:46:11
Speaker
And for the men to, like, go there, the women have to go even farther. And, like, if women are already firmly planted in a territory of emotionality, they basically have to get pushed into insanity. Yeah, that's so interesting. um the The exaggeratedness, I think, also obviously applies to the sexuality of Reagan. Like, this it's not just learning about sex. It's, like, self-harming with a crucifix.
01:46:38
Speaker
It's, you know... grabbing people's crotches it's like unbelievable levels of of obscenity the extremes and and then and then the mother as well as as pushed to like and ah an extreme emotional brink But it's interesting, you mentioned at the beginning um the home without a father, it's interesting that basically what happens at the end is two fathers in the church come into the house to save the child and the mom, and
01:47:15
Speaker
And then at the end, both of them die and the family goes on without them. It's not like a permanent father figure coming in necessarily, unless now they're, you know, religious and they have like God as that father figure, which like, oh.
01:47:32
Speaker
other thing. I don't know that the film, like, it it is commenting on a lack of paternal figure over them, but that figure can be God.
01:47:45
Speaker
For sure. And in ah Monstrous Feminine, they kind of talk about ah like the same thing in a way where they're like this kind of gendered thing and like who are the who are the fathers who are the mothers and she says various patterns in conflict and conflict in the exorcist suggest that the central struggle is between men and women the fathers and the mothers this struggle is played out in relation to chris mcneil and her husband Father Damien and his mother, Father Damien and the abandoned women in the hospital, Reagan and the fathers of the church, as well as the men of the medical profession.
01:48:17
Speaker
This wider struggle is played out or concentrated in the relationship between Reagan and Father Damien, whereas Reagan as devil is powerful. Father Damien as a representative of God is weak and impotent.
01:48:29
Speaker
So that's not true at the end, right? He gets his faith back, but there's also this kind of flip-flop of like, We have the masculine figure whose present is like right father Karis. And then we have Reagan and like we have grown man who should be strong, who should be powerful, who should be kind of in charge.
01:48:46
Speaker
And then we have Reagan who is not just a not just not a woman, but actually a girl, right? Like a young girl who should be seen as powerful. I don't want to, weak isn't the right word, but maybe more fragile, ah maybe less um less powerful, less decisive, right? All of these things, but they're really flip-flopped in an interesting way. And so it is the male presence of the movie does come in through the church and the priests. And I would i would say God like God as well.
01:49:13
Speaker
Yeah. And then, you know, I think the other thing is, to an extent, Reagan's story is kind of incidental. I think that the choosing of a young girl is not so incidental, but I think like specifically it being Reagan is not is almost nothing.
01:49:26
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like it could be any little girl. Yeah. and in men women in chainsaw she says for all its spectacle value reagan's story is finally significant only inofar as it affects the lives of others above all this tormented spiritual life of keis the accessory nature of reagan's story could hardly be clearer she is the evidence the proof the testimony that the faltering carera has been yearning for And then i think as like an argument as to why her story is incidental and like kind of doesn't matter beyond that is like the cyclical nature of her story compared to the linear nature of of Father Karras. So she says, whereas the female story traces a circle, she becomes again what she was when the film began, the excesses of its middle disappearing without a physical or psychic trace. Reagan is explicitly amnesiac.
01:50:15
Speaker
The male story is linear. He is, at the end, radically different from what he was at the beginning. Public, he and the world know that he has changed and apparently permanent. Right? So, Raekin is trying to go back to being normal, to just being this little girl.
01:50:30
Speaker
She's not really on a journey. you know what I mean? there's no There's no actual arc for her like there is for Charis because he is working through something. It's interesting because she does give Father Zaire a kiss on the cheek at the end, which to me felt like a wink that like maybe she does remember something. like She's not fully amnesiac.
01:50:55
Speaker
But you can also see she's child who's been through something extremely traumatic, and and is acting like everything's fine and it's easier for the adults around her to pretend that she just doesn't remember and just assume that she doesn't remember and take her word for it that she doesn't remember than to actually like unpack her trauma and try to ah help her figure out and understand like what she went through Yeah, that's I totally agree. And I think also, like similarly, the movie is not particularly interested in the aftermath of that trauma.
01:51:31
Speaker
The terrible sequel is like vaguely interested in it, I guess. I don't really recommend that one. i The prequel, yes. The sequel, The the Exorcist 2, absolutely not. But um you know the movie isn't interested in it either.
01:51:43
Speaker
So she remembers or she doesn't, but nobody is really interested in what was this like for Reagan and, like, what does this mean for Reagan, right? This is all, what does it mean for Karis? And my, I guess, like, summation of this is that the exorcism story, not just in this movie, I think this is true in a lot of movies, i think there are some gender variety as we get, like, into more modern movies. Like, Exorcism of Emily Rose is an example where, like,
01:52:09
Speaker
there is like a There's a spiritual crisis in the lawyer for the priest rather than the priest himself. So like it's it's like revolving around a woman's crisis of faith. But it's the same thing where the possessed girl is essentially horror's version of a manic pixie dream girl.
01:52:24
Speaker
right like it's It's like she's incidental and she's serving to create character growth for someone else, but like is not really valuable as herself and is not really... given time or attention or care.
01:52:36
Speaker
and i don't know that that's like a bat that's like kind of fine, but it is it is interesting because, you know, i think you could make the argument that she's the main character, but I think you would be wrong, ultimately.
01:52:48
Speaker
yeah yeah, I agree. Karis, I think, is the main character. you you do also get an arc for the mom, at least. her Her keeping the coin at the end, kind of implying that you know, maybe be she believes now as well, but she, she wasn't going through a faith crisis. Like her journey is figuring out what's going on with her daughter and realizing and writing that reckoning with um the idea that there are some things that doctors can't explain. There are some things in this world that are beyond comprehension and, and learning to accept that and move on from it.
01:53:29
Speaker
She does get more of an arc, but not we we don't get any aftermath, right? and and ah like we technically don't get any aftermath for for father karis but father karis is in heaven like we don't actually need that much aftermath to understand that he is being rewarded and that like he has reached the culmination of his journey in a satisfactory and positive way whereas like and don't know like is finding spirituality like a positive thing for them is it a source of trauma for them like where does you know what i mean like i we don't get
01:54:01
Speaker
any i mean, I would imagine like the intention of Blatty, the author of the book, was probably that their lives would be way better because they found faith and whatever. But do we buy into that, right? Like, do we assume that this was a positive ah positive change for them? Or is that...
01:54:16
Speaker
like she's keeping this coin of the exorcism of her daughter like is that really a good thing i I don't know and maybe it is like right like I think it's as likely that it could be as it couldn't be but we have no idea yeah that's a great point I love this movie There were a couple lost scenes that they tried to add back into the director's cut but couldn't.
01:54:39
Speaker
There was one where they visited the tomb of the unknown soldier, Reagan and her mom. And Reagan asks her mom why people have to die.
01:54:49
Speaker
But the audio, I think, was wrecked on that one. um and then at the end when the detective and dyer go off together to go to the movies or whatever like like there's a very brief interaction with them that implies that they're gonna be friends now even those two men get a little bit more aftermath than the women right
01:55:13
Speaker
They just want to get the fuck out of town. Yeah. And the and the the theatrical cut doesn't include that. So the the theatrical cut includes Father Dyer saying goodbye to Chris and Reagan as they leave the house.
01:55:25
Speaker
And then it cuts to him on the stairs where Burke Dennings and Father Karis fell to their deaths. And then in the director's cut, it has a scene where the the detective shows up and talks to Father Dyer and is kind of like, is everything okay? And Father Dyer is like, it seems like everything's okay.
01:55:42
Speaker
And then we get the movie, like again, with the movie thing. And it seems like Father Dyer is also like a little bit of a movie guy. So they kind of have like this bonding moment and this relationship has been formed and they go off to the movies together.
01:55:54
Speaker
Yeah, gives it gives the movie an uplifting ending, which is not part of the theatrical version. And there was supposed to be more to that scene as well, but that was lost. and It cracks me up because i was sitting on the couch joking Corey watching that scene, and i lean over and like, this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
01:56:16
Speaker
um referencing Casablanca and then when we watched some of the discussion like one of the special features on the different versions and it was talking about the lost footage that was actually something that he was going to say to him referencing Casablanca in the movie and they lost the audio that makes so much sense though right like for him like for him as like such a movie guy that's so cute I love that i Yeah, but I do, I think it is more uplifting and it's uplifting in a way that is like minor, you know what i mean? It's not, it's it doesn't feel like overdone, you know what i mean? It's just kind of like, and these two guys are going to go off and hang out at the movies. It's not, you know what i mean It doesn't feel like it's trying too hard to give you a happy ending. It's just giving you a lighthearted note to end on, which I think is more effective than trying to make it like a quote unquote, like real happy ending.
01:57:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. In spite of all of the evil in the world and everything that everyone has been through in this movie, we can still, like, connect with each other over film, over common interests.
01:57:23
Speaker
Yeah, like, if people get possessed and if all these terrible things happen, what's the point of life? Movies. Yeah.
Legacy and Modern Adaptations
01:57:33
Speaker
Just to wrap up, I wanted to quickly just talk about like the influence of this movie because it's it's one of the most influential horror movies yeah of all time. And it's one of those movies that when you watch for it for the first time, you feel like you've already seen a bunch of the scenes because they've been referenced in that like everything 50 years.
01:57:56
Speaker
fifty years god it has been years. That's crazy. yeah Not like I was there, just like, that's crazy. Yeah, right. um And we are at a time right now in history where people are dealing with a high level of uncertainty and panic ah and terror about the world around them. And when people are in that situation, a lot of them turn to religion to cope. And I don't think it's a coincidence that
01:58:28
Speaker
that we're seeing, you know, this surge in people talking about, like, demonic possession on TikTok and, like, spiritual warfare and all of this stuff.
01:58:40
Speaker
And even in all of that, you can still see the influence of this movie because the labubus are actually Pazuzu thing.
01:58:51
Speaker
Those people don't even know what Pazuzu is or where it came from. They're just like, it's a demon. They rhyme. know, there a lot of demons out there. yeah it's like so much in the zeitgeist, you know what i mean? Like, it's really, it's really embedded. and It's like a lot of these really, really classic movies. It's like people know everything that happens, but they don't even know that that's where it came from.
01:59:14
Speaker
Yeah, and so when someone goes around TikTok talking about how, look, this L'Bubu, it looks just like the demon Pazuzu from Babylon. And, you know, this is an ancient, it doesn't look like it at all.
01:59:27
Speaker
And the only reason you're referencing Pazuzu is because of the exorcists. So. ah Yeah, hugely influential. And, you know, you can see it's to the point that like a lot of exorcism movies fall short because they're doing the exact same thing and not doing it as well.
01:59:41
Speaker
Like the Exorcist Believer, like came, you know, I that was well done. But like, it wasn't interesting enough for me. I don't know. But um I know ah Mike Flanagan is making a remake of The Exorcist. I think it's going to be a show, like a miniseries.
01:59:56
Speaker
And he's like one of my favorite directors. And I really feel like everything he does is not what I think not what i think it's going to Like I even think about, I'm rewatching Haunting of Hill House right now on Netflix.
02:00:09
Speaker
And I've read that book. And i don't know if you've read the book and saw the show, but like They're not doing the same thing. They're both kind of like about like mental health and hauntings as like an allegory for mental health, but they're doing like they're in playing in very different areas of that zip code.
02:00:24
Speaker
And I'm really curious what he's going to bring to the story. Like, I'm really curious what story he's going to tell by way of the exorcism story, because I don't think it'll be the same one.
02:00:35
Speaker
And I'm just like, curious I'm so excited to like, see where that goes. Well, when that comes out, we should do a part two bonus episode. I think it'll be i think it will be totally different. really Which I think is good. like i We don't need like a shot for shot remake of The Exorcist. It's like when they did that with Psycho and it's like, well, why? like Literally, why?
02:00:57
Speaker
Right. This movie is basically perfect as it is in 2000, not 1972. sure like zo um ah But no, I think it's such an interesting concept. There's a reason like we keep going back to exorcism and possession as this... like ah There's just so many different ways to explore it, whether you look at it from mental health angle, you look at it from a religious angle ah in general, like being controlled by something outside of yourself.
02:01:32
Speaker
Right. um I, I would definitely be interested in watching that and doing like a followup. Yeah, for sure. And if you ever decide to watch the prequel, I would be down to talk about that too. And if you, even if we don't do a pot, like you have to tell me what you think if you watch it, even if we don't, you know, spend two hours talking about it, but I would be curious.
02:01:51
Speaker
Is, is a Max von Sydow in it? No, because I think he was probably too old to like play a younger version of himself. But um I don't remember who's in it. But I thought that the actor was good. And I do think he's like a famous actor. I just like don't know who anyone is.
02:02:05
Speaker
So...
02:02:08
Speaker
ah right But it is interesting. And it's interesting to watch both versions of it. Like I said, there's like, I forget what the names are, but one is Dominion prequel to The Exorcist and one might just be like The Exorcist 4.
02:02:19
Speaker
Because The Exorcist 3 is like its own thing. And okay yeah, it was, it's really interesting to watch them because they're like two versions of the same story, which is weird.
02:02:30
Speaker
It's like weird that they both exist. I don't really know which one I like better. I should rewatch them. I haven't seen them in a long time, but it is interesting it's like when you're watching them you're like having kind of deja vu if you've seen the other one because like some of it is literally the same but then ah the possessed figure is different and so some of the like act obviously it is different but it it is like interesting that they made two versions of the same backstory and like i I should look into like how that came to be because I don't I don't really know but it's it's weird it's interesting all right I will add it to my October watch list hell yeah yeah
02:03:07
Speaker
One thing that i I thought was interesting, like this movie kind of does lay seeds to indicate that even though we're seeing it all on screen, right, this still could be like not a real possession.
02:03:25
Speaker
Because people like in an exorcism are in a very emotionally intense state. Like at all of the witnesses, all the participants are very emotionally intense state.
02:03:38
Speaker
So there are plenty of things they could be seeing in their own head that are not actually there. And like projecting.
02:03:49
Speaker
Yeah. and And I think one example of this potentially is Kara seeing his mother in the room. Like, Maren comes in and he doesn't seem to see that. So that seems to be more going on in his head than actually there. Yeah.
02:04:05
Speaker
And I think that like connects up with but it being like a dream sequence earlier on. Like I said earlier, we get the crucifix under the pillow of Reagan, who was put there by someone in the house, so she could have like found out about demons from someone in the house.
02:04:21
Speaker
There is a version presented by the medical board of why an exorcism might work. um I think the book ironically is even more kind of unclear because it's not very specific about what actually happens during the exorcism from my understanding like up in the room like it doesn't have a ton of details.
02:04:42
Speaker
Yeah, The Exorcism is a really, I read it a long time ago. i don't think it's actually that ambiguous per se, but it is less focused on the actual exorcism. Okay. I read it a really long, it's funny because like I remember liking it, but I kind of don't think I would like it if I read it today.
02:04:59
Speaker
You'd see more like the propaganda aspect of it. Yeah. Yeah. i think I read it when I was like 14 or something. So I think I would feel differently about it today, probably.
02:05:12
Speaker
And I think just like with how much I love the movie, I don't think it's common for a movie to be better than a book, but I do think it happens at times. And I would say, speaking like of the director's cut, for sure. But like, I do think the director's cut is probably better than the book.
02:05:28
Speaker
I do think it's it's cool that a writer who set out to make something as effectively Catholic propaganda and picked a director who was an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker to make it as real as possible still managed to make a movie that resonates with people that have no interest in Catholicism before or after.
02:05:58
Speaker
the movie that's kind of miraculous it's like it might not have sold them on catholicism but i think it sold people on the concept of like good versus evil yeah yeah and that's universal totally
02:06:32
Speaker
Thanks for listening to this episode of What Haunts You, the podcast about the stories that haunt our dreams. Thanks again to Kelly for another great episode, and I already can't wait for our next one.
02:06:43
Speaker
Next time on What Haunts You, we're going to finish our exploration of the horror films of the nineteen seventy s Following up on this deep dive into The Exorcist, we're going to be talking about even more spooky children and the fears that parents were having at the time.
02:06:58
Speaker
We're also going to be diving into some of the early slasher movies that set the stage for the slashers of the 1980s. Until next time, watch some good movies, read some good books, and I'll talk to you later on What Haunts You.