Okay, I admit it. I love movies filled with religious themes and meaning, and, luckily, the newly restored "The Exorcist" provides an absolute wealth of such symbolism.
The film, which on the surface is the tale of the possession of Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), a 12-year-old girl, is actually a strong statement about traditional medicine and the importance of faith.
The main characters are Chris MacNeil (Ellyn Burstyn), Regan's single movie star mother; Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller); Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), and the demon, who merely uses Regan as a costume.
The big question is from whence the aforementioned demon came. The many doctors who treat Regan can offer no answer except that it's all in her mind, a psychiatric disorder they feebly try to treat with Ritalin. All their CAT scans, spinal taps and other super-invasive medical technology cannot help. In fact, they seem to make her symptoms worse. Scenes of Regan's treatment are almost as excruciating and violent as the scenes in which she is at the height of her possession. This is, perhaps, William Peter Blatty's (who wrote the novel and won the Oscar for his film adaptation) way of expressing his distrust of the medical establishment.
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The flip side, however, is the entrance of the priests into the picture. Just as the doctors did, their presence aggravates Regan's condition, but this is because the demon possessing her has a beef with both Merrin and Karras. Father Merrin was, at the time, the only living priest who knew anything about possession, and he had performed the last exorcism, said to have taken place 10 to 12 years before. It is clear that Regan's demon is trying to avenge his last defeat; one of Regan's voices calls out Merrin's name repeatedly and senses his arrival.
While there is a lot of loaded plot in this movie, and Regan's head-spinning and projectile-vomiting are forever lodged in our collective popular culture consciousness, it is important to remember that "Exorcist" is based on a true story.
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In 1949, a 13-year-old boy in Cottage City, Md. (a suburb of Washington, D.C.), allegedly was possessed by a poltergeist, as The Washington Post reported on Aug. 10 and 19, 1949. While any details mirroring the grotesqueries of Regan's possession in the film are absent from these stories, there were several diaries kept by attendant priests and family members, one of which Blatty claims inspired him in writing his book.
Clearly, director William Friedkin and writer Blatty fictionalized their story to make it more marketable, but this is what makes "Exorcist" a good candidate for "the scariest movie of all time," the superlative given to the re-release in its previews.
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