The Kasturi/Files: Episode 31: The Exorcistses

Well, I can’t believe it! It’s Halloween! Day 31 of our October horror movie countdown is finally here. Welcome back for our very final Kasturi/Files episode here at Speculative Chic! (Or is it??? DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN!) We’ve actually covered more than 31 movies, a crazy amount of books, and more than any two livers’ share of cocktails. It’s time to talk about one last movie (or two last, or maybe three, yeah, three, or four?) for our ultimate October movie-fest finale. And yep, we’re going back to a classic: The Exorcist. And its sequels. And the TV show. We’re DOING IT ALL in a great mishmash, hodge-podge, wackadoodle mess of throwing random facts around, ranting about non-related stuff and just generally enjoying ourselves! Thanks so much for sticking with us all month, and special thanks to our Intrepid Editor, Shara White, who shepherded us through this whole thing and PUT UP WITH OUR SHIT the entire time with nary a complaint, and only the occasional, “Um, could you get that in a little earlier because I kind of have to go to bed?” Thank you, Shara! And thank you Spec Chic for having us! One last time unto the breach, dear friends…

Gemma: It takes a lot for a movie made in 1973 to still occupy the top ten horror films lists of millions, but that’s exactly how respected — and inspirational — William Friedkin’s The Exorcist remains, at least amongst fans of the genre. Of course, things have changed somewhat since Friedkin’s adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s bestselling book first hit the big screen, in terms of both its cultural freight and its execution: North America as a whole has become a lot more politically and religiously polarized, for one thing, lending a very particular emphasis to the movie’s secular/atheist Hollywood vs literally old-school Catholic narrative. For another, so many people have stolen various bits and pieces of Friedkin’s slow burn/”elevated” spook-show effects in the almost fifty years since its release that, much like The Godfather vs every subsequent gangster movie, it can sometimes reads as though it’s ripping off everything that’s ripped it off, if this is your first viewing. I’m assuming it’s not, though, and I’m almost certain I’m right.

Sandra: From the spooky violin over the title credits to the call to prayer over the archeological dig in Hatra, Iraq, the tense mood of The Exorcist is created immediately — let me just point out that it’s 1973 here, and a Muslim call to prayer here did not immediately imply “terrorism” or us-versus-them the way it sadly does now, so here it’s just a counterpoint to the movie’s Catholic narrative and the Judaeo-Christian version of God, showing that there are other cultures with, yes, their own gods and devils. And the demon Pazuzu is . . . maybe [definitely! — GF] older than even Christianity. Let’s be honest, there’s a flavor of “exoticism” implied too — the mysterious Middle East! Which no doubt influenced all those archeological dig scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark. As you say, Gemma: everyone, but everyone, stole from this movie.

Director Friedkin was on Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast in February of 2016, and he’s a fascinating guy — give it a listen, if you have a chance. (And a shout-out to Maron’s podcast just in general — he’s interviewed a lot of interesting people, starting out with comedians, but branching out to actors, writers, directors, musicians, and even politicians. Getting Barack Obama on the show was probably the greatest coup of all time. But Maron is always clearly deeply interested in everyone he interviews, and the frankness he elicits from them is due to his focused but personable interview style — though he doesn’t let people get away with shit — so I find his podcast much more accessible than other interviewers’ who seem to just skim the surface.) But I, as always, digress!

William Friedkin talks about being called into some big movie production meeting where they were meeting directors who might work on a big project. Friedkin had been sent the script and when asked for his opinion, he told them exactly what he thought, which was that the script didn’t work. A man he didn’t know asked him what was wrong with the script, and he told him: “Everything.” Naturally, he didn’t get the job. But the unknown man came up to him afterward and said, “I’m William Peter Blatty, and I wrote that script. I appreciate that you told the truth in there.” So later, when The Exorcist was going to be made into a movie, Blatty wanted Friedkin, as he knew he wouldn’t get any bullshit from him. The producers said no. Blatty kept insisting. And then — The French Connection came out, and suddenly Friedkin was a hot commodity. So Blatty got his wish, and the rest, as they so often say, is history.

Gemma: Blatty supposedly based actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), whose daughter Regan (Linda Blair) becomes el Diablo/Pazuzu’s chosen chew-toy, on his friend Shirley MacLaine, but hesitated to suggest her for the role because she’d already been in The Possession of Joel Delaney. The other casting possibilities were Audrey Hepburn, Anne Bancroft and Jane Fonda, who turned it down as being “a piece of capitalist rip-off bullshit.” Burstyn, however, was probably the best choice in the long run — she anchors an otherwise difficult narrative, juxtaposing total emotional honesty and a game willingness to submerge herself in the film’s “gags” with a brisk, common-sense sketch of 1970s Hollywood professionalism. Blair, on the other hand, doesn’t have to do much except convince us of Regan’s innate original goodness before sinking down into a wonderfully managed combination of effects, makeup, stunt-work (from Ann Miles and Eileen Dietz) and the uncredited vocal stylings of auditory contortionist Mercedes McCambridge. Friedkin made sure to shield Blair from the worst implications of what she was supposed to be acting out, though he did also make her (and Burstyn, and everyone else) shoot in the equivalent of a meat locker in order to get that huffing visible breath near the end of Regan’s ordeal. Guy was committed, but he wasn’t CRAZY. (He did actually slap a real priest in the face a couple of times, however, in order to get the best possible giving-of-last-rites take out of Father William O’Malley, who played Father Dyer.)

Sandra: As you talked about in our post on May the Devil Take You, it’s always interesting to see an actress mom portrayed on screen. And what I find so compelling in the film itself is the way they handle dialogue — you almost never see it any more these days, when everyone speaks their lines very clearly, one after the other. In The Exorcist, they talk over each other, and the shots of Chris MacNeil as she’s “starring” in the movie they’re shooting, arguing with the director, talking to her makeup person, etc., all feel incredibly real. She seems like a real working actress. Well, she is a real working actress, of course, but that’s something quite difficult to portray without turning it into Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, or some sort of Hollywood Babylon tell-all, or just cheeky fun like Singin’ in the Rain. But all of The Exorcist’s minor sections that involve film-making really seem to be about . . . film-making!

Friedkin also talked in his WTF podcast appearance about casting Blair and how careful he wanted to be — everyone told him he’d never find a young pre-teen who’d have the chops to play the role but still convey the innocence and goodness required, let alone one who wouldn’t be traumatized by the whole thing. He asked Blair and her mother a lot of questions beforehand and as you say, tried to make sure she wasn’t going to be devastated by the experience. I always felt bad for Linda Blair, who wasn’t one of those child actresses who transitioned to adult roles well in the way that, say, Dakota Fanning and Emma Watson did, or even earlier, Hayley Mills did. That must be such a hard road to navigate, and it’s even worse now. Blair has simply achieved cult status and is no doubt a welcome guest at various horror and film conventions, but she’s not going to be the star actress in an A-list picture unfortunately. That said, I totally loved her in 1979’s Roller Boogie. Or rather, 13-year-old me loved her. But once again, I digress! Bring it on back, Gemma!

Gemma: Over the years, The Exorcist has been credited with all sorts of thematic undertones that may or may not be legitimately inherent in the narrative: it’s Islamophobic (because of the prologue set in Iraq, or the implication that the Devil equals the ancient Sumerian demon Pazuzu, King of the Evil Spirits of the Winds — though I will point out that the Iraqi archaeologist working with Father Merrin at the beginning notes that images of Pazuzu were often used as protective tokens against something worse, “evil to ward off evil”); it’s ableist (because Friedkin uses old drunks, guys with weird eyes and women in a mental hospital as visual shorthand for simple human sinfulness and low-grade evil, something to accelerate both Father Merrin and Father Karras’s potential despair in their own humanity, therefore identifying all these things with the Devil); it’s anti-science (because the doctors are baffled by Regan’s symptomology and Friedkin plays her time at the hospital for pure ick factor, while the Church apparently knows best); it’s misogynist (because Regan’s body is abused in various sexually disgusting ways, because the very concept of possession is like full-body rape acted out metaphorically, because Regan supposedly remembers nothing of what happens to her, because Father Karras’s struggles with his own faith are treated as more “important” than the exorcism itself). It’s a Rorschach blot you can interpret a hundred different ways, like almost every other enduring cinematic classic.

Sandra: It’s always tempting to put modern interpretations on films that are forty years old or more, and sure, it’s a more woke world now, but I worry that sometimes we’re missing the original point some of those older movies were making. (Like, am I EVER tired of hearing about how “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is basically a rape apologist’s theme song, when it was (a) of its time, and (b) written to be a completely innocent flirtation between two young people, BOTH of whom very much want to stay — not to have (consensual) sex, but to have a little canoodling on the sofa probably. As for the male pursuit angle, just watch Lady Gaga and Joseph Gordon-Levitt perform the song with the gender roles reversed. Here endeth the rant.)

Frankly, I just took the Iraq location to mean that that’s where Sumerian artifacts could be found. Not really what you’re going to dig up in New York or Washington DC, is it? And I think it would have been quite different if they had taken a Sumerian god or spirit that was associated with goodness and used that to imply evil in Christian mythology — that would have been quite a different matter. Also: cultures do intersect. And isn’t that fascinating? Because what happens when religions cross-pollinate? Can you use the exorcism ritual from one religion on evil from another religion? That raises a lot of really interesting questions and would probably require writing a Sherlockian monograph on the topic, and I don’t really have the background chops for that sort of thing, but it sure does whet my mental gears!

Gemma: Mine too! But now, let’s get to the big question: can The Exorcist really scare you, or even disturb you, if you don’t believe in God? My personal answer to this one, as a life-long agnostic, would be: yes. I mean, if you’re sure God doesn’t exist then the plot of the film automatically gets even worse than it already seems, because what you’re watching then becomes a bunch of mainly well-meaning adults traumatizing an obviously very sick child towards some sort of . . . reverse psychotic break? A weird psycho-dramatic ritual through which she feels free to discard the personality she’s been inhabiting rather than one that’s been inhabiting her, switching between multiples as part of an undiagnosed Dissociative Identity Disorder episode? Or maybe it’s just the Catholic version of what, amongst Orthodox Jews, is sometimes called Dybbuk Disorder: a kid under societal and parental pressure from all sides who essentially makes herself into a creature able to communicate the rage she can’t otherwise express by acting out sexually and violently, yelling profanities, saying all the meanest, grossest things that occur to her and blaming all this behavior on someone else, someone she has no control over — a ghost, a demon, the Devil, God. When you think about The Exorcist that way, you end up realizing that one of the things Regan MacNeil does while “under” is to murder a fairly famous (if hopelessly alcoholic) Hollywood director, something that the Church and police later essentially conspire to cover up . . . think about that scandal finally breaking loose and hitting hard, sometime further on down the road! (Man, I can sense a reboot coming on!)

Sandra: Like you, I’m a life-long agnostic, though that suggests I spent some time thinking about religion seriously, which, to be honest, I haven’t. I come from a background of one parent who is a sort of Lutheran-by-tradition, but not in any serious practicing way, other than to go to church at Christmas and Easter. C&E Christians, I think we call those people? My other parent is kind of a laissez-faire Buddhist. Their agreement with me was to teach me no religion whatsoever, and I could choose for myself when I grew up. I do recall that I occasionally attended some Sunday school classes because my friends went, and there were occasional prayers to God and Buddha, but it all seemed like stories to me, no different from reading D’Aulaires’ Greek Myths for instance. I was quite surprised to find out in high school that Narnia was Christian allegory for example, thinking the talking lion was, you know a lion, not the Son of God (that God?). All of which made me give a resounding “Huh.” While I absolutely respect people’s right to believe and worship what they want, I can’t escape the fact that basically all religions sound a little out-there to me, and I spend a lot of time saying, “No shellfish, huh?” and “Drinking the blood of Christ: seriously?” and “Xenu?” While of course things like “be kind” and “don’t kill anybody” make a lot more sense.

Which is a long and roundabout way of saying, hell, yes, The Exorcist can still scare the snot out of you, because even if you don’t read it as a disturbed kid going through psychotic break, then you can read it with the “what if” factor operating. In other words, here you are, firmly entrenched in your disbelief, but WHAT IF YOU’RE WRONG? What if God and the Devil do exist (in whatever religious iteration is suggested), and this whole time you’ve been mistaken? Well, then, holy crap, are you ever in trouble. Or the even more awful scenario: there’s only the Devil, only demons. No God. Good will never win in the long run. So, no matter what you do, it’s a losing battle against chaos. Terrifying! Theological arguments aside, I remember the old Exorcist radio ads which scared the ever-lovin’ bejaysus out of me. They went something like this (narrated by someone with a deep voice like James Earl Jones or writer Benjamin Percy): “IF YOU BELIEVE IN GOOD, THEN YOU MUST BELIEVE IN EVIL. IF YOU BELIEVE IN GOD, THEN YOU MUST BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL.” And so on. Uttered in those stentorian tones, it would be difficult not to buy what they were selling. Of course, I didn’t see the movie as a child, that was much later. On re-watching, it still holds up as pretty damn scary. But then, when aren’t arguments about faith and existence and the battle of good versus evil not scary?

Gemma: Exactly! But for the sake of argument, let’s say God does exist, and possession works the way the Catholic Church says it does. If that’s so, then you have to accept that what happens to Regan — an otherwise perfectly normal child who just happens to have had the bad luck to be born to a workaholic actress mother and the kind of father who, after a divorce, immediately stops phoning, even on his kid’s birthday — is that she’s chosen as the fleshly battleground for a dick-slapping contest between the Devil and the Church that only happens because good God Almighty allows it to. There’s a reason that the Church tells us that a possessed person doesn’t have to be forgiven for anything they “do” while possessed: because it wasn’t them that did it. No intent, no guilt; they’re just . . . somewhere else the whole time, or most of it. Hopefully limbo, but possibly not. So how can they be blamed for what happened in the meantime?

Sandra: Any way you look at it, it’s a fucking scary premise.

Gemma: Now imagine being Regan, returned to your body after the fact. Imagine discovering that your vagina’s covered in wounds, that your hymen’s been violently perforated, that you might have scar tissue on your genital organs. Imagine that your mother’s back is never quite the same after you threw that huge chifforobe on her, and sometimes she looks at you like she’s afraid of you, and when she catches you watching her, she smiles in a way you can never quite believe is real again. Imagine your dreams, and your PTSD. Imagine finding bruises on your abdomen that sort of look like words. Imagine being scared all the time and not knowing why; imagine tracking down Detective Kinderman and Father Dyer when you’re an adult, or paying somebody to hack into records and discovering you may be responsible for both a murder and a suicide. Imagine that.

And that’s the “happy” ending.

Sandra: Imagine that, indeed! You could write a universe of novels based on the aftermath of that. Unfortunately, that’s not what we got in Exorcist II: The Heretic! (Incidentally, “exorcist” is a word that I consistently and forever type wrong and have to correct, since it always starts as “excorcist.” Maddening. Demonic computer possession? Probably.) Exorcist II: Electric Boogaloo was directed by John Boorman, who has done stellar work like, oh, um, you might have heard of Deliverance? Not to mention Hope and Glory, The Tailor of Panama and a host of other things. Several Academy Award nominations, even! And, well, Exorcist II is not his finest hour. It was also the last film to feature Paul Henreid (of Casablanca fame), and he really deserved a better send-off. I confess I didn’t re-watch Exorcist II, because I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it — it’s full of wackadoodle shit, but who knows, maybe it holds up better on re-viewing? That’ll have to be a project for future me.

Gemma: I . . . cannot say it gets better per se after you stop excoriating it for not being something else, but it does have some incredibly weird sequences — all of the Pazuzu’s-POV flying locust scenes, for example — and a frankly incredibly off-putting score by Ennio Morricone, so there’s that. On the other hand, it also posits as a legitimate plot point the idea that there just is such a machine as a flashing hypnotic metronome that psychiatrists can use to synchronize their thoughts with those of their patients, so that they essentially share VR hallucinations which can occasionally lead to induce heart attacks. ’Cause that’s a thing that happens. Yeah, that’s some cockadoodie sugar right there, Mister Man!

Sandra: Exorcist III, on the other hand, written and directed by William Peter Blatty, was actually pretty good, and had some genuine scares. It’s an adaptation of Blatty’s novel Legion — or rather, he wrote Legion based on his Exorcist III script after he and Friedkin (who was originally attached to the project) parted ways, then sold the movie rights to Morgan Creek with himself as director. Anyway, it has a great cast, including George C. Scott (!) as Lt. Kinderman and Brad Dourif as a Zodiac-style serial killer. Blatty didn’t get final cut of the film, and the studio insisted on the addition of an exorcism scene he didn’t want. Sadly, Wikipedia tells me that some of the original footage was lost, but there’s a 2016 “director’s cut” that is as close to Blatty’s original vision as you can come. So once again, that’s a note to all you aspiring screenwriters and directors: get the final cut/final edit on your movie if at all possible or the studio will for sure fuck it up. Still, Exorcist III is a good sequel, and definitely worth a look.

Gemma: I guess everyone out there probably already knows about THAT SEQUENCE from Exorcist III, right? The one in the hospital? Look it up, if you don’t. It’s a jump-scare that won’t make you want to kick yourself, and it shows exactly nothing. Glorious.

Sandra: Incidentally, I was playing THAT SEQUENCE on YouTube while working on this, and my husband scurried into my office and said, “Is that from Exorcist III? I know that music! I got a chill without even seeing it!” However, the true spiritual heir (so to speak) to Blatty might just be The Exorcist TV series, particularly Season One. I was completely prepared not to like it, and damned if it didn’t hook me from the get-go.

Gemma: Oh yeahhhhhh. I loved everything about The Exorcist the series, particularly the back and forth between our two titular exorcists, Fathers Marcus Keane (Ben Daniels) and Tomas Ortega (Alfonso Herrera). And it’s not just because their priestly bromance/mentor-apprentice vibe is informed by the fact that in real life Daniels is married to some guy from Game of Thrones — no, they also wrote that part of him into the show, making Marcus a wonderful combination of emotional bisexual and functional virgin who flirts with both men and women. My brand of catnip, exactly. (Herrera is also amazing, as is everyone else in the cast, particularly the female characters: Geena Davis, Hannah Kasulka, Brianne Howey and Kirsten Fitzgerald from Season One, plus Zuleikha Robinson, Li Jun Li, Brianna Hildebrand and Alicia Witt from Season Two. Fucking spellbinding!) Not to mention that absolutely badass twist in the middle Season One, when you suddenly understand how this story follows on from the events in Georgetown, 1973 . . . it’s on Netflix right now, and I’ve already re-watched it twice; Pazuzu-damn those assholes for canceling it, especially considering where Season Two breaks off. But if you love smart, creepy, soul-deep horror, you will not want to miss it.

Sandra: Plus, John Cho in Season Two! I love John Cho, and will watch anything he does. Perhaps the secondary heir to The Exorcist (films and TV series) might just be Evil, which is airing now on CBS, who has already renewed it for Season Two, thank Pazuzu. Again, I was fully prepared to hate it, because, come on, who calls their show Evil, for goodness sake? It’s so hokey. But wouldn’t you know it? It’s super-creepy, absolutely fascinating, and really clever. And a great and very talented cast including Katja Herbers (from Westworld), Mike Colter (Handsome McHandsome of Luke Cage fame), TV vet Christine Lahti, the hilarious and wonderful Aasif Mandvi, and Lost and Person of Interest alumnus Michael Emerson in a very eeeeeevil role. Kept wanting to hate it and couldn’t. And it’s a show that isn’t afraid to go there, particularly in the very recent Episode 4, “Rose390” which has an absolutely devastating ending. Oh, and in case you didn’t know, it’s about a psychiatrist (Herbers) who’s asked to work with the Catholic Church (Colter and his team), to investigate occurrences of events that might be miracles, or things that could be demonic possessions, in order to decide what they really are: common psychological delusions that are treatable with meds? Or call in the exorcists or the saint-anointers? So what you get in each episode isn’t always supernatural. I cannot stop watching.

And there you have it, my droogies! The end of our long, meandering way through a whole bunch of horror movies we love and hate, and love to hate, all of this merry October. Thanks so much for joining us!

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Cocktail: Exorcist

Sandra: Well, yeah, why wouldn’t there be an Exorcist cocktail? Of course there would be! And it’s pretty simple to make:

Ingredients

• 1 ½ oz Tequila
• ¾ oz Blue Curacao
• ¾ oz Lime Juice

Directions: Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Easy-peasy, no?

And because you’ve all been so good and well-behaved all month, I’m also sending you this link, because why wouldn’t there be a Top Ten list of cocktails to imbibe while watching The Exorcist? Of course there would be! Here you go!

My personal favorite? The Captain Howdy. Because it creeps me out, and the drink sounds disgusting!

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Book Recommendations

Gemma: I’m going to put a word in here for two novels and an anthology of short fiction: Sara Gran’s Come Closer, an updated possession narrative with an adult protagonist whose struggle to keep herself from integrating with the demon who’s attached itself to her, and Justin Evans’ A Good and Happy Child, one of the few books I’ve read from the POV of a male child who may or may not be first obsessed, then possessed, followed by Martian Migraine Press’ A Breath from the Sky: Unusual Stories of Possession (edited by Scott R. Jones). This last entry contains two of the best and weirdest possession stories I’ve come across, Anton Rose’s “Mandible” and Matthew M. Bartlett’s “The Master of the House.” (In terms of debatable non-fiction, I’d also recommend The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio, later made into a film starring Anthony Hopkins, and Malachi Martin’s Hostage to the Devil, a bunch of supposedly true exorcism case narratives that will leave the reader with an extremely queasy taste in their mental mouth.)

Sandra: I love all of Sara Gran’s work! If you haven’t read her, you guys, do check it out. Anyway. Naturally I recommend The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. Really, no one is writing books quite like this today. Blatty’s whole writing style is completely not what we normally experience — in a good way. I’m constantly trying to figure out what exactly he does, but I can’t put my finger on it. There’s also his book Legion, which continues the Exorcist series. I also recommend The Keep by F. Paul Wilson because it also deals with religion and faith and what happens when the symbols of your religion don’t work against the evil you’re stuck with.

And just for fun, Ian Rogers’ amusing take on demonic possession, a ChiZine Publications short-story original, “Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Law,” which is set in his Felix Renn universe.

Oh! And the always amazing Daryl Gregory’s Pandemonium, which involves a kind of global possession-outbreak.

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Sandra Kasturi is the publisher of ChiZine Publications, winner of the World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and HWA Specialty Press Awards. She is the co-founder of the Toronto SpecFic Colloquium and the Executive Director of the Chiaroscuro Reading Series, and a frequent guest speaker, workshop leader, and panelist at genre conventions. Sandra is also an award-winning poet and writer, with work appearing in various venues, including Amazing Stories, Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales, Prairie Fire, several Tesseracts anthologies, Evolve, Chilling Tales, ARC Magazine, Taddle Creek, Abyss & Apex, Stamps, Vamps & Tramps, and 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin. She recently won the Sunburst Award for her short story, “The Beautiful Gears of Dying,” in the anthology The Sum of Us. Her two poetry collections are: The Animal Bridegroom (with an introduction by Neil Gaiman) and Come Late to the Love of Birds. Sandra is currently working on another poetry collection, Snake Handling for Beginners, a story collection, Mrs. Kong & Other Monsters, and a novel, Wrongness: A False Memoir. She is fond of red lipstick, gin & tonics, and Idris Elba.

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Formerly a film critic, journalist, screenwriter and teacher, Gemma Files has been an award-winning horror author since 1999. She has published two collections of short work, two chap-books of speculative poetry, a Weird Western trilogy, a story-cycle and a stand-alone novel (Experimental Film, which won the 2016 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel and the 2016 Sunburst award for Best Adult Novel). Most are available from ChiZine Publications. She has two new story collections from Trepidatio (Spectral Evidence and Drawn Up From Deep Places), one upcoming from Cemetery Dance (Dark Is Better), and a new poetry collection from Aqueduct Press (Invocabulary).