150: The Exorcist (with Meg Shields)

For the 150th episode of the podcast, returning guest Meg Shields joins me from Vancouver for a show about William Friedkin’s legendary horror film The Exorcist, which turns 50 years old this December.

I had always been TOO SCARED to watch the original Exorcist (even though I had seen the first two sequels) so for this podcast, as a farewell tribute to Hurricane Billy who passed away this August, I watched it for the first time. Meg and I discuss this prototypical blockbuster based on the bestselling novel by William Peter Blatty, the first horror movie to be Oscar nominated for Best Picture, and a cultural phenomenon where audiences lined up for hours hoping to buy a ticket for this endurance test, with many reports of horrified walkouts and fainting spells in the lobby at every screening. 

We discuss the differences between the original 1973 theatrical version and the “director’s cut” from the year 2000, the criticism of this film in some circles as a reactionary and patriarchal work, Friedkin’s insane conduct on the set (including mistreatment of the actors), the strange connection between The Exorcist and Freidkin’s later film Cruising, and Meg and I wonder what Hurricane Billy would have said about this year’s “legacy sequel” The Exorcist: Believer, which opened two months after his death. 

The 2019 documentary Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist is available to stream in North America on Kanopy. 

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Original 1973 trailer for The Exorcist that was pulled from release because it was too scary (CW: strobing effects)

William Friedkin making fun of Exorcist II: The Heretic, from 2013

Trailer for Audrey Rose (Robert Wise, 1977)

Trailer for The Manitou (William Girdler, 1978)

Trailer for Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist (Alexandre O. Philippe, 2019)

Mercedes McCambridge rolling a cigarette with one hand in Lightning Strikes Twice (1951)