01x03 - Poltergeist

[bunniefuu]

- the exorcist is a

tremendously disturbing film

even today.

To see this angelic-looking

young girl

transformed into this

canker-sored,

vomit-spewing

(Splattering)

Profane

- Your mother sucks c*ck

in hell!

- Violent

- (Loud gasp, hard thud)

Coarsely sexual

- Let Jesus f*ck you!

- Monstrosity on the screen

is extremely,

extremely unsettling.

All the more so

when it premiered

more than a generation ago.

- The exorcist was sold on

controversy from day one.

Certainly, you're not going

to shy away

from that kind of marketing.

And it lends itself well

to the idea of a curse.

- Thinking of "the exorcist"

as cursed

adds to the legacy of the film.

If you're a fan of horror,

you're looking for these

connections.

It's logical to look at some

of the truly wild things

that happened on the set

and to people involved

with the production

and say, this thing was cursed.

J'j'j'

- there was a moment during

production

when their sets caught fire.

It happened at night,

no one was injured,

but most of their sets

were consumed.

Regan's bedroom was

mysteriously undamaged.

- I think it was after that

that they brought in a jesuit

priest to bless the set.

There had been a number

of people

either related to cast members,

or people who had been

in the film,

or working on the production,

who had died.

Linda Blair's grandfather died.

Two actors who were

in the film died.

- Max Von sydow's brother dies

on the first day of filming.

- A special effects expert,

who was supposed to keep

the set cool, died.

J'j'j'

- there was all of this

information

about the movie being cursed.

We have a couple different

things to address.

Number one:

Billy's a genius.

When you work with somebody

that's a genius,

you're gonna go for a ride,

let me tell you.

I'm laced into this piece

of equipment.

It is literally manipulated

by men.

In this particular take,

the lacing came loose.

I am having my back pounded.

I mean, I'm crying,

I'm screaming.

They think I'm acting up

a storm.

It fractured my lower spine.

No, they didn't send me

to a doctor.

It is the footage

that's in the movie.

- William friedkin is famously

a two-fisted director.

He would fire a g*n off

behind somebody

to get them to jump if

he needed them to do that.

- I mean, sometimes the things

he did were,

were, were pretty harsh.

What would happen

if I sh**t the g*n?

(g*nsh*t pops)

So if I'd be in the bed

and he's gonna sh**t a g*n,

he has to tell me because I'm

not allowed to do that, right?

I can't jum

The devil can't jump.

(g*n fires, screaming)

- That's done during

the first time

they see Regan looking like

the demon.

And I played that scene,

so I was there.

Yeah, I was originally hired

'cause they felt Linda Blair

was too young to do

What turned out to be

the masturbation scene.

But then I ended up doing

the masturbation scene,

the vomiting scene,

the levitation scene,

and I played pazuzu's face.

So it was a very,

very long movie.

It was kind of like, uh,

who do you have to f*ck to get

off this movie? (Chuckles)

(Shrill scream,

glass shattering)

- In every movie,

if it has anything to do

with action and things,

somebody is always gonna

get hurt.

- When Regan slaps Chris across

the room,

that was achieved by putting

Ellen burstyn in a harness.

(Loud gasp, hard slap)

The first take,

it wasn't particularly brutal

enough for friedkin,

so he had a word

with the gentleman

on the other end of the rope

to give it to her -

yank a little extra hard

on Ellen burstyn's harness

to get her to fly across

the room as needed -

uh, resulting in Ellen burstyn

being injured from that scene.

And that's the shot

that's in the film.

- It's an agreement actors

and directors

and productions make

to get a performance

for something that entertains

millions across the world.

And what's it for? For you.

- Certainly, if you're

marketing that film,

you're going to tacitly

embrace such stories.

- That's something that

That's been happening since

Hitchcock or before.

That's him building up hysteria

around psycho;

that you can't come into

the film late,

and people were getting sick.

So, you see, friedkin

and the PR folks, uh,

who were handling "the exorcist"

when that came out, helped

people buy into the hysteria

of what the curse behind

this movie is.

And it also sold a lot

of tickets.

- A few months ago, I was

listening to an old podcast

and they had mentioned that

there was an actual m*rder*r

who was in "the exorcist".

There had always been,

you know the, the stories

about the curse of

"the exorcist",

but this one just seemed

to be left out.

So it fascinated me

and I set out writing

a report for esquire.

In 1972, William friedkin

went to the

Nyu radiology department

and watched them perform

a procedure

that was essentially taking

pictures

of the blood vessels

in somebody's brain.

It looked pretty gruesome

and he saw that, and, you know,

thought that it was perfect

for his horror movie.

During my research, I spoke

with a number of people

who were involved

in filming that scene.

One of them was barton Lane

who's actually the man in the

film performing the procedure.

- Okay, you're gonna feel

some pressure here.

Now don't move.

- I happened to be doing

a procedure one day

when the chief of my department

came by with a visitor.

- (Whimpering)

- At the end of the procedure,

I was introduced to,

uh, Mr. Friedkin, and they said,

"we're gonna be making a movie

here in a few months,"

and, uh, my chairman said,

"would you like to be in it?"

I said, "yes."

So here are some photographs

that were taken

during the filming of

the angiography sequence.

This first one

is Mr. Friedkin and myself

and the make-up artist.

- Friedkin wanted everybody

who

Was performing that procedure,

that day

to be in his movie,

and one of them included

a young technician

named Paul bateson,

and so he ends up being

in the film.

- Paul was the chief neuro

radiology technologist.

I worked with him on an almost

daily basis for four years.

- Regan, I'm just gonna move

you down on the table, okay?

- I would characterize him

as being quiet,

very nice to the patients.

- September 14th, 1977,

the body of a variety reporter

named, Addison verrill,

was found in his west village

apartment.

One village voice reporter

named, Arthur bell,

noted that this looked like

an assailant

that the victim knew.

And Arthur bell gets a phone

call from an anonymous person

who says

"I k*lled Addison verrill."

This caller explained that

he wasn't a psychopath;

that he was an alcoholic

and that this was a crime

of passion,

and that he and verrill

had sex and did drugs

until early in the morning,

and then gone back

to verrill's apartment

where he hit him over

the head with a pan

and then stabbed him

in the chest.

He also had mentioned that

if he gets caught

he would never be able

to practice again.

The phone call eventually

led police to Paul bateson.

When they got to Paul's

apartment,

he told police,

"I know why you're here."

And they took him into custody

where he eventually confessed

to the, the crime.

It makes sense

for people to connect

this larger real-life horror

to this curse of "the exorcist";

that these horrors are real,

evil is real.

- In 1972, pope Paul vi

issued a proclamation

lamenting the loss

of belief in evil

as a real entity,

as a real metaphysical entity,

and in the devil

as a real entity.

And then it's after that

that you get "the exorcist",

which is trying to prove

the existence of, of the devil.

"The exorcist" starts actually

in mesopotamia

trying to show you

that evil goes way back.

Not only goes way back,

but it can still intrude

into a family

and disrupt their whole life.

- To say that "the exorcist"

is a cursed film

taps into the catholicism

of the people watching it.

It, it taps into the imagery

in the film

of the guy digging up an idol

and unleashing this demon.

(Traffic rumbles)

- The people who made

"the exorcist"

definitely did their research.

The fact that the movie opens

up with this excavation

at the site of hatra

in northern Iraq,

is very much accurate

because pazuzu does come

from northern Iraq.

- Pazuzu turned out to be

the icon of the entire movie.

'Cause the way they did it -

they like to call it subliminal,

but it's not subliminal

'cause subliminal means

that you don't see it,

but it certainly was that flash.

And people said,

"did you see that?"

"See what?" "You see that face?"

"What face?" "The face!"

- This is made out of bronze,

so it's cast metal.

You might wear this if you

were, say, a pregnant woman,

um, or you might put it as

an amulet on newborn baby

because pazuzu's enemy lamashtu,

um, was especially interested

in pregnant women and in babies.

That giant statue of pazuzu,

while it looks great

and it's terrifying,

it's much bigger than any

images of pazuzu

that we know.

Usually he's a small amulet

and it seems like a demon

with his power

would be dangerous to make

on a large scale.

J'j'j'

- how does horror treat

what is probably

the single most important

meaning making system

that human beings

have evolved over time?

Which is to say,

how does it treat religion?

Horror is a really,

really powerful artifact

that speaks clearly and directly

to the fact that we are

still concerned

with really important questions.

Which is why I call horror

and religion cultural siblings.

You don't get horror

building on religion,

so much as they are dealing

with exactly the same questions:

Where do we go when we die?

How did we get here?

Does life have any meaning?

Is there a god?

Why do we suffer?

Religions claim to have

answered those questions,

but the answers are never

really very satisfactory

for a very long time.

- I have been working on

a book project

on how horror is used

as a missionary tool.

- I do not believe.

So, to recap, four words

necessary to destroy

the forces of the supernatural,

witchcraft,

superstition, psychic,

et cetera, et cetera.

- There is a subgenre

of horror films

where a character

who's a skeptic

confronts evidence

of the supernatural.

- And can only exist in

an atmosphere of belief.

Belief is final.

-And in the process,

the skeptic becomes a believer.

For example,

"night of the demon,"

from 1957, I believe.

- Oh, but, uh,

if I could make my point,

I could persuade you.

- I'm not open to persuasion.

- But a scientist should have

an open mind.

- That's what investigations

are for.

- All of those films,

uh, are meant to show you

that evil does exist.

At the end, for example,

of "the exorcist",

you have a message

that the devil exists

and that the church

and christianity

is the answer to that.

- The good guys in this movie

were not the rationalists,

the doctors,

the psychiatrists,

the sophisticated partygoers,

but they were the figures

of faith

who seemed to have the answers

and were willing to make

the sacrifices.

- A lot of the development

in horror film

has come as a reaction

to the fear of the loss

of belief in god

and the fear of the loss

of belief in the devil.

Horror films,

at least some of them,

are there to counteract

the secularization

that, uh, is perceived

to be taking place.

- As a matter of fact,

the pope himself

is being quoted as part of

the film's publicity campaign.

Demol demonology, he said,

is an important part

of catholic doctrine

that really ought to be

studied again.

- I've heard an interview

with blatty,

the author of "the exorcist",

who said he heard Billy Graham

say that the devil,

it's in the celluloid

film itself.

- There were stories that

projecting the film

would invite demons into

your theater.

That's an urban legend

happening right in front of you

for the movie that you've got

in release.

There's a trailer that had

to be pulled

because it was potentially

seizure-inducing.

They were leaning very hard

into the controversial nature

and the illicit and the taboo.

You're gonna be f*cked up

if you watch this movie.

- David sheehan is with us

tonight to talk about a movie

that has people passing out.

- The manager of the national

theater in Westwood

says that there indeed are

at least a dozen people

who faint or become ill

during every showing.

- I fainted like ten minutes

after the

First beginning of the movie.

- I passed out.

- You did?

- In about the first

half hour, yeah.

- "The exorcist" was no longer

just the most successful motion

picture in film history,

but had become an unquestioned

sociological phenomenon.

- What made "the exorcist"

different,

it had the hook of the true

story.

Billy friedkin makes

"the exorcist"

based on this true story

that William Peter blatty

wrote about.

People who are catholic

know that there is

A thing called exorcism

in the church.

They may not know anybody

who's been a part of it,

but they at least know that

it's a part of catholic culture.

- Some psychiatrists are

calling "the exorcist"

a dangerous movie

because it does give credibility

to a variety of superstitions,

including the devil myth

and the power of ritual.

- There has been

a significant uptick

of exorcisms recently,

and this is a fact.

Some of that might be fueled

by the great popularity

of possession-based

horror movies,

all of which are sort of twigs

growing off the tree

of "the exorcist".

There are people in our society

who never would have heard

of exorcism,

who never would have heard

of possession,

were it not for "the exorcist".

- When we look at the movie

called "the exorcist",

what, to me, that movie did

was bring it on the big screen,

the reality that an exorcism

can and will be successful

if done correctly.

An exorcism can look

frightening,

but does not need to be.

It's not dangerous

as long as it is done

biblically.

My name is Vincent bauhaus

and I am an exorcist.

(Knocking)

- Hi, how are you?

- I'm good, how are you?

- Fine. Welcome back.

- Good to see you again.

- You too. How are you?

- I'm very well.

The people that we are going

to meet are people

that have been the victim

of attack,

of witchcraft.

- Someone somewhere,

he's monitoring me.

I don't know who,

I don't know where.

They are always there

attacking me.

- Mhmm.

- So I don't know what it is,

and now I'm feeling

they are inside of me.

- Yeah.

- Like a python spirit is there.

-And then very interestingly,

we're gonna see a gentleman

who has played

with a ouija board

on a daily basis

for four years.

- Hey, where'd this come from?

- I started messing around

with a ouija board more

and even worshipping

and calling upon the devil.

- Oh, you was worshipping

the devil?

- Well, basically,

it got to that point

because I felt like god,

you know, has abandoned me.

He wouldn't hear me.

- And we're gonna see a person

very wounded

by their childhood.

Have seat.

- Okay, let me turn

my phone off.

- You got time, dude.

- I got a story,

it's like straight out

of Hollywood.

- Once my dad left,

it's like all hell broke loose

on me.

This thing wanted to choke me

somehow and k*ll me.

'Cause I remember driving

my truck

to go get another load

in the middle of the daytime

and I saw that seatbelt

trying to get around me.

- We're gonna see those people

get set free

from that terrible curse

that was placed upon them.

-Are we going to read

the word of god

or what do we?

- We're gonna pray.

- Amen.

- Oh, thank you lord almighty

god,

and loose the anointing

upon Victoria.

Lord let that anointing

penetrate her right now.

There will be a healing of that

broken and wounded soul

or wounded heart.

Who are you?

- (Whimpering)

- Who are you?

Don't hide from me.

- Say, I renounce

- I renounce

- Witchcraft.

- Witchcraft.

- I also renounce

- I also renounce

- Opening

- Opening

- My mind

- My mind

- To the demonic realms.

- To the demonic realms.

Smite it!

You

Whether you are python

Or religion.

Get out.

- (Coughing)

Get loose!

- (Coughing)

- Get out.

Loose Elena!

- Say "I lift."

- Oh no lord!

- Say, I lift say, I lift

- Ilift

- I lift

- Lift the

- The

- Curse! Curse!

- (Groaning)

- Say it!

- Curse!

- Lift

- Lift

- The

- The

- Curse.

- Curse.

- All in the name of Jesus Christ, get out of him!

- Oh!

- I'd wanna be very careful

that the individual,

who may be very earnest,

is not riffing off of something

that had its point of origin

from a horror movie.

- What you notice is

a lot of the language

sounds very much like

late-night television

Uh, language.

Like, uh, my name is legion,

or I am Lucifer.

(Man groans)

- Who are you?

- There's this principle called

the availability heuristic.

It basically means that the

more easily that we can draw

an example of something to mind,

the more likely we are to think

that thing is true

and to kind of use it

to fill in the blanks.

When an exorcist says,

I wanna speak to the demon,

you're gonna give that person

a demon

in the only way you know how.

Whether you got it from

late-night television

(Vomiting, vomit splatters)

Or some dimly remembered

expefience

at the theatre,

you're gonna fill that in

with the information that

you have.

- (Whimpers)

- Severed.

The evil spirit will no longer

be able to hide

in that pain or in that trauma.

Loose! I command you!

Loose the anointing upon you!

Now leave!

- (Sniffling)

(Coughing)

- Fire!

Fire!

Loose! Out!

Snake, get out!

(Vomits)

In the name of Jesus Christ,

that's witchcraft coming out.

When is a horror movie

a problem?

It is very dangerous

and it's a very real possibility

that a child could

definitely develop

a spiritual problem

with evil spirits, with demons,

if it's watching a horror movie.

(Reporters chatter)

- Linda, there's are various

rumors

that you were affected

psychologically by the film,

which are, no doubt, untrue,

but what is the situation?

Didn't it disturb you

in any way?

- No, it didn't at all.

So the movie comes out

and journalists were asking me,

like, are you okay?

Are you mentally ill?

I don't think there's many

young people

that could've survived it.

It was hard.

People, they would run.

People were so afraid of me.

- One of the problems with

these ideas of curses

is that perhaps we could be

projecting

onto an actual person

after they're done filming.

If you look at someone like

Linda Blair,

the studio had to get

bodyguards for her

because people actually thought

that she might be evil.

If you can think back to being

a young teenager,

could you imagine being seen

as the devil?

- I won't talk about it.

- No, there's stuff that

I don't talk about.

Um so what's another one?

- The kid from "the omen"

didn't need bodyguards.

He didn't get stigmatized

the way she did.

And, in a weird way,

she's a victim in this movie;

she's not the demon,

but the female character

gets branded as evil

and, and, of the devil

and, and that kid gets to sort

of slip back into anonymity,

which ifind curious.

I think it's somewhat telling

that she has now kind of

walked away from all of that

and, in fact, spends her time

saving animals.

It's a very interesting coda

to what she's been through.

- Sure, there are things that

happened I wish didn't,

but it's what,

it was what's made me, me.

Look at me, look at me,

look at me.

I do-do do do-do do-do do-do I

I da-da-da da, da-da da I

what did Linda want in life?

Linda, at a young age,

wanted to be a veterinarian.

But one day we got a call

for a movie

and it was called

"the exorcist".

- "The exorcist" had long been

awaited

but no one, no matter how close

or deeply involved in the film,

could possibly have anticipated

what was to happen

at every theater

where this film played.

- Warner brothers did not

believe this movie

was going to do anything.

And there's a certain

PR person - um,

and she divulged to me

years later

when we became friendly

as adults -

and she said she was told

to create this whole fear

around the movie

to try to bring in an audience.

You know, pregnant women

shouldn't go.

People are throwing up.

They parked the ambulances

outside the theaters.

A lot of this was PR.

(Ave Maria plays)

- Is this really real?

As an exorcist,

all I can say,

is that an exorcism proves

that there is evil.

If there is evil,

there must be a devil.

And if there is a devil,

there certainly is a god.

- Someone who requests

an exorcism

might be very sincere,

but they haven't asked

themselves

where's this idea really

coming from?

And who is this

so-called exorcist

who's coming along to help me?

Does this person have

any sort of church

or organization,

or oversight at his or her back?

Or is this just sort of a,

uh, religious troubadour

who's charging money?

- Before I became involved

in performing exorcisms,

I used to run a furniture

company.

You don't live too far

from here,

so it's good I'm here

very regularly.

- Okay.

- And I think we're gonna do

a bit more on the, on the,

on the, on the, on the

- The facetime thingy.

- Okay.

- People are probably not gonna

wanna hear this.

I think we bring upon

our own hell

and our own heaven,

and we bring curses upon us.

Otherwise, you have to believe

that there are really demonic

forces out there.

- So we're good, right?

- Yeah.

- Awesome! Great, man!

I'm just a simple guy. I just

Wanna be able to, you know,

live my life here.

One

I don't have a house,

I don't have an apartment,

I don't have anything.

Four, five

I'm glad to do this.

It's like the money comes

through one hand

and goes through the other.

- Maybe we are disturbing

the forces.

I went to work every day

and I said,

"this is just a movie."