A stern-faced, dark-haired priest wielding an out-stretched crucifix spanned the front cover of the Feb-ruary 11, 1974 issue of Newsweek. In the upper right corner, a purple banner – the same colour as the priest’s stole – proclaims: “The Exorcism Frenzy”. Inside, the featured article begins: “On the day after Christmas, a film called The Exorcist opened in 22 cities across America. Since then, all hell has broken loose.”
On the same date, Time magazine devoted two stories to the film and its fervour. The first, “Exorcist Fever”, included a sequence of photographs: shocked women who exited the theatre with hands clenched over their mouths, cheeks and downturned heads. After stating the film’s incred-ible success – more than $10 million at the box office in its first five weeks, which has since become over $400 million worldwide – the article ends with a quote from William Peter Blatty, the film’s screenwriter (and author of the original novel): “There has been a devil theory that sinister forces were annoyed by the film. I don’t attach any significance to it. Still, I would like to think that some-body down there doesn’t like me.”
Boasting weekly circulations of nearly 3 million and over 4 million readers respectively, the magazines offer a snapshot of mainstream media at the time. Everyone was talking about The Exorcist. It remains a staple of American cinema. Its tremendous popularity and critical esteem is worth our attention. Simply put, could a Catholic film succeed as well now?
The Exorcist is Catholic art incarnate. It is the single most profound piece of evidence that a theologically arresting film – created by a director and cast at the height of their talents – can be both a source of entertainment and an evangelising text. The film’s story is powerful: a young girl is pos-sessed by a demon, and her agnostic mother must turn to the Catholic Church for help. Desperate, she is willing to put aside her scepticism, only to discover that one of the central exorcists, Father (and psychiatrist) Damien Karras is equally sceptical. He’d rather save her with science than faith. That initial stance shouldn’t be read as heresy. Karras knows that to label all disorder as possession deval-ues it when the devil is actually among us. Steeled by his own doubt, and deep shame over his sick mother, Karras fights for the girl and her family. The film is as tense as it is graphic.
On that latter point, Catholic aud-iences, of course, might wince, but they probably won’t call for censorship (as opposed to the Revd Billy Graham, who flushed his copy of the novel down the toilet). Church officials and priests were understandably worried that some theologically uninformed audiences might be distracted by the medium, and invariably miss the message – although a number echoed the sentiment of one Los Angeles priest: “If it makes people think about the meaning of good and evil for an hour, it’ll do more good than a lot of religious study programmes.” As pulpy as that Newsweek cover might have been, it demonstrated a simple truth: Christ, in body on the crucifix, is an eternally dramatic personage. His story is one of suffering, torture, betrayal, and grief; violence is endemic to Catholic storytelling.
The nearly breathless accounts of audience reactions to The Exorcist are by now infamous. Moviegoers shrieked, fainted and became physically sick – in bathrooms and cinema lobbies. The film was released during an era when Catholics were more faithful Mass-goers than they are now – but the movie’s resonance transcended Christian denomination.
Jason Miller, who played Fr Karras, felt called to the role. “I was raised as an Irish Catholic,” he said, “and had a great deal of influence from the Church, raised within its cultures, rubrics, and rites.” Although not a member of the Church, the film’s director William Friedkin noted: “I find many worthwhile things in Catholic doctrine.” He considered the film to be a work of suspense rather than horror, and even hesitated to call what happens in the story a possession: “I made the film as an overview of an event involving five characters who interested me.” Friedkin was not being glib with that comment; rather, his words capture the film’s deepest paradox. The Exorcist is a profoundly Catholic film made by a collection of believers and doubters who were united in the realism of their story. As a work of pure and sentimental devotion, it would have faltered.
Other horror films before (Rosemary’s Baby) and after (The Omen) trafficked in stories of the devil, but neither shook the American psyche like The Exorcist. On one hand, it was a unique film in a unique moment – a breakthrough work of horror. Yet its continued appeal suggests that Catholic and secular audiences alike still crave films that shake them without scolding them; stories that demonstrate the impossible power of Christlike love, even among the violence and the darkness.
