Behind the Scenes of The Exorcist

Grab your crucifix, holy water, and local priest. In this episode, we explore why the most terrifying part of The Exorcist isn’t demonic possession, but perhaps a director without any restraint.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is So Bizarre, a podcast where we find the weirdest stories from history and share them with you. I'm Bianca. I'm Nicole. Let's get started. It's 1972. Production is about to happen on a soon-to-be-iconic horror film. In fact, the highest-grossing horror film of all time until 2017's It. The film has been adapted for the screen by William Peter Bladdy, who is also the author of the book it's based on a little book called The Exorcist. Nicole, what do you know about The Exorcist? You don't really like scary movies, is the thing.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

The thing is that if it's a scary movie, no one showed it to me in my childhood. Yeah. I saw it as an adult and I wasn't scared, but A, I knew every single reference. I knew, I knew almost everything about it. And when I see movies that are that old, I'm not I'm too used to CGI.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Interesting. So when The Exorcist first came out, it was epic. Audience members were reporting as throwing up and fainting during premieres. The Exorcist is also just as interesting, not for its subject matter, but the entire making of the film, which is what we're gonna talk about. It's been described as a movie that's so cursed, so chaotic, and thereby so bizarre. Let's start with the big fire that really set the tone for the entire production. The whole movie is set in the McNeil residence, where 12-year-old Reagan is living with her mother and is seen to be possessed by a demon. That's the one-line summary. It's obviously more laired. There's a whole prologue set in Iraq. Things are happening. What? Demon possession. I don't know. It's it goes on a journey. It's really honestly one of my favorite, favorite films. But I'm also equally fascinated how insane the actual production seemed to be. So we've got the whole movie centered around really the residence of this family. And right off the bat, things are going wrong. One of the main things being that a fire takes out the entire set. When I say set, I mean a three-story interior house set, which apparently cost $500,000 to create. That's $500,000. Right. So that it's huge. But that's not the weird thing that happened per se. Wait, was this on a Hollywood lot? This was on a yeah, this was on a soundstage. Okay. But the weird thing is that the whole set was destroyed except for one room. The room where Reagan is possessed during the entire film. Her bedroom. I don't like it already. It's not good. Here's a quote from director William Friedkin. At four o'clock in the morning, I got a phone call from the production manager who said, You're not gonna believe this, but the whole set has burned to the ground. They never figured out what happened. There used to be birds flying around the rafters, pigeons. And theory was that a pigeon had flown into a light box and caused a short. That sounds reasonable. Sure. But the entire set going in flames except for this one bedroom. That's a little fucking strange.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Feel bad for the pigeon.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

I feel bad for the pigeon.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

I feel bad for Don't feel bad for all the carpenters. Tell you that right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Well, anywho, I'm about to really roll into this. Before I truly get started, just want to say that I cited a lot of articles, including one from Castle of Frankenstein, which had a really great interview with director William Friedkin, Entertainment Tonight, New York Post, and What Went Wrong podcast. Let's start with the curse of the set. During and after the production of The Exorcist, nine people connected to the film died. This includes, yeah, cast crew relatives.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Cast? Yes. Actually, I take that back not to make the cast more important than the fucking crew.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah, what? Yeah, that wasn't cool. But the connections to death also included, and this is really sad, an assistant cameraman's newborn baby and a night watchman, plus two of the actors in the film, Jack McGoran and Vasiliki Maliaros, who were written to have an on-film death. They died in real life as well. Lightning also struck a church near the film's premiere in Rome and caused one of the ancient crosses, which was 400 years old, to apparently fall in the center of the theater. So that's a little fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Wait, so how did everyone die? You don't have to name every give me one.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Well, a lot of it was just like random but life things. Uh, I think somebody died of complications of the flu, somebody had a heart attack. Okay. I mean, the story is yes, you're gonna have people connected to any sort of film have deaths. It's just what it is, especially when you look at that. The film was supposed to be only 85 days long to shoot, and it stretched out into almost a year. That's a lot. That is a lot, and that kind of ties in with the whole curse of the film, right? That's the lore. We've got the fire, we've got deaths, we've got this freaky little church that dropped one of its crosses in Rome. It's weird. In fact, things were so weird that at one point director William Friedkin got the consulting priest on set to literally bless the set and the crew to kind of minimize anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

I have a few things to say about that. Please. First of all, was he coaching the actual priest, or did they just feel like there needed to be a priest there because the production or director were religious?

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Well, he actually had a part in the film, but he was a real priest. And I think that he was on set because the vibe of the entire movie from Jump was that William Friedkin wanted it to be a documentary. Now I'll get into this, but the exorcist is based on a real life exorcism case. I did not know that. Yes. So the vibe of it was we're gonna keep this documentary, we're gonna keep this as realistic. And I'm underlying that because I think that also plays into the tension and the terror on set. So now what have we done? We've done the fire, we've got deaths, we've got a real life priest throwing some holy water every which way. It's it's fucked. It's a little fucked. And we've got a 12-year-old in the 70s in the middle of all this.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

So I'm not a religious person, nor am I a Christian, but I think at that point, I would also sign up for holy water thrown at me.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

A thousand percent. I am atheist, and I would be like, Can I dunk my head in this? May I please be blessed. Bring whoever you got. You know? Can I have my own personal? Remember that scene in the mummy with like, was it Benny that when the mummy came to him, he started saying everything to every god? That's too far away for me.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

All I remembered is uh, was it Brendan Fraser?

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Obviously, everyone remembers Brendan Fraser from the mummy. Okay, well then I'm like everybody. I'm like everybody. Is that what you want to hear? Anyways, I would be Benny. So, in addition to all of that, if you can even believe it, there's more. Apparently, there was even an actor on set who is a suspected serial killer. During the movie? He was in the movie. His name is Paul Bateson, and he played the radiologist's doctor's assistant. He was convicted for murder not too long after the movie, and he is suspected of being a serial killer.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Is suspected or was and was acquitted?

SPEAKER_00 9:30

He had confessed to killings, apparently, but I think it's never been a hundred percent verified. I didn't go too far down that rabbit hole, but he Shout out to investigators in the 70s.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

No, but he doesn't hunt.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

No, he he was truly arrested. He did murder somebody, and William Freakin even visited him in prison. But anyways, I digress. The curse continues, and it also created lifelong problems for some of these actors. For example, Linda Blair, who played 12-year-old Reagan, was thrown out of a bed rig so hard that she fractured her spine, she broke her fucking back and was diagnosed from then on with chronic pain. Additionally, Ellen Bernstein, who played her mother, was also injured when an harness yanked her backwards so hard that it led to permanent spinal damage. No supervisors whatsoever on the films at that time. No, none whatsoever. And I'm gonna go into sort of what led to the conditions to create that because it had a lot to do with, and I'm sure you can kind of pick up the gist of it, William Friedkin, the director. I actually did not pick up on that. I will say one of the most unsettling things about all of this is that with both Linda Blair and Ellen Bernstein, they are in significant, significant pain during the process of this film. And they use the actual audio of them screaming and crying in the film. That's fucked up. Yes. It makes the film even that much more unnerving to watch. Quick quote from Linda Blair: that's the footage they used in the movie where I'm crying my eyes out because they're brutally damaging my back. Oof. So we're gonna segue from the curse into what's the actual issue here? Who is William Friedkin? William Friedkin is described as obsessive and that that obsession could be contagious. He didn't want his actors to look terrified, he wanted them to be terrified. He kept guns on set, and I'm talking real guns, not blanks, to actually scare the actors when he felt like they weren't giving the proper reaction he wanted for his documentary style film.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

So he would like pull the guns out, or they were just lying around and he would just glance at them.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Actors were reportedly at some point they got used to his style. They would get on set and ask people, where is Billy keeping his guns today? There's even a scene where an actor is supposed to be very shocked or sort of whip around to a phone call because William thought that the reaction wasn't good enough. That's an example of him firing a gun to get her. I feel like this is even crazy for the 70s, though. It was pretty fun. I mean, you've got to understand the context. It's like school of Kubrick, you know, it's like it's like that artistic license shit where it's like you're Francis Ford Copeland, do whatever directly. Yeah, you're getting a few. Let him do his processes while pain in the big butt. Pull it out. Yeah. It's like, let's do this. So he fired a gun to create tension. Before one scene, he slapped a priest across the face because he wanted more emotion from the tape. They are pretty stoic.

unknown 13:27

Okay from that.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

And probably one of the most psychotic things I've read about a film set in a long time. Now, this is pre-you can do whatever digital post-production magic, but he froze the entire bedroom set. He froze it with industrial freezers to get real breath condensation. You know how, like, when Reagan is possessed, you can see that's real. And I'm not talking about just like he cranked the AC really strong. When ACs are on and they're blasting, they actually dehumidify the air. So you can't get that condensation going. He would have to have the AC going to below 20, negative 20. That's crazy. Yes. And please keep in mind, Linda Blair is a 12-year-old and she's wearing a nightgown most of the time. And below 20. That set was so cold, they literally created snow one day.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

I bet no one was waiting with that like big coat like they do now.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

No, but there's amazing photos of like all these like 1970s crew and like head-to-toe park and then little Linda Blair in a fucking nightgown. Yeah, where are her parents? I don't know, dude. Unclear, but it's the seven getting the money. I don't know. So William Friedkin was a fucking onset menace, so to speak. When Ellen Bernstein had that life-changing back injury, by the way, she actually warned him before the final shot, which was used in the film, which she's in significant pain. She'd warned him and said, Hey, I think the stunt man is yanking way too hard on my restraint. And he pulled out a gun. No, she told him. She said, Hey, you're pulling way too hard. I'm gonna get hurt. And he said, Okay, you're super right. She turned around and he turned back to the stuntman and said, Pull her with everything you fucking got. Yeah. So I hate this person. He better be dead. Is he alive? He's dead. I'm sorry. I'm gonna show you real quick the video of Ellen Bernstein being yanked. This is her. She literally is getting pulled so hard and she's in so much pain. And she gets, you can actually see, like she's pissed. And right before the scene is cut, it's literally her getting hurt and saying, Billy, fuck you in this camera. Call the ambulance, which they did have to get. Oh my God. All right, let's see. Here we go. So, Nicole, can you describe what you've just seen in the video?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

First of all, I totally forgot about that scene. Yes. Where she takes the cross- Well, I remember that scene very vividly. I don't remember the 12-year-old pulling her head and saying, lick me. Yes, that was a big perk. Do not remember that. That's fucking I'm not gonna get into it. Anyways, yeah, that looks extremely painful.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

So you're saying that scream was So you saw Ellen Bernstein basically, she's being yanked from her daughter and onto the floor. Yes. And that is the actual take of her getting severely injured.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

It looks like she hit her head as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

So that scream you're saying is a real scream. And do you see how they cut so quickly after she straight to the chair?

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Ugh. I that's crazy that she didn't get up and say, like, well, I'm suing now.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yeah. Well, goodbye to everybody.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah. Fine, have fun doing reshoots with another actor.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Yeah. So the curse kind of grows. It's not just that there were these otherworldly things happening. There's deaths and fires, but it's also like this fucking director just torturing his actors on set. Yeah. Guns. You can't even trust your director to help you. You're Ellen fucking Bernstein. Like you're not just like some no name, whatever. Yeah. You're you're one of the highly most critically acclaimed actors of that time. And still is, in my opinion, but whatever.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

But I I think this this happened didn't happen on um The Shining as well, where she later accused Hitchcock of like actually constantly scaring her. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

You're thinking of Shelley Duval. Yeah. And you're thinking of Kubrick.

unknown 18:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

I got the shiny. I got the shining. Yes. A hundred percent. Um, so yeah, I think this whole thing, this whole story basically, it's fucked. And the root of it is, like I said, a real story. It's an actual exorcism, supposedly. Um, the exorcism of a 14-year-old boy in Maryland in 1949, known as Roland Doe. I wonder why they changed it to a little girl. I don't think anybody wants to see little boys and priests ever together. Even in the 70s, people were like, no. Interesting, interesting theory. But um, yeah, the exorcism, the real life one in question had a lot of overlap from the film The Exorcist, allegedly, where this boy had objects flying around him, he levitated and he spoke in a language he never learned. So yeah, I don't know. Maybe they're making this film, they're basing it on a real thing, real shit is happening. It adds to the lore, but it's also just this whole tense subject matter the whole entire time. This is the 70s. It's like this is pre-Blair Witch, where they created the lore. Well, it's also like you've got to be sensitive around religion, and you're doing a whole film about demonic possession. You know, like Linda Blair had to have bodyguards around her six months even after the film let out because people were sending her death threats. Jeez, like Christians. Who knows? But you know, when you're dealing with subject matter this intense, I think it evokes a lot of reaction, right? Yeah. So I guess ultimately we've got to find out who's the real demon all along. Billy. It was Billy, wasn't it? Billy, yeah. So stupid, stupid, powerful man. He's stupid, powerful man. Um, yeah, I mean, there's the lore, there's people that are pointing out all these fucking crazy things, which honestly, it is pretty intense. That is so intense. Yes. But I think you also have to like look at it as we're in the 70s. We don't have a lot of safety oversight. Things are a bit loosey-goosey. Kind of until recently, if you think about it. Yeah, we're in the Coppola um Kubrick era. Directors are getting away with a lot more. So is it the 70s being the 70s? Or is it Freakin just pushing the envelope so so fucking far that he can't see the wood for the trees?

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Well, same, same. I mean, it's it's probably a combination of both. It's it's I'm I can't comment on all those deaths, but I will say that regardless, having like some horrifying man being in charge of a bunch of people and Hollywood just being like, here's a bunch of money, do whatever you want.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah, that's not gonna go well for people. Yeah, I agree, and I think that's Friedkin also wanted the lore of this movie to go even past the film and go somewhere beyond. I think he helped add fuel to that fire. Did they put this information out while the film was being promoted, or like it's unclear how that information was being dripped, but I have no doubt that as these things, these things are happening, they're probably getting dripped through like the grapevine.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah, so it's part of PR.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

I think so. It's like, is it cursed? Is it PR? It's just fucking stupid. Is PR cursed? Is PR in fact yes? The answer is yes. But I think it's like it is a bizarre set of circumstances, but I think it's also bizarre with, and I think we see it with a lot of these stories, with somebody at the center taking advantage of the narrative and someone pushing maybe the more bizarre aspects of it for their financial gain at the cost of a lot of hardworking people.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah, because there's still the notion, and even more so back then with the directors you mentioned, and a lot more, where the whole crazy artist, like genius director, you gotta let him do his thing. Like you because he makes really good films. So you gotta let him do his process, and the studio backs that and it still kind of happens. Yeah. What was the one with uh Marlon Brando where there was that woman?

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Oh, we can't oh yeah, two to tango, last tango in Paris.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah, where she basically was like, I felt so unsafe the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

But look, at the end of the day, the Exorcist was nominated for 10 Oscars and won too. Totally worth it, then. Totally worth it. Art is perfect. Sorry, everyone. Everyone wins. Oscars are the most important thing in the world. Well, I'll leave you on this quote from William Friedkin, which I think you've gathered is kind of the point of this episode. We started with the episode being about the exorcist, but I think the most bizarre thing is probably a 1970s director having artistic license to fucking terrorize people and then get an award for it, which can't be great for your mental health. But he's like, You see? But you see. Here's a quote from Billy. I'm not a convert to the occult, but after all I've seen on this film, I definitely believe in demonic possession. We were plagued by strange and sinister things from the beginning. It is simply the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Way to deflect. Dude, you are the hardest thing on set. Put your gun away. Oh my god. It's Real Housewives Quote. No, it's not a quote. What is it? It's my um tagline. Oh, tagline.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

I may be possessed, but I'm still in control.