Posted on 08/12/2004 5:59:12 PM PDT by missyme
Did the Classic Horror Flick Haunt More Than Just the Audience?
When The Exorcist was released late in 1973, it sparked a visceral reaction from the public--literally. There were reports of people vomiting from the fright of a story about a young girl possessed by a demon.
The movie went on to become a massive hit, but few of those who flocked to the film knew about its grueling, nearly yearlong shoot or the tragedies that befell some of the cast and crew. Misfortune also followed the movie's sequels, leading some to wonder: Was there a curse on The Exorcist?
As its prequel, Exorcist: The Beginning, makes its way to theaters, E! delves into the mystery with a new E! True Hollywood Story, premiering Aug. 15 at 8 p.m. We go behind the scenes of the controversial film and reveal just why some believe the movie was cursed.
Whether you buy into curses or not, one thing is indisputable: The filming of The Exorcist was tough on all concerned. From a director who liked to startle his cast to a 12-year-old actress spouting some truly disturbing dialogue to the infamous "pea soup" scene, few escaped the production unscathed.
Subsequent Exorcist films had their share of bad luck as well--although many critics believe that's a result of questionable filmmaking more than any curse. Still, the mystery surrounding the films remains.
Think you can turn heads with your Exorcist knowledge? Then take our devilishly designed quiz, and watch the the Story to find out more about The Exorcist.
I wasn't all that impressed (or scared) by the movie. Still am not. But I read the book when it was first released in one night. Literally could not put it down. And that did scare the hell out of me.
Note to self: Never read a book like that at night.
Absolutely.
What you ~can't~ see it always scarier.
Outstanding film! Still scares me to this day. And they did it without a minimum of blood, gore, splatter and gimmicks.
An absolute classic.
Wow, that book not only scared me, it scarred me. The description of evil as a "filthy hand" did wonders for me in re-affirming my faith. Yikes, I am getting the heebee-jeebees just thinking about it.
That book was WAY scarier than The Exorcist.Still pretty darn freaky movie though.
It was based on a true story, however, no actresses were involved. Discovery or A&E ran the documentary on it not long ago. Supposedly, in the 1950s, a 12-year-old boy was possessed by a demon. His family's pastor recommended they take the boy to the local Catholic dioscese because the priests there had some training in these things. The subsequent exorcism was successful, but the surviving priests (after 40+ years, most of them had died) interviewed for the documentary said some fairly hair-raising things went on during it. The boy's supposedly still alive and has his own family somewhere.
It's not the type of reading that I'd recommend to everyone, but it can have a very good, sobering effect. It sure did for me.
Don't know. BTW, if you're interested, you can go to the Catholic Answers website and search on his name and "Radio programs." There's still one show with him archived. It's worth a listen. He's amazingly matter-of-fact.
I thought I remember hearing the Church did look into that but don't know if any of it was ever substantiated as satanic.
I don't know if the Church looked into it, but the last I heard it was bogus. The people involved may even have admitted that it was a hoax.
Talk of English musician Mike Oldfield and only one thing springs to mind - Tubular Bells.Oldfield wrote this monster when he was 17 and recorded it before he was 20; it was used as theme music in "The Exorcist", and 12 million copies of the album have been sold. So naturally Oldfield's road manager on a brief visit to New Zealand suggests that no questions should be asked about Tubular Bells.
It is the old sensitive-rock-star tradition. Don't ask Joe Cocker about his drinking, Rv Cooder whether he was asked to join the Rolling Stones, or Lou Reed if he's gay. Oldfield is 29 now, but the hint that he is easily upset by the wrong questions appears to be sound advice. While he appears more distant than damaged, the near-whisper of most of his answers suggests it would not take much to tip his answers from brief to vanished.
He was brought up in Reading, a child obsessed from the age of 10 with music, listening to Sibelius but playing mostly folk music on an acoustic guitar.
"I'd come home from school in my lunch hour just to listen to music. Well, I'd smoke some cigarettes as well." His, older sister Sally was a folk singer, and for a while, when Oldfield was 15, they worked as a. duo. At school he had daydreamed about being a pilot.
"But I didn't like school, the authority of school, so I didn't have the qualifications to get a commercial licence." Instead he worked in a band with Kevin Ayers, playing avant-garde rock, making "just enough money to support myself". When the Ayers band folded, Oldfield worked in the pit band for the West End production of Hair. "I was deputising for Alex Harvey, who died this year. He used to be the full-time rhythm guitar player. I was earning about £20 a week."
Enter the Bells. Oldfield had a large part of the instrumental worked out on a demonstration tape by the end of 1971. For a year he hawked it round English record companies and was rejected at every one. But when Virgin released Tubular Bells in May, 1973, it was an instant success. Oldfield, however, was not exactly in a condition to revel in his new fame. Interviewers at the time described Oldfield as painfully shy. He is blunter: "I went into a kind of mental depression... mental illness really, at the time. I couldn't see anything apart from music for about two years, and just concentrating on that was destructive.
"Some lovely things did come out of it. There were negative aspects, twisted things to do with magic. [Here's a reference to the occult]. But musically it was good, there was some good music.
"Other people find it scary to listen to ,the music from then. I don't.
"There wasn't a big sort of turning point when I came out of it. I wanted to come out of it, and there were a number of people who helped me. Now I'm more like I used to be when I was 12 or 13, before music took over completely."
There are now other interests. He is in the local squash club where he lives in Buckinghamshire. on the edge of London.
"I like the game and the social life around it, in the bar." And there is the old love of flying, now gratified by a private pilot's licence. and even special licences to fly Bell 47 and Jet Ranger helicopters. The highlight of his Auckland visit was a chartered helicopter flight over the city. The flying even extends to his new album, Five Miles Out, whose title track deals with a flyer in difficulties in a storm.
Off-stage his touring band members are kitted out, as is Oldfield, in Biggles-style leather jackets, with hand-painted names and flying motifs. Many bands on the road tend to act like big kids, but the slightly unusual aspect of Oldfield's group is they dress like it too. Oldfield says he will tour extensively until he has enough money to build a video studio.
"I love working in video but the capital costs are enormous."
He dismisses curtly the suggestion that extensive touring might make it difficult for him to write new material. "Writing to me is not a very involved business. I just get three or four little musical ideas that I have to build on. I have little half-tunes on bits of paper in my guitar case. That's what writing is. It's not sitting down and planning to write something."
Actually, the true story was about a Lutheran boy from Maryland who was exorcised in St. Louis in 1949. He was a patient for awhile at the old Alexian Brothers Hospital (the wing where the exorcism took place was demolished.) The story is that he originally was possessed as a consequence of playing around with a Ouija board. I read in the St. Louis papers some years ago that his identity was finally revealed (he's a man in his late 60s now, I think), but I couldn't find a link for that online. The St. Louis archdiocese is sitting on all kinds of documentation but won't release it.
Only if you plan on taking Hillary, Susan Estrich, or Teresa Heinz as your date :-)
I don't like women with permanent 'bitter beer face'.
I have had dreams that are prophecy since I was a child. I still can't decide if it's a blessing or a curse.
Well, my daughter just called me to tell me that when she got to work, today, the woman that she works for told her that the little girl didn't sleep all night, that she kept crying, saying that someone was in her room and that daddy was hurt. This had never happened before.
If your daughter feels strongly that this is the house from her dream and that it is dangerous, I would urge her to either get her employers to move out or that she find a new employer.
I am not superstitious in the least, but we do have a voice in our hearts that tell us what is good and what is dangerous. For me, and I only speak for me, when I have ignored that voice it has been at my peril.
I don't know if she feels that there is danger there, or if she feels that something bad happened there.
Where is this house? I don't recognize your state flag, but I gather that your daughter is in another state?
If she feels strongly, as I said, she should ask for some time off. She can plead school or health issues so she can reflect on the situation.
Sometimes it has been proven to me that I was picking up vibes (I hate that term but I don't know how else to express it) from the people I was around. It may not be the structure itself, but the people she is working for.
No, she works close by, as a Nanny for a family where the woman is a high school principal. The family just moved this summer to this big house on five acres in a rural part of the county (Whatcom Coounty, WA). She was having the dreams about a old woman who was trapped in this attic with all her belongings for about a year before the family moved there. Then shortly before the move, she told me that she thought that she wouldn't have the dream any more because someone opened the door and moved everything out of the attic and let the lady and some other people out. Then when she found the attic in that house, that she had never seen before, she just freaked, especially after thinking that she saw a little girl run through the living room screaming, a half hour before.
Oh, and to top it all off, there seems to be flies and ants breeding in the walls of this house.
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