BREAKDOWN- SHAKEDOWN: The Exorcist

another breakdown. And usually I would have a guest for something like this, but the person that I asked to do this breakdown with me is on a hiatus of sorts, so it's just you and I, which, to be honest with you, sometimes I prefer that anyways. So what movie are we breaking down today? It is where my fucking notes, the One the Only Exorcist nineteen seventy mother fucking three. And as you can see, I am very festive right now.

I have on the mom ass fuck hoodie that I got a couple halloweens ago and it is one of my all time favorite things to wear. Don't mind my hair by the way. I'm just letting it live its best life today. Don't feel like fucking with it. Hope you understand. Also, ignore all this Seinfeld shit in the background. I didn't get to decorate the room. Okay, I'm just

living here now. If you are a horror movie fan like I am, you will know this horror movie has went down as one of the all time greatest horror movies and there is a reason why. And I also think there is a reason why it is such a cultural icon. So I'm gonna walk through some of my notes with you today and play some snippets from the movie,

and we're just gonna have a ball now. The Exorcist is a nineteen seventy three American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin, based on the novel by William Peter Bladdie. What a last name, I'd change it anyways. It was the first horror film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it was released on December twenty sixth, nineteen seventy three, which actually was not the date Freakin wanted, and he was actually pissed because he

wanted it to come out on Christmas. Day, But there were so many delays while making this movie they couldn't get it out on time, and it almost feels like some kind of divine intervention. Jesus was like, not on

my fucking birthday, if that's even his birthday. You know, all of the stuff about it being Nimrod's birthday, and they, you know, corrupted Jesus's birthday by may it December twenty fifth, but it really wasn't December twenty fifth all that, but it was supposed to come out on Christmas Day, December twenty fifth, nineteen seventy three, and that would have just added more fuel to everyone's fire of this being such a demonic and cursed movie. But it's most notably starring

Ellen Burston, Jason Miller, and Linda Blair. And you know what, I never knew that makes perfect fucking sense. Now. All the actors in this movie were almost faded to play these roles because Jack Nicholson was actually considered for fucking

Father Karris, you know, Damien or Damon or what a demy. Yeah, it was supposed to be Jack fucking Nicholson, and apparently he wanted the role, which would have made this a completely different movie Let's be Real, but so Freedkin, the director, gave Jason Miller, who ended up being Father Carris, a copy of the novel to read, and it turned out that Jason Miller had actually received a Catholic education and studied to be a Jesuit priest for three years at

a Catholic university in America until experiencing a spiritual crisis, just like fucking Father Caros, but this was in his real life and when he read the novel, he told Friedkin,

Carris is me. So there was this screen test, right, And during the test, Miller and Ellen Burston performed the scene where Chris tells Father Caris that she suspects Reagan might be possessed, and after viewing the footage the next morning, Freakin realized that Jason Miller's dark, good looks, haunted eyes, quiet intensity, and low compassionate voice were exactly what the part needed and literally, because that's exactly how I would describe him. He nailed the part of Father Karis. But

get this shit. So they also wanted Audrey Hepburn to play Chris and she refused the role, and they wanted Jamie Lee Curtis to play Reagan and fucking Jamie Lee's mom was like, no, fuck you, which is interesting because she went on to be one of the most iconic horror stars ever in Halloween and shit like that prom Night. But so they were like, we want if we can't have Jamie Lee, we want Denise Nickerson, who played Violet Beauregard in Willy Wonka, and even her family was exactly

the same. They've read this shit and they were like, abs fuckingutely not, it's gonna be a fuck no for us. So it's like all these things that happened, all these people that they considered, but it ended up being the cast that we have, and it, in my opinion, couldn't have been casted any better. So it's like it had to be these people, even down to the director, because the author of the novel ultimately decided who was going to direct the film, and he had originally wanted Stanley

fucking Kubrick. Think of what The Exorcist would have been with Jack Nicholson too, So it's gonna be like the Shiny two point zero, but like with a POSSESSI girl. Holy fucking shit, no pun intended. Jack Nicholson directed by Stanley Kubrick, this would have been an entirely different movie. I really wish I could watch this version of the Exorcist, but you know it doesn't exist, and so did you know.

Many of the cast and crew members were injured and some literally fucking died while trying to make this movie, and all these super unusual accidents kept happening, which super delayed shooting the movie and production took twice as long as scheduled and cost about three times the initial budget. And the many mishaps while filming led to a belief that the film was cursed and the Exorcist is actually just one of many cursed movies. But that's another episode

where we could go over some other cursed movies. But so early on, shooting was delayed six weeks after bird flew into a circuit breaker on the house sets and it started a huge fire that destroyed literally all of the houses except for one bedroom, and that was Reagan's room. So this think about that, guys, This bird flies into a circuit breaker, box sets, the whole fucking thing ablaze

except one room remains standing and that is Reagan's bedroom, unscathed. Okay, so later on another set was severely damaged when a fucking sprinkler system went haywire and just started shooting water everywhere. And then the ten foot tall statue of Pazu Zu was shipped to Hong Kong instead of Iraq. How the fuck do you mix those two things up? And that caused another two week delay, which actually, besides it being a statue and whatever, I'm going to get into the

whole Pazuzu thing in a minute. But so a lot of the cast members, if they didn't just straight out die, were severely injured, and Ellen Burston and Linda Blair have

lasting consequences from severe back injuries. And so Ellen Burston's occurred during the scene where the possessed Reagan throws Chris backwards, and the take they used in the film actually was the take that left her unable to film for two straight weeks on crutches for the rest of this shoot with a fractured tailbone, and it has caused her lifelong

chronic issues. And then Linda Blair some of you may already know this, but she fractured her lower spine after being too loosely strapped to the bed while it was rocking up and down. Back and forth all crazy, and the take where she fractures her spine is actually the take that is used in the Finnish film. So Linda Blair then developed scoliosis with long term health effects as well as a lifelong aversion to cold from all her time in the refrigerated bedroom set wearing only a nightgown

and long underwear, so they practically gave her hypothermia. They fractured her spine. She's got lifelong issues for this. She was type cast because nobody wanted her anymore after she made this movie, because she's Reagan right, She's a crazy, possessed girl, and a lot of people thought that she was evil in real life, like Linda Blair was possessed by the devil in real life. So imagine growing up

with that stigma attached to you. So I'm gonna go ahead and say that this movie, while it is a cultural staple and one of the greatest, if not the greatest, horror movies of all time, it really fucked up a lot of the cast and crew for life, literally for life. And just to name a few more, a carpenter cut his thumb off and a lighting technician lost a toe in two completely separate incidents, and other people connected with

the film or their family members straight up died. So the dude who plays Burke Dennings a week after completing his scenes dead fucking dead, you know, Burked Innings, the one who gets pushed out of Reagan's bedroom falls down the stairs, twisting his head completely all the way around in the movie. That same guy in real life, just after he finished his scenes fucking died in real life. And the old Italian mom, you know why you do this to me? Demi also died like her character before

the film was even finished. Coincidence maybe, but that's pretty

fucking wild. And so deaths among the crew or those close to them included the night watch man, the operator of the refrigeration system for Reagan's room, and an assistant cameraman's newborn baby, all dead while filming this movie, and Linda Blair's grandfather died during the first week of production, and fucking father Marin had to return to Sweden after his first day shooting because his brother fucking died, which also delayed shooting the movie because all this stuff kept

coming up. And then fucking one of father Kris Jason Miller's sons nearly died when a motorcycle ran him off the road and tried to fucking run him over. Okay, And it's just the amount of like weird shit and deaths and accidents and severe injuries. It's almost I mean, sure, shit happens during X amount of money or a year however long it takes you to get everything shot and finished. But this degree, I don't think so that is pretty significant.

And dude, one of the craziest things about this movie is a few years after the film's release, Paul Bateson, the technician in the angiograph scene, was convicted of murdering a journalist named Addison Vrol. But get this shit, it doesn't stop there. And this is why I'm doing the Program to Kill series, because in nineteen seventy nine, Paul Bateson was convicted of the murder of Addison Verel, the journalist or whatever, and sentenced to a minimum of twenty

years in prison. But in two thousand and three he was released on parole after serving just five years of his twenty year sentence. And that's really interesting considering the fact that prior to this bitch fuck contents trial, police and prosecutors implicated him in a series of unsolved slayings of gay men in Manhattan, known as the bag Murders, killings, which he had reportedly boasted about while in jail. So

what the fuck happened with that? Fucking nothing? This guy literally murders a journalist after his little role in the Exorcist. Fucking is suspected for a series of unsoft slayings of fucking gay men in Manhattan, these fucking bag murders, and he only serves five years. They never put him on trial for the bag murders. Nothing literally walks, which is again why I'm doing program to kill. But even the director freaking believed there was some kind of supernatural interference

in this movie. And now here's a quote from him. Quote, 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 very beginning in quote. Another cast member said, quote felt I was playing around with something I shouldn't have been

playing around with in quote. And they even called a legit priest in who blessed all the cast and crew because so much fucked up shit was happening while trying to make this movie. But let's talk about the people who watched the motherfucker on the big screen for the

first time. This is a whole other issue because a lot of the viewers were said to have suffered adverse physical reactions, including fainting or vomiting, fucking blow and popcorn chunks everywhere while trying to watch this And in nineteen seventy five, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease published a paper by a psychiatrist documenting four cases of what is called cinematic neurosis that was triggered by the film.

So what the actual fuck right? They're watching this movie and not only are they having a visceral reaction, they're getting triggered and they are developing something called cinematic neurosis. WHOA, okay, And y'all think I stretch and grab for straws or whatever it is you say when I do these movie breakdowns, I don't fucking think so. And get this shit if you don't think that they do things in movies on purpose.

In twenty ten, the Library of Congress selected this film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being quote culturally, historically and esthetically significant end quote. You fucking think about that, Like they're not proud of this shit. They're not. It's like you can't sit here and tell me that they don't. Just absolutely love what they have

accomplished with this shit. Now, let's get to the fucking plot, right, So we open up in northern Iraq with fucking Lancaster Marin, right, and he's supposed to be on an archaeological dig in the ancient ruins of Hatra, something I never looked into before, but since we're breaking this down, seems only right to do so. So. Heetra was an ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia, located in present day eastern Ninevah. It is considered to be the richest archaeological site from the Parthian Empire known

to date. And it's fucking anciently old, like pre flood ancient ancient anciently old. And it seems to be like this hot spot of sorts where a bunch of shit converged, like where ley lines meet up kind of place, because we see that all the small g lower case gods make an appearance here. The city had temples to Nergal, which is an Assyrian, Babylonian and Akkadian god. But we also have Hermes, which was a Greek god. There's another statue to an Aramean god. There's one to Shamaiah, which

is an Arabian god. Then there's a Shamash statue, which is a Mesopotamian sun god. And other deities mentioned in the hatred Aramaic inscriptions were, of course Ball and the female deity known as asher Ball, which was the assimilation of two different deities, the Assyrian god Asher and the Babylonian god Ball. So in this area in real life, we've got straight up ball worship. We've got statues of these Annunaki type beings. It's all there. It's a fucking buffet.

And so in the movie, during the archaeological dig Lancaster, Marin finds a tiny little stone talisman right of this winged being and then he sees it later on in a giant version, okay, of the same being that appears with two dogs fighting, you know the scene, and it's all very ominous and shit, and they say that it's supposed to be this certain entity Pazuzu, right, but this is made up for the movie and what it's based

on is a very real entity. I'm not going to say the name, but it is z O z oh Okay, But looking into the history of this site, it would make more sense that it would have been one of these Babylonian Cannonite demons like fucking Ball than this made up Pazuzu character. Because I don't know about y'all, but

I am a die hard Ghost Adventures fan. And there was this one guy in Oklahoma, no less, right around the corner from my fucking neighborhood, right in Oklahoma City, who claims that he was messing around with the Wuigi board, got himself possessed, got his house possessed, got his wife possessed. Fucking the demon was trying to fucking, you know, molest

on both of them, and all kinds of shit. And the demon that kept coming through on the Wigi board was z O z O. And they still have this dude from Ghost Adventures on all the time as like a consultant of sorts for the Dark Occult and Wigi boards. So it's like the realist shit, right, And this demon that comes through on the Wigi board in real life. I know because I watched the fucking episode and then I did some research on it after Ghost Adventures. This

is the really shit. This is supposedly the demon that got inside of Reagan. So fuck you know, this is why maybe the movie was cursed, because they're getting real close to some serious truth here. Now let's cut in to where we start getting introduced to the rest of the cast. We are in, of course, Washington, d C. Georgetown. Nice cozy home for a demon in Washington, DC, don't you think with all of the obelisks and reflection pools and pillars and shit, fucking home sweet home for a demon.

And actually this movie came out right in the fucking middle of Watergate. So again, a lot of weird coincidences and just odd shit that has went on around this movie. But now get this shit. Okay. Some scenes in this movie, particularly those with sexual content, were toned down for the film adaptation since an actress of approximately Linda Blair's age

was expected to be cast. And in the book, though, the fucking scene where Reagan masturbates with the crucifix was way more prolonged, just so you know, and way more fucking explicit and fucking in the book, Reagan is going to fucking town on that pussy, like seriously injuring herself

yet attaining orgasm. It literally says that in the book that she's all fucking squirting and shit and fucking all devil possessed pussy all up in there, and they had to take all that shit out because it was completely inappropriate to have Linda Blair act that out at such a young age. But the film also excludes the possessed Reagan's constant fucking diarrhea. Okay, and it said in the book that it gave her room a very strong, foul odor, smelt like fucking dead fish puss mixed with shit and

fucking dead corpse ass all up in her room. So I actually think, yeah, I get it, Linda Blairs young, let's not traumatizer, let's not do to make her do too much. But the constant diarrhea, that is actually pretty hilarious. I mean, why not if you're gonna have her masturbate with a crucifix, which they did have her do, And then she puked pea soup everywhere, and she took a huge piss in the living room. You telling me they had to draw the line a diarrhea really that's where

the line was. I think pissing, puking, and masturbating with a bloody crucifix tops diarrhea. All right, if I'm just being honest, I really I'm you know, having a hard time understanding how to justify that one. We're gonna have you masturbate with this crucifix, Linda, but don't even think about having diarrhea on camera. That's fucking disgusting. But anyways,

I guess. Also before they settled on Linda Blair, the director was asking her if she knew anything about the movie, and she said she read the book and said, quote, it's about a girl who gets possessed by the devil and does a whole bunch of bad things end quote, And so Freedkin was like, what kinds of bad things? And Linda said something like she pushes a man out of her bedroom window and she hits her mom in the face, and get this shit fucking freakin is like,

do you know what masturbation is? Have you ever done it? Like? Think about that? That's so fucking weird he's asking her. I mean, I guess it's all for the sake of the movie and whatever, But he's like, all too curious as to whether this twelve year old girl knows what masturbation is and if she's ever done it. I guess that was part of the fucking criteria she had to pass in order to be a part of the movie. But anyways, the voice for the possessed Reagan, that was

not Linda Blair. That was Mercedes McCambridge. And I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but she literally said to prepare for the role, she ate raw eggs, drank with and chain smoked siggi's to make Pazuzu's voice sound as intimidating as possible. So get this, They legit mixed bees, dogs, hamsters, and pigs into the demon voice, which is fucking genius because I have never watched another possession movie where I felt like the possessed person was selling it to me.

I have never ever watched a possession movie where the fucking possessed person was in their own voice selling me their possession. Like The Exorcist set the bar for what a possessed person should sound like. And it is because they mixed bees, swarm, hive, mind, dogs, hamsters, and pigs sounds into the demon's voice. That is exactly how I

always imagined a possessed person would sound. Don't get me wrong, Emily Rose was pretty fucking scary, and there was a lot of fucking moments where you know, I don't know if you ever watched Dexter, but damn deb was full on fucking possessed. Okay, like full blown. But now let's get to my favorite subject, subliminal messaging. Does the Exorcist

contain any subliminal messaging? One hundred so? A nineteen ninety one article examined the claim with stills to prove it of several uses of subliminal flashing, as they called it, and Freedkin, the director, literally told the people doing the interviews, quote, I saw subme liminal cuts in a number of films before I ever put them in The Exorcist, and I thought it was a very effective storytelling device. D quote,

storytelling device. That's an interesting word to use. And going back and rewatching the movie, as you know, I was preparing for this breakdown, I saw so many things that I had never noticed before. Now listen here, if you're gonna do this, if you're gonna go back and watch this and try to look for these things, you have to watch the extended director's cut, the kind the one that they have. If you go on Amazon Prime actually to try to watch it, you'll see that there's two versions.

There's the Exorcist, the regular one that was I guess, the subdued version, and then you can also watch the director's cut or the extended cut that has all the subliminal flashes in there and some of the more. You know, when they play it on TV, they always take out the part where Reagan walks backwards down the stairs. They always take out. I mean, there are certain things that you just notice over time that they take out in

the subdued version of the Exorcist. But so Friedkin said that the subliminal editing in The Exorcist was done for dramatic effect, to create, achieve and sustain a kind of dream like state. Now what does that sound like? A fucking dream like state? It's almost David Lynchy kind of in the way that he's trying to get people to disassociate while watching the movie, which he does an absolutely

fantastic job of. And and I think I've said this before, but when I went to go visit my boyfriend, I had never watched David Lynch except for Doune, and he had me high as a fucking kite. Watch Mullholland Drive and you want to talk about being in a disassociated state, I'm pretty sure I saw the face of God while watching that movie, and I thought we were supposed to be having a good time. But you know, I guess that's what I get for dating a fellow film enthusiast

and conspiracy theorist. But anyways, let's walk through the movie a little bit. I'm not even gonna go scene by seeing breaking down all the plot and all the stuff in the background and shit like that, because let's be real, if you've watched it at all, you know that there is a million subliminal messages in there, and there's a million little hints and clues that there is something more to this movie than what meets the eye, apart from just the fucking deaths on set and fucking injuries and

all that shit. So there is a scene where they're doing the party scene and there's a lot of background stuff going on. I feel like, for the time, this was actually a woke movie for the time, because the things that they're talking about the movie that Chris is making in the movie is really woke in kind of like women's rights and feminism and all this stuff. And then we get to like the party scene and Burke Dennings is talking to the other priest guy, who, by

the way, I'm ninety eight percent sure is gay. He's a gay priest. Shocking, but so he's talking to him and he's talking about the Gemini and Mercury space program And then in the same scene, the director in the movie is drunk as a skunk and he keeps making all these Nazi references about globals and you know, accusing

the housekeeper being a Nazi. And so within the same scene we have someone talking about the Gemini and Mercury space programs to a gay guy, and then in the same scene have the director making Nazi references accusing the

housekeeper being a Nazi. And for the time, there are certain things that they included in the movie that are woke as fuck, like, oh, we gotta exhaust all of the medical scenarios before we jump to psychological or spiritual issues, which is exactly what they have pushed on everyone to this day, that that people can't have a spiritual issue.

Everyone is suffering from some kind of physical ailment. They need to be on big Pharma, they need to have test run and so I think that it's very significant that they included all that kind of stuff within the movie. And what is even more significant to me is the brand new Exorcist that came out in twenty twenty three, so just last year is called The Exorcist Believer is even more woke in a million ways than one and

it's definitely pushing an agenda. And it's just funny to me because there's been so many Exorcists that have come out since the original one, in so many possession movies. But if we're going to stick with just the Exorcist, there was like The Exorcist, the haird the Extors. Is this the one that came out last year? Though, is the first time since the Heretic that we see a reappearance by Linda Blair and Ellen Burston. They're both in

the one that came out last year. Linda Blair does a very small cameo appearance, like less than seven seconds at the end of the movie, but she's still in there and actually the mom she's in it quite a bit. And I couldn't believe she was still fucking alive, but she's in it, and they're pushing this whole woke agenda, like you don't need Jesus to cast out demons, you don't need this, you don't need that. It's the first one spoiler alert. I have to get this off my chest.

There's like all these fucking twists because like it's two girls being possessed instead of one, and in most possession movies, the motherfuckers don't actually die. They kind of get, you know, either saved or the demon jumps into another person and they're saved or they're spared, sacrificed whatever, so that, uh, they get the demon out, but not in this one. This one, a little girl literally gets taken to hell. It's like one of the scariest things. I had a

horrible nightmare after I watched that movie. And there's a scene where they get this priest to come in and he lays hands on both of the girls and he's praying over him, and it's this very powerful moment and you're like, oh my god, he's gonna save him. No,

he don't. Fucking gets his next twisted and snapped dead fucking drops down to the floor and Like I said, one of the little girls literally gets dies and gets taken to Hell, and there's all this voodoo whodoo, Haitian witchcraft and all this stuff, and they make it out to be like the Haitian voodoo stuff is what saves them. And there's like a racial thing going on in the movie, and there is. It's just loaded with just odd shit,

just odd shit. But if you take into consideration that the first Exorcist, even though it doesn't look like it to us now in nineteen seventy three, was a woke movie, it would make sense that the twenty twenty three version would be a woke movie as well. Anyways, there's just so much stuff compacted in both of these movies. Is

it cursed? I think so. I mean, obviously you can come up with your own conclusions as far as that's concerned, But go back and rewatch it kind of look for the telltale signs and you know, come up with your own conclusions. But that is my analysis of the Exorcist. Hopefully next time I come to you, I'm in a different location. But thank you so much everyone for being a part of this little breakdown with me, and I will catch you on the next one.