Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 130 - The Real History That Inspired 'The Exorcist'
Did you know that The Exorcist (1973) was inspired by true events? We talk through the life of Ronald Doe, the real-life boy who inspired this spine-chilling film. Join us as we delve into his unexplainable experiences and the horrifying tales that led to the creation of this unforgettable movie.
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Sources
- A Vanity Fair article by Rosemary Counter: The Haunting Real Story That Inspired The Exorcist
- NYTimes review of The Exorcist from 1973 by Vincent Canby
- All Things Interesting Article by William DeLong called Inside The Harrowing Exorcism of Ronald Doe
- Screenrant article by Christopher Fiducccia, 30 Wild Details Behind The Making of The Exorcist
- CBSnews.com article by Rhadika Chalasani - Creepy Tales from Cursed movies
- Syfy.com article by Cydney Contreras: The Exorcist Cast Endured Deaths, Fires and More Mishaps - Was the set haunted?
- The documentary Fear of God: 25 Years of The Exorcist (1998) which is available on YouTube.
- An article from The Guardian: Boy Whose Case Inspired The Exorcist is Named by US Magazine
- Roger Ebert’s review of The Exorcist on rogererpert.com
- Wikipedia + IMDB
What's it like to be a Cattle Rancher? FBI Special Agent? Professional Santa? Find out!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Did you know that The Exorcist (1973) was inspired by true events? We talk through the life of Ronald Doe, the real-life boy who inspired this spine-chilling film. Join us as we delve into his unexplainable experiences and the horrifying tales that led to the creation of this unforgettable movie.
lunaticsproject.com
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Sources
- A Vanity Fair article by Rosemary Counter: The Haunting Real Story That Inspired The Exorcist
- NYTimes review of The Exorcist from 1973 by Vincent Canby
- All Things Interesting Article by William DeLong called Inside The Harrowing Exorcism of Ronald Doe
- Screenrant article by Christopher Fiducccia, 30 Wild Details Behind The Making of The Exorcist
- CBSnews.com article by Rhadika Chalasani - Creepy Tales from Cursed movies
- Syfy.com article by Cydney Contreras: The Exorcist Cast Endured Deaths, Fires and More Mishaps - Was the set haunted?
- The documentary Fear of God: 25 Years of The Exorcist (1998) which is available on YouTube.
- An article from The Guardian: Boy Whose Case Inspired The Exorcist is Named by US Magazine
- Roger Ebert’s review of The Exorcist on rogererpert.com
- Wikipedia + IMDB
What's it like to be a Cattle Rancher? FBI Special Agent? Professional Santa? Find out!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. I'm Abby Branker sitting here with Alan Kudin.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:Today, we have for you the real history that inspired the film the Exorcist. Not only that, we also are going to talk through the curse of the production of the Exorcist, which I knew nothing about until I started researching this.
Speaker 2:That's exciting.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I am very, very thrilled. Of course there's going to be spoilers for the Exorcist in this episode. That is a given.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's been out for a little while now.
Speaker 1:Since 1973.
Speaker 2:That's the year.
Speaker 1:That's the year and you had never seen the Exorcist before researching this episode.
Speaker 2:That is sort of correct. I'd never seen it in its entirety. It's the type of thing that you just would catch pieces of on TV and also watching that movie in pieces. It's a very slow movie.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:Unless you're really taking it all in as the character arc. Outside of a few super memorable scenes with Reagan, I'd say the movie's pretty forgettable.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that's your hot take.
Speaker 2:That's my hot take.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I'm going to try to prove you wrong, I suppose.
Speaker 2:Well, it's billed as the scariest movie ever made, and I know a lot are, but this is one that is oftentimes ranked number one as scariest movie ever made, and I have never found this movie scary.
Speaker 1:I think part of that and we're going to talk about this is that at the time, there was a lot of things that this film did in 1973 that were groundbreaking. But of course, you know, by like 1978, you have Halloween, right. So there's been, there's a total zeitgeist shift in horror after the release of the Exorcist or around the release of the Exorcist. But yes, I hear you, I think it is not as impactful as it was to someone who was watching this film in 1973.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely a product of its time. I think, before this, what the scariest movie ever made was what Black Christmas.
Speaker 1:Black Christmas actually comes out in 1974. I think one of the scariest films ever made are one of the really lasting horror films. That predates the Exorcist slightly is Rosemary's Baby that came out in 1968., Sure I, you are moving away from like an era of like Alfred Hitchcock and the universal monsters into like slasher films, right, and so this is somewhere in between.
Speaker 2:I also think that the scariest part of the Exorcist hands down is thinking about getting that shit out of the carpet. It's that thick torrent of urine. It's disgusting.
Speaker 1:You hate cleaning.
Speaker 2:I hate cleaning carpets.
Speaker 1:So let's talk through today's sources really quickly, then we can get into the meat of the expose here.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:We have a Vanity Fair article by Rosemary Counter, the haunting real story that inspired the Exorcist. A New York Times review of the Exorcist from 1973 by Vincent Canby. And All Things Interesting article by William DeLong inside the harrowing exorcism of Ronald Doe. A screen-ran article by Christopher Fiduciah 30 wild details behind the making of the Exorcist. A CBS News article by Radhika Shalasani, creepy tales from cursed movies. A sci-ficom article by Sydney Contreras. The exorcism cast endured deaths, fires and more mishaps. Was the set haunted? The documentary Fear of God 25 Years of the Exorcist from 1998, which is available on YouTube. An article from the Guardian Boy Whose Case Inspired the Exorcist is named by US Magazine, roger Ebert's review of the Exorcist on his website, wikipedia and IMDb. And, of course, special Thanks to April Branker for research help on this episode.
Speaker 1:On December 26, 1973, william Friedkin's the Exorcist hit theaters. Quoting from the New York Times review by Vincent Canby to give you a sense of the reaction of audiences at the time, quote it establishes a new low for grotesque special effects, all of which, I assume, have some sort of religious approval, since two Jesuit priests who are listed among the film's technical advisors, also appear in the film as actors Among the sights to which the audience is treated are Reagan, her face contorted and parched by the devil inside, vomiting what looks like condensed split-piece soup onto an exercising priest, and her paroxysms of fury as she jabs a crucifix into herself and shoves her mother's head down under her bloodied nightgown. End quote. The original teaser for the film was pulled from several theaters after it was deemed too scary for audiences and though this seems poetic and exaggerated, audiences had a strong reaction to the Exorcist, which did indeed involve vomiting and fainting in theaters. One theatergoer even sued the production company because they had fainted in the theater.
Speaker 2:That's on them.
Speaker 1:That's on the audience member.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they go to the haunted house and be like, hmm, it's too scary. It's like, yeah, it's supposed to be scary.
Speaker 1:It's a horror movie and, despite the violent response, the Exorcist remains on a pedestal. It's one of the only horror films to ever be nominated for an Oscar. What?
Speaker 2:Really no other horror film.
Speaker 1:It was the first horror film to be nominated for an Oscar.
Speaker 2:What Oscar For Best Picture For Best Picture.
Speaker 1:And it's one of the few still to this day. Obviously parasite one a few years ago, but very rarely do. I think we'll see it more and more when you have directors like Ari Aster and Jordan Peele in the mix now, but certainly it was not.
Speaker 2:Well, go ahead, tell us some of your favorites. Well, parasite, I'd say, was much more thriller than horror.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would say the Exorcist also flirts with genres.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to disagree and say it does not flirt with anything.
Speaker 1:But you don't think I mean, my whole thing about the Exorcist is like it's about the Exorcist right, like there's an exorcism and there is horror and there is grotesqueness and special effects and all of the stuff we're going to talk about. But it's also really about Father Charis, right In a big way and his grappling with what's happening to him. And I think that makes it a little bit different than the lens that a lot of other horror films take when it comes to an exorcism.
Speaker 2:I think you just unlock something for me. One key factor for making me lose interest in a lot of these movies is when there's a strong focus on the Catholic Church. There's so many. I don't know if there's necessarily exorcist movies, but there's exorcist adjacent type movies, like a lot of the conjuring bullshit has to do with the Catholic Church and they bring in priests to try to get the entity out of the house and that just immediately removes me from it. I don't know. Just something about that makes something about it, takes me out of it.
Speaker 1:No, I'm with you and I have the same sort of I think view and sense of all of that as you do. I think the thing about this film that feels different is that there's something universal about it. It's like, even though my beliefs in this person's beliefs are not the same, even though I don't believe in hell or the devil or all you know, all of these things, it's sort of about the situation and the complexity of the situation he's in, which I feel like can be applied to other things, I don't know. You know, it feels more like relatable, I guess, than other, like oh, we're just bringing in a mindless priest because we know so much. We see his family, we see his mother, right, there's just like more depth to him.
Speaker 2:On that note, I did a little bit of research to see if I wanted to read the book before this episode Because, again, it's supposed to be the scariest book ever written. If you might recall the Friends episode when they have to keep the Exorcist book or that was the Shining, wasn't?
Speaker 1:it. That was the Shining, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it might have been. It should have been the Exorcist, because that was supposed to be the scariest book ever written. Anyways, it's supposed to be real scary. So I went, I started reading reviews on it to see, you know if it held up and the reviews were completely polarized.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Either people were saying, oh my God, this is the scariest book ever written, or they're like it's really boring, it's really really slow, focuses so much on Father Karris' loss of faith and you know, search for meaning and everything. I'm like, okay, snooze fast. So, like you know, I'm there for the scary bits. I want to, I want to do the, I want to see like the origin story of Pizzuzu, like that's what I'm there for.
Speaker 1:You know what film does that really well Again, despite me not being religious is Signs. Signs is also a lot about a man grappling with his faith, and it does it in a way that's not boring and is very scary and complicated and entertaining to watch.
Speaker 2:Because it's not about him and his faith. It's about him and his family, and his faith ends up being like the thread that weaves it all together, whereas it's not like you know he's. They're not throwing it in your face, which I don't know. Signs is a great movie. There's been many movies where Christian ideology has been used to great effect and it's been super cool. But as soon as you start getting into like the nitty gritty of like all the other priests getting together and talking, I just I can't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, I totally understand and hear you on that.
Speaker 2:So I did not read the book.
Speaker 1:Copy I'm going to quote now from Roger Ebert's review of the film. Quote if movies are, among other things, opportunities for escapism, then the exorcist is one of the most powerful ever made. Our objections, our questions occur in an intellectual context after the movie has ended. During the movie, there are no reservations, but only experiences. We feel shock, horror, nausea, fear and some small measure of dogged hope. But we are not escaping Friedkin's implications. We are shrinking back from the direct emotional experience he's attacking us with. This movie doesn't rest on the screen, it's a frontal assault. End quote.
Speaker 1:The exorcist stars Linda Blair, Ellen Burston, max Boncito and Jason Miller. It was directed by William Friedkin and written by William Peter Blatty, based on his novel of the same name from two years before. As a reminder because I know everyone now has seen the exercise that's listening, but as a reminder the film follows the story of a young girl who is possessed by a demon and the journey of her mother and two priests to exercise this demon from her. Not only is the film based on true events, but the making of the film was incredibly difficult and led to injury and death. Many believe that the film was cursed from the outset. Today we're going to talk about all of this and more, starting with the events that inspired the original story. The only reason we know the account that I'm about to share is through a 1949 Washington Post article that chronicles the events. Now there's also additional firsthand sources. There's journals and diaries of the people involved, and that's what William Peter Blatty used to write his novel, but those aren't public right.
Speaker 2:One quick fun tidbit, sure. The audiobook is narrated by the author himself.
Speaker 1:Oh, that is great.
Speaker 2:Well, and one other person who's a woman, I assume he just didn't feel confident doing the female voices.
Speaker 1:Yes, got it. In 1949, several priests performed an exorcism on a child called Ronald Doe. His real name is Ronald Hunkler, sometimes referred to as Robbie Mannheim, but we're going to refer to him mostly as Ronald Doe today.
Speaker 2:Why.
Speaker 1:Because I think there is some. He didn't want to be in the limelight and so I want to respect his. He just said his real name. Yeah, we're only going to say once. Ronald lived with his family in St Louis, Missouri, when he was 13 years old. He was going through tough times emotionally after the loss of an aunt. According to the All Things Interesting article, Ronald's aunt, Harriet, was a spiritualist and had taught her nephew some of her practices, including using a Ouija board. In January 1949, Ronald started to have unexplainable experiences.
Speaker 2:Like what.
Speaker 1:Allegedly he would hear scratching noises coming from different parts of the house, the floors and the walls. Water would drip from his walls and his mattress would move on its own.
Speaker 2:Okay, everything except the mattress moving. Actually, no. Everything can be explained by either rats, a bad plumbing or you're too close to the train.
Speaker 1:You're too close to the train, Okay, well, give me a few more minutes and let's see if you can get convinced by some stuff that's coming down the pipe.
Speaker 2:It's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:The Guardian article explains how the floors of the family's home were scratched due to the constant heavy moving of furniture on its own.
Speaker 2:This is what happens when the little furniture movers slip off the bottom of chairs.
Speaker 1:What you stare at, the chair moving on its own, scratching your floor.
Speaker 2:No, it's just. The kid moves his stuff around, doesn't want to tell the parents and he scratches the floor because he's lazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He doesn't lift.
Speaker 1:He doesn't lift from his legs.
Speaker 2:He just pushes.
Speaker 1:And how a photo of Jesus on the wall would shake whenever the boy was around.
Speaker 2:It's funny.
Speaker 1:After consulting doctors and other medical professionals, the family turned to the help of the clergy, who pointed the family in the direction of the Jesuits. And since I didn't know much about what a Jesuit is and they're going to come up a lot today I have copied a definition from Wikipedia. Quoting from Wikipedia, the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits, is a religious order of clerics, regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church, headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola and six companions with the approval of Pope Paul III. The Society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations. Jesuits work in education, research and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also conduct retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, sponsor direct social and humanitarian ministries and promote ecumenical dialogue. End quote. So I hope that clears it up for you.
Speaker 2:Alan, Not at all. Can you just give us the cliff notes please?
Speaker 1:I think it's sort of like a special order of priests who try to do good deeds and spread the good word.
Speaker 2:But the Jesuits are not within Catholicism.
Speaker 1:They are. They're like a special.
Speaker 2:They're a secret order.
Speaker 1:They're not secret, they're just like a good will order, so the secret's out.
Speaker 1:Secret's out. Father Albert E Hughes was granted permission by the church to perform an exorcism on Ronald Doe. Quoting from the All Things Interesting article by William DeLong. Quote For the exorcism, hughes strapped the boy to the mattress and began his recitations, but he had to stop the right when Ronald broke off a piece of the mattress spring and slashed the priest across the shoulders, leaving the exorcism unfinished. A few days later, red scratches appeared on Ronald Doe. One of the scratches formed the word Lewis, which indicated to Ronald's mother that the family needed to go to St Louis, where the Hunklers had relatives, to find a way to save their son. End quote.
Speaker 1:But that wasn't the only exorcism for little Ronald. After this failed attempt, a cousin introduced the family to two new Jesuit priests who, along with several assistants, attempted again. Allegedly, this crew of clergy encountered a moving mattress and scratches forming on Ronald quite often. So the allegations from this group are like bonkers, right, like it's like over almost a month, there's like 20-something exorcisms, there's like 14 people present. There's lots again of like journals and logs about what's happening and it gets to be pretty intense. And I am not personally saying whether or not this happened, right, I am just telling you the story that William Peter Blotty heard and decided to write the exorcist.
Speaker 2:If you will recall our episode on the Enfield Poltergeist, there was so much talk of, you know, possessed kids and stuff moving around and inexplicable things happening, and the leading theory that you brought up not even me just being like was all about schizophrenia. Puberty, yeah, no, that was schizophrenia.
Speaker 1:There. I think if you're talking, you're talking about the Enfield Poltergeist case. One of the things that we talked about just to defend what I just said is that you find a lot when there's coming of age, like when kids are 13 and going through puberty, getting their periods, whatever that's when these like poltergeist experiences seem to pop up, and so there's kind of like two sides to that coin. One could be that there's some crazy fucking pubescent energy right that's like throttled through them, causing this to happen instead of like an outside force, or that they're desperate for attention or whatever because of what they're going through, you know, with puberty, and that's what's causing this.
Speaker 2:Or they're acting differently and their parents are panicking and so they say it's possession.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a real big leap. We've all gone through puberty. I don't think any of us thought we were possessed.
Speaker 2:Right, but we also didn't have crazy religious fanatical parents.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Give me the proof. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to prove this either way.
Speaker 2:Well, you're doing a bad job.
Speaker 1:I don't have a dog in this fight. So again, these folks who are now kind of with Ronald Doe on his second half of his exorcism journey. They're claiming to see objects moving on their own. They're also reporting that the boy would appear to be quite normal during the day and it was only at night that he would descend into these violent fits and tantrums and that he would enter trance like states and make feral, guttural noises. It's also claimed that they witnessed an X form on Ronald's chest, which they assumed was a Roman numeral, the number 10. They interpreted this to mean that he had 10 demons possessing him.
Speaker 1:There's also, like, a lot of scratching. There's a pitchfork in scratches that shows up on his thigh and then even in the documentary fear of God that I watched, which interviews William Blatty, the writer, he names other things that I didn't even read in the articles that like were scratched into his, uh, his skin. But the thing is, according to these diaries again, I'm not defending them, but according to the diaries they, the priests and the witnesses would watch the like scratches appear. It's not like they just lifted him up and he was like, oh, he carved a new thing into his arm again today. Like they would watch it actually physically appear.
Speaker 2:So they, so they claim so they claim.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to quote directly from one of the priests who is performing the exorcisms. William Bodern's diary quote on one evening the word Lewis was written on the boy's ribs in deep red. Next, when there was some question of the time of departure, the word Saturday was written plainly on the boy's hip.
Speaker 2:Question about the time of departure.
Speaker 1:Like they were like oh, when should we leave? And then the Saturday appeared on this hip.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:As to the length of time the mother and the boy should stay in St Louis, another message was printed on the boy's chest three and a half weeks. The printing always appeared without any motion on the part of the boy's hands, End quote. So I know, listen, it feels very hokey to me, but it's one of those situations where you have 14 or so people claiming that they all saw the same thing. Hive mind delusion could be paranormal, could be we don't know.
Speaker 2:Gas league Possibly.
Speaker 1:Possibly, anything is possible. It was also claimed that the boy would curse in Latin at the priests and witnesses, which is, of course, something we see quite often in the film. And this is an interesting story, because the exorcism wasn't a single evening. These priests were like continuously trying to exercise the demons, like over and over again, every single night. And it wasn't until March 20th that his parents decided to take him to a hospital for treatment, and this was in response to him urinating all over his bed. They were like you know what Ghostly scratches in your hip? Okay, you wet the bed, you're going to the hospital, but again, this was a real hospital, right? They brought him to an actual medical hospital and about a month later, ronald woke up experiencing seizures. The priests, in one final Hail, mary attempted to expel Saiyan from his body. They called upon Saint Michael and Ronald even admitting to experiencing a vision of Saint Michael casting out the devil, and late in the evening, ronald seemingly emerged from his trance and said they're gone. Allegedly this was the end of his haunted behavior forever.
Speaker 2:All right, okay, I'm sorry. It's recently been brought to my attention that life would be much more fun if I just believed all this stuff was real.
Speaker 1:Recently.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's really hard, especially with this bullshit.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:But I'm going to try.
Speaker 1:Okay, you love comic books, yeah, and I don't video games.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I'm not flipping through it being like, hmm, this seems like a beautiful. Well, I'm really enjoying this nonfiction documentary on swamp thing.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm just saying you can suspend your disbelief for this the way that you do for any other type of entertainment. No, no.
Speaker 2:I can't. One is enjoying a story, okay, and the other is like here's what really happened. Aren't you scared?
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll walk it back a little, only because, of course, I think when you're presenting things in a real way, then it's important that it's factual, of course, of course. But you know, listen, here's the thing I'll say about this. I've said it before, I'll say it again Regardless of our personal opinions, which, I think, on this one, are both wishy-washy, it's something that these people truly believed happened. Now I'm going to say something about Ronald Doe, and I'm going to see if that changes your perception of this. Alan, you ready?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Ronald died in 2020, just a month before his 86th birthday. Quoting from the Guardian article quote in adult life, Hunkler was a NASA engineer whose work contributed to the Apollo space missions of the 1960s and who patented technology that helps space shuttles withstand extreme heat. One of his companions, a 29-year-old woman who asked not to be named, told the New York Post that Hunkler was always on edge about his NASA colleagues discovering that he was the inspiration for the Exorcist end. Quote.
Speaker 2:Of course, and you-.
Speaker 1:He's a man of science, you just outed him. Well, this is already all online, but he was a man of science.
Speaker 2:Yes, he is. But also this was when he was a kid and again, I'm guessing here, but it is so much easier to explain all this in that he had fanatical parents.
Speaker 1:Sure, but I mean, I think, at the age of 13, that's still a long con to hold on to.
Speaker 2:How long was it his whole life?
Speaker 1:No, a few months A few months, OK.
Speaker 2:So what you didn't act weird when you were 13?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:OK, well, you're in the minority.
Speaker 1:I'm just kidding. Obviously I was like the weirdest girl in school.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, the parents are like man, our son, our beautiful angelic son, is acting differently. It's got to be the demons. Ok, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I said I'm going to believe it. So here we are. Obviously he was. He had the demons there's, there was 10 of them, yeah. And then Saint Michael shows up and saves the day. Saves the day and he says they're gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ok, you've been paying attention. So Ronald retired from NASA after working there for 40 years. Someone close to him told the Guardian that Ronald had to leave the house every Halloween because he was so afraid that someone would discover his true identity and like reveal you know, and come knocking on the door like demanding to know about this experience.
Speaker 2:On Halloween.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this woman was also quoted to say that he had a quote terrible life from worry and quote which is from Maury Worry, Worry which is quite sad because it sounds like he had a very prolific and interesting life.
Speaker 1:He worked for NASA for 40 years. He was involved in some major space exploration and scientific advancements. But this thing that happened when he was 13, which maybe, if the exorcist wasn't a thing, he would have been able to move on from it, but because the book and then the movie became so big, he was always afraid of his identity being revealed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can understand that being stressful.
Speaker 1:But he never came forward and said, like it was all bullshit, right.
Speaker 2:I can understand that. Ok, for two reasons. Ok, one that immediately draws attention to yourself in the first place. Ok, you're acknowledging that it happened. Everyone has seen the movie by 2020.
Speaker 1:Be like a good opportunity for a little deathbed confession, though no, he just wants it to go away.
Speaker 2:And he was a child at the time, well, not technically. He had his bar mitzvah.
Speaker 1:He was a man yes.
Speaker 2:But to him. When you are constantly surrounded by people that are telling you that this is real, yeah, it's very easy to drink the Kool-Aid and believe it yourself.
Speaker 1:Sure Sure.
Speaker 2:Except that I believe that this happened so clearly it did with the 10 demons. That's right.
Speaker 1:The Washington Post article that came out later in 1949 didn't have enough information to act as a source for the exorcist, but it does tell us that the boy was taken to both Georgetown and St Louis universities for examination. After the fact. Both are Jesuit institutions. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I had a dog that was taken to Cornell for study.
Speaker 1:Really yeah, why? Which dog?
Speaker 2:That was Peanut. Why? Because he wouldn't stop peeing in the house, despite being, like you know, at the time he was like 11 years old.
Speaker 1:Just always peed in the house his whole life On a puppy pad.
Speaker 2:No, ew Bad behavior. No, his whole life he had to wear a diaper.
Speaker 1:What did Cornell tell you?
Speaker 2:So it was just territory marking yeah.
Speaker 1:Because you had other dogs. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But since, well, we had two dogs, peanut was the second one, so he was the new guy in the house and, yeah, his whole life he would just mark in every room except my room.
Speaker 1:Aw, that's sweet.
Speaker 2:That was the alpha, but anyways, yeah, he was brought to Cornell for study, which was hilarious because he's a dog.
Speaker 1:How long did he have to be there?
Speaker 2:A couple days.
Speaker 1:Aw, peanut. So Blatty had heard about the case for the first time when he was a student at Georgetown University the following year in 1950, right? So William Peter Blatty, the writer of the Exorcist, is at college at Georgetown. He's at about this because it happened sort of nearby right, the kid gets taken to Georgetown at some point to be studied, so it's kind of like a buzz. Both the novel and the film again take place near Georgetown. Blatty didn't do anything again with this story until he saw Rosemary's Baby in 1968. The film had such an impact on him that he decided to try his hand at a similar tale. However, blatty took issue at the ending of Rosemary's Baby, calling it shlaki. It was shlaki, and that's a quote. It was shlaki.
Speaker 2:The whole movie is like this giant buildup. And then the end of Rosemary's Baby it's like oh it is a demon, but you just don't. They show nothing. It just seems like a crazy cult.
Speaker 1:Maybe some whispering some demonic. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like I'm not sold. They look in the crib and the baby's all.
Speaker 1:It's like a devil baby.
Speaker 2:Because that's like, yeah, okay, there's that, but still like I want the big showdown of some sort, and that showdown cannot be a low-angle shot of a priest yelling be gone.
Speaker 1:So, similar to you, blatty thought that he could write a better story with a stronger ending.
Speaker 2:Anybody could.
Speaker 1:So, as you did in the day, he pitched the story to Bantam Books at a cocktail party and received a $25,000 advance and, for the record, $25,000 in the late 1960s is worth over $200,000 in today's money.
Speaker 2:That's a pretty good advance.
Speaker 1:He took stimulants in order to be alert and write for over 16 hours a day.
Speaker 2:For two days straight.
Speaker 1:Initially, blatty's vision was for the exorcist to take place mostly in a courtroom, a courtroom Right, kind of like a post mortem, I think. And then, as he started writing it, he wanted to kind of bring the audiences to the action as it was happening on location, with his characters, right, of course.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine the exorcist being a courtroom drama, the state versus Pazuzu? Reagan's just sitting looking all crazy in the defendant chair.
Speaker 1:That's a funny skit. The exorcism of Ronald Doe wasn't the only inspiration for Blattie's novel. He was also inspired by an archaeologist that he had met in Beirut, gerald Lancaster Harding, who had excavated the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Blattie was also inspired by his neighbor actor Shirley MacLean, for the role of the Chris McNeill character. He talks about how this book was the first time that he had to really write a female character with a dimension Like previously he had only written comedies, and so I think that was like a. You know, it was a new experience for him at the time to figure out how to really write a female character that deserves a ton of dimension and backstory.
Speaker 2:You're talking about Reagan.
Speaker 1:No, her mother.
Speaker 2:The mother, okay, okay, cause I was going to say like, yeah, when men write women, you get possession. It's like ah, clearly she's possessed by a demon.
Speaker 1:So Blattie's novel hit shelves in 1971. It was on the bestseller list for 54 weeks and of course, the fact that only two years later a film was released is an indication of how popular this novel really was. When it was time to adapt the novel into a film, blattie suggested director William Friedkin, and if you watch the the fear of God like documentary 25 years after the exorcist, it's actually kind of hilarious because William Blattie and William Friedkin are both interviewed for it, along with a lot of the cast and some of the crew. But it's it's interesting because Blattie had written a screenplay. Initially, he had adapted his own work into a screenplay and he was the one who was like I want Friedkin. And then they bring Friedkin in and he's like I hate this screenplay, like we have to redo it, and so they ended up kind of redoing it together. But it's kind of their, their best buds, it seems, and they both call each other Billy, which is cute.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:So a few years before Friedkin's film the French Connection made a splash in Hollywood. So he was kind of a buzzy director.
Speaker 2:That's a good one yeah.
Speaker 1:Linda Blair also talks about how her audition required her to read terrible language and she was scared to tell her mother about the role because she was 14 years old when she was in the film oh and she like reading her own lines, or way above her age level. Her reading level, well, not her reading, not a reading level, but you know what I'm saying. But she was allowed to say at home, you know, did she had to?
Speaker 2:I don't know I wonder if she I wonder if she had to like say you know like I'm going to fudge your mother, you know when rehearsing.
Speaker 1:No, they made her say the real thing.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:So that she would be in character.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wonder if that made her cry.
Speaker 1:Well, it made her afraid of her mom. Actor Ellen Burstyn was up against big name stars, but she convinced Friedkin that she was destined to play the role. It's interesting because it seems like for certain characters they really wanted no name, Like for Father Karris, they didn't want a famous person. But for this role, for the mother's role, they really wanted somebody famous to bring some kind of like credibility to the film.
Speaker 2:They need one name in it, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's just like movies one on one but they ended up going with someone who was relatively unknown against kind of like they were looking at like Jane Fonda and some other.
Speaker 2:Jane Fonda Wow, that would have been different.
Speaker 1:And Friedkin was looking for an unknown actor to play the role of Father Karris. The best case scenario, according to the director, would be a priest who could act, but they cast Jason Miller in the role and Max Vonsito, as Father Marin Vonsito is known for his work in Ingmar Bergman films, and several of the clergy in the film were clergy in real life. It took about 15 months to film the Exorcist, which is crazy long. On Christmas Day 1973, a small group of journalists gathered for a very exclusive preview screening of the Exorcist, quoting from Nat Seigloff's quote from the Vanity Fair article about their experience at this screening quote most of us had read the book, as I had, but nobody really knew what to expect from the film. Nobody knew we were supposed to throw up because there was no lore surrounding it. Yet they were supposed to throw up.
Speaker 1:Just meaning that this is the first test audience of the film. So there was no kind of like marketing or rumor that like, oh, people are fainting and throwing up Like they are the first folks to see the film. They're like journalists and publicists and things Right.
Speaker 2:And they have not been desensitized by the internet yet. Right, so back to the quote.
Speaker 1:I was a publicist with the theater in Boston and we had convinced William Friedkin to do a pre-screening, so it was literally delivered wet from the lab. As you probably know, critics are very stoic. We have what we call the two block rule, which means you don't speak about the movie for two blocks after leaving the theater. This isn't for discretion, it's for keeping your colleagues from stealing your wisecracks.
Speaker 2:That's a fun little little tidbit, there, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I feel like there's so many fun little things in this episode. Clearly we were impressed, though, as I've been possessed with it, if you'll pardon the obvious pun since the day before it opened on December 26, 1973, end quote. After the film rolled out broadly, some movie theaters took to handing out barf bags to audiences barf bags, and of course this ended up being a bit of a marketing tactic, but there's some truth to the audience's reaction. Some folks were actually horrified and very offended by the subject matter and like graphic elements of the film. Linda Blair, who played the role of Reagan, needed to hire bodyguards after the release of the film. She received death threats and many thought that the film actually glorified Satan. And some people were very offended by the graphic nature because it also centered around religion. As a reminder, linda Blair was only 14 at this time and she was receiving death threats for being in a film about a Catholic priest. Yep.
Speaker 2:And she probably went on to really worship the devil by playing D&D. Okay.
Speaker 1:So I teased this a little bit at the top. But the second element of this story that's really interesting is that the production of the film is said to be cursed.
Speaker 2:You did mention. You said there was a death.
Speaker 1:So, william, Friedkin told the horror magazine Castle of Frankenstein in 1974, quote I'm not a convert to the occult, but after all I've seen on this film, I definitely believe in demonic possession. There are things that cannot be treated by medical or psychiatric means. It seems strange, foreign and impossible, but it exists. We were plagued by strange and sinister things from the beginning. It is simply the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. End quote. And that is a quote from the director of the film about the production of the film.
Speaker 1:One bizarre incident was the breakout of a fire on set. The set that was used for the McNeil house caught fire, so the main house and the only room that wasn't impacted by the fire was Reagan's room. The incident delayed production by six weeks and investigators could not find any reason that the fire started. William Friedkin actually brought in a priest to bless the set after this, in hopes of dispelling whatever evil was working against them and to ease morale a little bit, and so, while everyone is waiting for the set to be rebuilt, they're about to go back on. Next, linda Blair's grandfather passes away, which causes a further delay for production. Another bizarre incident was the loss of a ten foot tall demonic statue meant to be used on location in Iraq. It was being shipped from Hong Kong and it simply went missing.
Speaker 1:During production, a priest gave Jason Miller a religious medal at a nearby diner an offer of protection. The priest expressed concern to Miller that the devil would be offended because the film was exposing his tricks. His tricks, mmm. The devil doesn't like it when you know his tricks. That's Devil 101. In the documentary Fear of God about the filming of the Exorcist, actor Ellen Burstin says that nine people were killed during production or died. This includes actor Jack McGaurin, who died shortly after filming his scenes, and his character actually dies in the film. So there's two people I'm going to talk about who die after the filming, whose characters actually also die in the film.
Speaker 2:I understand.
Speaker 1:So McGaurin died from the flu. He was only 54 years old and Alan get this. He died at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City.
Speaker 2:Hey, we've been there.
Speaker 1:And if you've listened to us for a while, you might remember that our 100th episode was actually recorded from the Algonquin Hotel.
Speaker 2:Didn't we actually contact Jack McGaurin? We did not Under his pseudonym of Benny Two Sticks.
Speaker 1:We did contact Benny Two Sticks. Yes, oh, that's such a deep cut. Oh my God, that's what happens when you send Alan in with some paranormal investigation equipment you come back with a ghost named Benny Two Sticks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you got scared. You got scared by my tail of Benny Two Sticks.
Speaker 1:I wasn't scared by you. I was scared by other things that were happening.
Speaker 2:You made us stop.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you were overwhelmed, I was Because you were getting creepy.
Speaker 1:It was for me. You're not as sensitive as I am. Your veil is always thick. Another actor to pass away during production was Vasylki Maliarosa, whose character again also dies in the film. The total also includes Blair's grandfather, a night watchman, Max Von Cito's brother, the man who refrigerates the set, and the AC's newborn baby, Not to mention the severe injuries also endured. Actor Ellen Burstyn's real scream is used in the film. During a tussle with Reagan, the actor actually suffered a permanent spine injury while trying to throw Reagan from the bed. And then Linda Blair was also hurt. She had a very intense injury to her lower back during the stunts, an injury that has been with her ever since.
Speaker 2:That sucks.
Speaker 1:In the documentary Fear of God, blair recalls yelling please make it stop. It hurts, it burns, but because everyone thought she was acting, they didn't stop the scene. The actual footage made it into the final cut of the exorcist.
Speaker 2:One of the reasons why there's always a safe word.
Speaker 1:Yes, the crew is said to have lost their toe and a set carpenter accidentally cut off his thumb. During the premiere of the exorcist in Rome, which was a bold choice of them, lightning struck a 400 year old cross that sat on top of a church near the theater. The demonic voice that we hear come out of Reagan was voiced by Mercedes McCambridge, who went to extreme lengths to achieve the effect, including swallowing raw eggs, smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol.
Speaker 2:Drinking alcohol.
Speaker 1:That was a big deal because she was sober. So she broke her sobriety for the role.
Speaker 2:That's bad yeah.
Speaker 1:Tragedy also hit the McCambridge family, which I don't want to discuss too much in detail because it feels very personal and tragic for the family, but several members of her family were also killed. So that is kind of a roundup. Again there's more, but that's kind of a roundup of a lot of the different tragedies that happened during and shortly after production.
Speaker 2:Mean it was a big cast and crew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a long production, so inevitably 15 months. You know something's gonna happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of that just sounds like really unfortunate stuff that happens on normal film productions.
Speaker 1:You know many film productions. You've have been on what 80 something films, feature films.
Speaker 2:Between I book. I've completed 50 to 60. Okay.
Speaker 1:How many people have died on a production with you?
Speaker 2:a handful a handful.
Speaker 1:Yeah how did they die?
Speaker 2:Actual deaths on set is zero. Okay, it is not at all uncommon, unfortunately, where production has to pause or we have to wrap up early Because someone's family member has passed away. Someone adjacent to the production is like mortally wounded or something, and then, you know, your Talent has to fly back to wherever to be with their loved ones. Okay, you know, it's just a lot of people Together in a space for a long period of time and life happens. Yeah, you know, this production did seem to be far more unfortunate than most. The vast majority of films have no deaths, sure, but you know it's not unheard of not unheard of, but it I think that it's a lot.
Speaker 1:It is a lot and I understand that if you're part of this set family right and this almost you know. Every week someone has news like this, like it can feel very exaggerated and overwhelming and upsetting and tragic.
Speaker 2:Of course, and you know, it's also the mystique of the film. Of course where once, because they're. You know, everyone is talking about the superstition around the film. When the set carpenter cuts off his thumb it's like, ah, it's the demon. You know where I need two sticks. I'm sorry. You know, set carpenters cut things and sometimes that's their own thumbs. You just you got to be careful. My father has had both his thumbs cut off and he's not even a set carpenter so, like you know, he's not working around these saws.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:So, but what you know, like what are you, what are you gonna do? Yeah, and then the whole like giant demon statue going missing theft, that's theft. Someone saw something cool and took it, yeah. And then it's like well, and they're like well, what happened to it? No, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Alan has it in his storage unit.
Speaker 2:I did a vampire movie years ago.
Speaker 1:I remember you do um.
Speaker 2:I was very good friends with the art team and when it came time to Dress the bedroom of our main protagonist, they needed, like, lots of occult and witchy things and, again, I was good friends with them.
Speaker 1:So I was like you know and you had a treasure trove you could just raid my apartment and just like recreate it.
Speaker 2:They're like fuck, yeah. And so, yeah, they've raided the place, took tons of stuff, set it all up and then we you know Most of it I got back, yeah, but not all of it, because things are cool and cool things go missing, especially on a film set with tons and tons of hands, a lot of times when people are there just for a day, yeah, and you know shit happens shit happens.
Speaker 1:It seems that the cast and crew are pretty split on the belief that the set is haunted. But Linda Blair and Max Boncito both reject this idea, mainly because they don't believe in curses or the devil Great. And it sounds like William Friedkin did think maybe something was going on. The vibe on set was also strained for non Paranormal reasons. Director William Friedkin would fire guns or slap actors right before a take, which certainly pissed them off, but he was of course trying to get them into the the right mindset for the role.
Speaker 2:It's like the jackass that did Blair Witch.
Speaker 1:It's also a very much like Kubrick, you know did Kubrick fuck up his actors? Yeah, he was like super abusive to them.
Speaker 2:That's bad. Don't, don't, don't do that.
Speaker 1:Friedkin also kept the set incredibly cold and that was for the special effect when you see their breaths, but it was Very difficult for the actors they were. It was like literally a refrigerated set.
Speaker 2:That's so mean.
Speaker 1:From a filmmaking perspective, a lot of the horror effects were done not only practically, but on a low budget. A rubber dummy Makes it look like Reagan's head turns 360 degrees and tubes hidden along her chin spew pea soup. Quoting again from Roger Ebert's review, quote the exorcist does that with a vengeance. The film is a triumph of special effects. Never for a moment not when the little girl is possessed by the most disgusting of spirits, not when the bed is banging and the furniture flying and the vomit is welling out are we less than convinced. The film contains brutal shocks, almost indescribable obscenities. That it received in our rating and not X is stupefying, and quote really again for the time.
Speaker 2:What movies get X ratings?
Speaker 1:Movies get X ratings when there's certain reasons, and this is not one of those reasons. But for instance, you know, in Kill Bill, when it goes into black and white. Yes it goes into black and white because if it didn't, the amount of blood Would make the film an X film, which would mean it would be very inaccessible to audiences. So there's like certain rules from the motion picture Association of America, one of them being nudity Like sexuality.
Speaker 2:Another that's triple X another.
Speaker 1:No, it's still still part of it, another being the amount of blood and violence, things like that. So that's why that whole scene is black and white in Kill Bill.
Speaker 1:That's stupid and it's sound design remains a gold standard for horror. I even actually not all admit this had one my first panic attacks while watching the exorcist at the Hollywood Chinese theater for the TCM Film Festival a few years ago and of course, what an honor to be at the theater, but it was so intense in you know, such like a incredible theater like, and it was an original print of the film. Of course, what an honor to see it in that theater, but it was so intense and the quality was so good and loud that I had to get up and walk out for a little because it was so overwhelming for me.
Speaker 1:You do have a gentle heart but even like you don't even notice it maybe on a TV, but like there's train sounds and like the like rain sounds and stuff that's kind of like always there and it's so loud and even if it's not like a horror scene, it's startling, you know, when you see it in a theater. That's another thing to consider about these audiences and their reaction. They're not watching it on their phone or like on a small TV in the house.
Speaker 2:They're not watching it on their phone.
Speaker 1:They're watching it in like a really big classic theater. The exorcist was the first horror film to be nominated for best picture. Its legacy lives on even today. Many believe that is because, despite its more graphic scenes, there was a sense of relatability to it. Oh yeah, I also think there's something profoundly disturbing about seeing a child act and use language the way Reagan does right. There's kind of like this uncanny Valley element to it.
Speaker 2:Hmm, yeah, no, it's Unsettling, she's a, she's creepy as fuck. It's the strong juxtaposition between sweet, innocent child and and something you just want to kill with fire with fire.
Speaker 1:Interesting, Okay. So that is the true history behind the story that inspired the exorcist and the Cursed set of the production of the exorcist.
Speaker 2:So I have one exorcism anecdote great. Recently I was having a conversation with a good friend of the pod, ronnie Thomas.
Speaker 1:Ah, yes.
Speaker 2:Who is the one who told me that I life is just much more enjoyable when you believe I'm?
Speaker 1:a for the record, I've been saying that since we met, but that's fine, you can listen to Ronnie.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying I listen to Ronnie, but I heard him. You know, again I'm, I'm trying, right? He just told me his recent exorcism story.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay great.
Speaker 2:And how it was one of the biggest letdowns of his paranormal investigation career. Not that he's a career paranormal Investigator, but you know he loves the shit. Yeah eventually we're gonna have him on the podcast and I'll let him tell the story, but the the short of it is that he became aware of a Inefficially Vatican endorsed exorcism happening in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And he did everything he could to be present. Yeah but because he did not meet the proper religious qualifications he could not be present for it, and and again he was very, very disappointed. Sure cuz like, yeah, that sounds pretty cool. Yeah but I'll let him tell the full story once we have him on.
Speaker 1:I cannot wait for that because, yeah, that's the kind of shit that I am Super interested in, and there's a whole other world that we didn't get into today because we really focused on the film. But we could certainly do a deep dive into the history of exorcism and why that is a thing and how that's come to be such a strong belief system. You know, of course it's paired very closely with religion, but that's that's another topic for another day, you know.
Speaker 2:I just think there's something funny about the Vatican flying someone out to Brooklyn.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know that they flew somebody out. It sounds like they were like yep, you are a Vatican approved priest, you can do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know. I just, I'm just Imagining they send like the equivalent of the Pope mobile Just over to Brooklyn if you're a long follower, you also may remember our friend Adam Bashian from Dark Interiors.
Speaker 1:Yes, alan Alan's pointing to the sticker on my laptop. Yes, alan Adam is an incredibly talented Broadway performer, but in his spare time he also sells Historic artifacts, I suppose. I suppose spooky ephemera, and one of those things that comes up quite often are Exorcism kits, which you know what are the? I don't I don't need to own one of those things because of, like, all the religious regalia attached to it, but it's, they're really kind of interesting to see. So definitely check out Dark Interiors too if you're into that. But yes, history of exorcism is certainly a topic that we should consider covering soon. We have.
Speaker 1:Ronnie, come on.
Speaker 2:We would have to watch a lot more exorcist movies.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll have to.
Speaker 2:We'll have to how many are there in the franchise?
Speaker 1:Ah, there's like a good number, like a handful, I think like six, five or six, I don't think there's like 25 yeah got you, I mean so a lot, but, yeah, more than more than the average Joe would know.
Speaker 1:Sure, meaning I, you know they're not really in my awareness a ton. Anyway, thank you guys, as always, for being here. This was so lovely. If you want bonus content from us, you can head over to patreoncom and find the lunatics project, because we put out monthly bonus episodes of a little podcast we call horror movie club, just for our patrons, and also head to lunatics project calm and click on merch to get your spooky lunatics cozy sweatshirts, because you know what? The weather is getting colder and colder and we all need a good cozy sweatshirt. Stay well, stay spooky, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye, bye.