When I began writing this part of the Dedicated-To-Sharon-Essay-Episode, I found myself having to re-engineer what I wrote before. My arguments were built on sand, though not by design. I discovered that I lacked a firm foundation and needed a better interpretation buttressed by more solid supports, if my overall position was to be structurally sound; Yes! I needed a new blue-print. So it was back to the drawing-board. I came up with a new plan that did not suffer from any loose masonry, to coin a phrase. I got my inspiration from a lyric in a really cool song…

Watching eyes of celluloid, tell you how to live. Metaphoric motor-replay…give, give, give; Laughter kissing, love is showing me the way; Spiral City Architect, I build…you pay.

Then, I understood…I must play the architect, summon forth my own metaphoric motor-replay, and build the elusive Spiral City. Not literally, of course. Perhaps, or so I thought, I just need to find it.

I discovered that Regan too was interested in buildings, though not in exactly the same way…

What did I do today, mom? Well…I set the city on fire, and…

 …still, it may just be the Pazuzu vs. Lamashtu in her…as it were. I know a Little Girl who’s in Big Trouble!

Chris MacNeil was living at 3600 Prospect Street NW only during the filming of her latest flop…I mean…smash hit movie…Crash Course, which was set, in part, at Georgetown University. The fun never ends! Hellava fall? Burke and Karras both took Crash Course 101 and Hellava Fall (with honors).

Behold Chris emerging from her trailer with script in hand. I would have thought that an actress with an innate gift for acting would not have needed to be reading the script right before shooting the scene. What scene? A scene where Chris takes on a group of rowdy protesters and attempts to dissuade them from the use of violence. Although this protest sign is interesting…

What we need is a good evolt! Or is it…revolt? Burke is shooting a film with a group of protesters that features a protest sign with a rather drunk-looking skull-and-crossbones, both of which would ultimately fit Burke well.

It’s hard to see what is going on, but it would appear that Chris is reciting her lines to herself as she marches off to confront the protesters, suggesting that she had not really memorized her lines before showing up at the set. Then someone attempts to grab her…

…which she shrugs off…

He appears to be…

The Make-up Guy Who Doesn’t Know When To Quit. And I dig the chef with the wool cap!

Here, William Peter Blatty, author of the novel, attempts to get Burke’s attention, and standing to the left of the Most Unfortunate Director Whoever Didn’t Live is Chuck, someone who will figure prominently in a key part of the movie. And I must poke a little fun at this shot of Chuck…

I came to believe that the only way to solve the mystery surrounding the Noises in the Attic was to finally delve deeply into the heights above. I have read commentators who have said that the Noises remain unexplained in the movie. Nothing could be further from the truth. If one doesn’t realize that the viewer must FIND the explanation to this thing or that thing, then one will find almost everything unexplained. You must put together the explanation. One can not begin to put the puzzle together and end up with a picture that makes sense unless one goes out and finds the pieces…they are not provided neatly in a box, whether that box is in the attic or not. Much of the ultimate story is dependent upon the Attic Noises, so until it is solved, everything else is lost. But if one is to look through the attic windows and come to the correct explanation, then one must begin with a good grasp of the structure of 3600 Prospect Street NW. For starters, one must first realize that Regan’s Primitive Culture Wing of the house was not original to the real house. It is a façade, built, as one will read in many sources, so as to get Regan’s window as close to the Stone Stairway of Death as possible. How else can Burke be blasted through the window and then roll down the Route of an Unplanned Demise? However, as true as that statement is, I think that far more was done with the façade than that simple explanation would suggest. I believe the makers of the film incorporated that part of the house represented by the façade into the storyline in a very subtle way that requires one to give up on being handed an explanation and requires one to get that explanation oneself. I will begin here…

This shot shows the front of the house, from the street. Windows 1 and 2 are windows built into the façade. Windows 3 – 6 are real windows on the real house; remembering that the left side of the house is not part of the real house, but constitutes the façade built to enable Regan’s window to reach the Stone Stairway.  The windows breakdown as follows:

 1) Regan’s room looking at the house from the front (this isn’t the window that affords such an excellent view of certain death).

2) This is the hall window just outside of Regan’s room:

Window 2 is just behind Chris in the hall. And…

This shot shows both windows 1 (to Chris’s left), which is in Regan’s room, and window 2, which is the hall window. On the question of the cold and wind in Regan’s room, window 1 is usually overlooked in favor of THE PRIMITIVE CULTURE WINDOW. Note that window 1 appears to be open, which would help, to a small degree, to account for the cold in the room. It is not, however, the best explanation for the Temperature Phenomenon. The best example can be seen in the Crucifix Scene, where there is a very strong wind blowing around the room, but the usual culprit…the Window of Death, is actually closed…

Yes, we are meant to notice that the window that is usually blamed for Regan’s Demonic Wind Tunnel, is closed here. However…

Window 1 is open, and it would appear that it is as open now as it was at the beginning of the film.

This is another shot of Window 1.

Windows 3-6 are the windows in Sharon’s room. If you leave Regan’s room and walk toward the stairs, you will, if you just keep walking, run into a wall…

Chris is angry and looking for Sharon.

She passed Window 2 in the hall, then turned right and walked into Sharon’s room.

Now I will double back…sort of…

There are 2 attic windows in the shot, one over Window 1 (Regan’s), and one over Window 2 (Hall window), both of which are part of the façade. However, and this is important…

The façade of the second part of the house wasn’t the only thing that was built for the movie…there was, and is, no attic for this house. If you need Regan’s bedroom window to be close to the Stone Stairway, you build the façade. But why build the attic? The house had, and has, a crawlspace. But it was so important to have an actual full-sized attic that one was added…a crawlspace wouldn’t do, but a real attic that grown people can walk around in, and store things in, was required. This means that the attic is so important to the story that it was added. But since it was itself a façade, you could make the attic any old way you wanted. In fact, sticking some fake windows on a façade or part of a façade would be easier than making the façade itself. But notice that no windows were placed over windows 3-6, when that could easily have been done. Open attic windows could, when it gets cold, cause a flow of air that would make parts of the house much colder. But here is something most interesting indeed…

This shot occurs at the beginning of the film. We can hear the roar of the plane carrying Merrin back home from Iraq. Then the camera takes a slow pan in on the house. But this is the back of the house and it shows something very interesting. To your left, is 3602 Prospect NW, 3600 and 3602 are actually a condo, and thus share a wall. Lower right, you see the Stone Stairway with the glow from a lamppost that is located at the bottom. On the left, is the actual house, and the right half of the house is the façade…

This is a shot of the back of the house now…

3600 Prospect Street NW (Chris’s house) is to the right of 3602 Prospect Street NW…

…and you can see the shared wall. To the bottom right, you see the Stone Stairway. Looking back at Chris’s house, and I’m sorry if the shot spoils the mystique, you see the second floor window. In the film, this window is in Chris’s room.

When you walk into Chris’s bedroom, and I’m certainly not talking from experience mind you, the first thing you see is the fireplace. Now it’s not always easy to tell when someone is putting you on, but now it’s time for!

Shit! Sorry about that! We have new technicians. I thought we got all the glitches out. Let’s try again…

Hey Tektonikus! These bloopers totally suck!

You said it, Kiddo!

 Ok…ok. But I am about to publish my Super-Duper Exorcist Jokebook! What do you think about this one?

 What is Burke Dennings favorite drink?

Gin! With an Alien Pubic Hair Chaser!

Hah! And you thought that wasn’t funny! Maybe I’ll sell my jokebook in the lobby! Wait…where was I? Oh, yes! Schematics!

Perhaps someone should tell Chris that one day, she’ll have a big girl bed! Actually, her bed doesn’t seem to be any bigger than Regan’s bed. If you walk into the room, the fireplace is straight ahead. Look to the right, you’ll see Chris’s Little Girl Bed.

Ok, now to answer another question…

An excellent view! To the upper left is Window 2. Left of Karras is the door to Regan’s room. Upper right is Father Merrin headed into the…

…bathroom at the end of the hallway, which you will walk into if you walk past Regan’s room. So…

But notice this…

In other words…on the front of the house, only the façade has attic windows, 1 is over Window 1 (Regan’s room), and 1 is Window 2 (Hall, in the façade). On the back of the house, there are only 2 attic windows, and both of them are to the right of the Merrin’s Last Bathroom Stop Before the Great Beyond.  This would mean that there are no attic windows over Chris’s room, Sharon’s room, or even the little bathroom. I have not been able to find a really good view of the side of Regan’s wing of the house, and so I am not 100% sure that there aren’t windows there. But…

…and…

Far be it from me to make an obnoxious comment or most unfunny joke, but I discovered something that solves the whole movie! The MacNeil’s rental house is…haunted! There is no demon…but could there be a ghost? I pondered that since, in a two-part essay published on this website, I suggested that it was actually a ghost, and not a demon, who was possessing Regan in the novel-version of the story. But! I finally found a ghost in the movie! And indeed, in an attic window…

Will the fun never end? Now for something that has me baffled. Why is it that the only attic windows on the Amalgamated MacNeil House are only over the façade? One over the hall window and one over Regan’s Window Number 1? That is an interesting question. But here is a better one…

This is quite a mystery. Based on this view of the house, noting the window for the small bathroom at the end of the hall that runs along Regan’s room, then there can be little doubt that these two windows would have been in Regan’s room. And that is a problem…

It would seem that the only place for these two windows would be in Regan’s bathroom. We already know that Regan has a bathroom window, Chris is sitting right in front of it. That window is in line with The Diabolical Window. That would mean that there are two windows on the wall with the bathtub. That would have been strange to say the least. But as you can see…there are no such windows.

In other essays, I have suggested that someone was in the bathroom during the exorcism. But I did find this about the bathroom. When Karras rushes in to rinse off Father Merrin’s stole and eye-glasses, we see this…

That looks like a shower door, which is puzzling…

This would suggest that there is a separate shower…a bathtub, and a shower, with the shower being to the right of the bathtub, near the sink, and thus we never see it except for a brief moment when Karras rushes into the bathroom. It is very possible that someone could hide in this shower during the exorcism.

But where then are the two windows that would have to be, but clearly are not, in Regan’s bathroom? This leads to some very bizarre possibilities. True, the façade was built to get Regan’s window closer to the Stone Stairway so that Burke would experience, shall we say, one hellava fall, not to mention a Crash Course. But the makers of the movie also added the attic. Why? Because it is so very important to the story. But they only added attic windows to Regan’s part of the house. Why? And here I will indulge in a little bit of craziness, which I can do, seeing how I escaped from Room 302 of the Berringer Clinic just in time to carry out my…

Hey, mom…my friend Tektonikus is coming over to listen to Primitive Culture Records on my phonograph with me!

No it is not her fault! This all started happening after she began hanging around with…

…some witch-doctor she met!

 Well, something like that. I will suggest that the added wing of the house was incorporated into the story of The Exorcist, and then given a most intriguing twist, added in an intriguingly intriguing way. How’s that? In the film, the house consists of two parts, built at two different times…historically speaking. There is the old, original part of the house. Then there is the new part of the house, built not just later than the first part of the house, but much…much…very much later. And the old part? Attic windows were a standard feature on older homes since it allowed for better ventilation. Eventually, such windows became less common…functionally…I mean, as opposed to being decorations. This would suggest that the old part of the house is actually…Regan’s part of the house. Yes, the façade is the oldest wing of the house. At a later time, probably after property values began to soar, the decision was made to add another part to the old part of the house, and then call it one house. And that means that the two windows on the back of the house that are invisible when looking at the back wall of Regan’s bathroom have been sealed behind the wall that was added when two rooms in the old house were turned into one room with a bathroom. Rather than remove the windows from the wall, they just walled over them. Why would such a thing be added to the story? I think that it explains something very important. We know that Regan’s room becomes unbearably cold at night. Sometimes, this is due to the open window…or…windows.

And…

So we begin the story knowing that Regan’s room is cold at night, and that one reason for this is the tendency of the window to be open. And so it is that we can adequately explain a very important element of Regan’s first meeting with Karras…

There are a lot of commentators who like to comment on the movie who seem to miss the importance of Regan’s Diabolical Nasal Cannula. A nasal cannula is used, of course, as a means of delivering oxygen to someone who is having difficulty breathing. And we know that that was true of Regan by the sound coming from her room as Karras is ascending the stairs to the Old House. I’ve yet to see a decent explanation of the nasal cannula. And my new company makes the best nasal cannulas, and popcorn, you can get! Do demons make it hard to breathe? Do demons cause a distressing oxygen deficiency?

Apparently not. The nasal cannula is gone and won’t be seen again. And the reason for the nasal cannula? Yes…Regan has slept in a cold room too many times and ended up with pneumonia. Still, not too bad a case since only a private nursing service was needed, rather than hospitalization. But! The coldness of the room continued to get worse.

And:

And…

Yet another shot…

Now what is easy to miss is the fact that of the manifestations of demon-possession as recognized by the Roman Rite of Exorcism, one of the most important ones is an unexplained coldness in a room that the possessed person is in. So once the Window of Death remains shut, we would seem to have a good symptom of demon-possession. Yet, the movie makes no use of it at all. In fact…

…lower left…a space heater, and we can see it glowing red because it’s on. Someone has been attempting to warm up the room, which would have been impossible if the cold was being generated by a demon. Now it’s important to note that the coldness in Regan’s room does not seem to extend beyond her room. And that is odd. The inside of her room can be quite frigid, but step outside into the hall, closing the door behind you, there is no corresponding cold. Karras’s first visit…

…the room isn’t cold. What about Karras’s second visit?

And that’s odd. It would seem that the demon doesn’t produce an unexplained coldness in the room during Karras’s first two visits. And what do they have in common relative to the scenes where the room is cold? Right! It was daytime, and it wasn’t cold outside, so it wasn’t cold inside. But it was cold outside at night, and so it was cold inside the room…at night. So the reason that the room was cold at night was because it was cold at night. But why weren’t other parts of the house affected by the cold, especially upstairs…and most of all, right outside of the room? Open your refrigerator…it’s quite cold inside. Open the freezer and it’s frigid. But close the door…is your kitchen cold? No, it’s not. In fact, you could sit next to the refrigerator, and not feel any of the cold that is inches away. I will refer to it as the Icebox Effect. The inside of an old icebox, the precursor to the modern refrigerator, was kept cold enough to store food in because blocks of ice were placed in the relevant compartment, which caused the inside of the icebox to become quite cold without a continual supply of cold air. And so I would make an insane assertion that the unexplained coldness of Regan’s room at night was due to the influx of cold air into the space between her bathroom wall and the exterior wall with the windows that are so clearly visible when one looks at the back of the house. There was a flow of cold air into the space, which slowly caused the concrete/cement walls to become increasingly colder until the Icebox Effect resulted. There was no problem during the day when it was warm. But as it got colder as night drew near, the influx of cold air caused the room to become a Veritable Icebox. But if Regan contracted pneumonia from sleeping in the cold room, as evidenced by the nasal cannula, and the sound of her labored breathing, then why didn’t she contract pneumonia again? The answer is very simple, although it encroaches upon the subject of another essay that will be part of the I Come From God essay series…Regan was not sleeping in her room at night. She was sleeping elsewhere in the house, probably nestled in a warm sleeper-sofa on the first floor. She was only in the room at night when it was necessary to manipulate Karras, and during the exorcism, although Chris and the others were concerned enough with keeping Regan as warm as possible by hooking up the space heater. So the makers of the film gave the audience, not to mention Karras, an excellent manifestation of demon-possession, but rather than link it to something supernatural, a subtle, yet barely-precipitable clue was provided that results in a more mundane explanation for the unexplained coldness.

As for the attic, as I’ve noted, it was deemed important to add this feature. And so the house…the part of the house where Regan stayed was actually the old, original house. Then the other part, which, on the second floor housed Chris and Sharon, was built later to form an even larger house. The old part of the house was remodeled, adding a modern bathroom to Regan’s room, and a spare bathroom at the end of the hall, with a window that matched the other windows. But no changes were made to the wall with the windows shown in the shot of the back of the house. And so the attic was extended to cover the other part of the house, but no attic windows were added, since it would have been unnecessary. There is another observation that indicates that an older structure existed on the site, and that is something that is to be found in the attic…

Yes…behind Chris on the left…a dress-maker’s dummy. There were, actually, at least two of these present in the attic…

There are two dress-maker’s dummies, posed side-by-side. The one further back is wrapped in plastic…

An excellent shot! So the two posed dress-maker’s dummies stand right beside the Attic Bird Box. In fact, I would suggest that the two dummies were lined up with one another by Regan during one of her trips Up There. These dummies were used by dress-makers and tailors at a much earlier time, and the existence of at least two, if not three, of them in the attic supports the idea that the old structure housed a family involved in the tailoring trade. As time moved on, that family and family business was a thing of the past and the dummies were deposited in the attic. This would suggest that the old portion of the house, Regan’s Primitive Culture Portion of the House, dates back to the late 1880s or 1890s through possibly the 1920s or 1940s.

I have argued in other essays on this website that which I will argue yet again in this one…the Noises in the Attic have no supernatural cause. I recently read a rather ridiculous suggestion that the MacNeil attic had a demon infestation. Your attic can become infested with rats (sorry Karl), mice, squirrels, roaches, and other assorted pests and vermin, and maybe even…Dress-Maker’s Dummies, but why would demons move into your attic? Where did they come from? How did they get into the attic? How did they get trapped there? And can we really believe that demons breed like rats, leading to any infestation? No, the Noises in the Attic were caused by someone moving around in the attic. There was exposed wiring in the attic, and moving around Up There caused problems with the lights…

Chris attempts to turn on the lights in the attic, but to no avail.

Look above Chris’s head…there’s the light that doesn’t seem to be working.

A problem with the lights after the party.

The lights downstairs are flickering when Chris arrives home shortly after Burke took his Hellava Fall.

Strangely enough, of all the supposedly supernatural things that were supernaturally going on during the exorcism, the only thing that caught Father Merrin’s attention was the sudden flickering of the lights in the room.

The Noises in the Attic are heard two times at the beginning of the movie, and after Chris goes up into the attic to find out what is causing them, not, of course finding an infestation of rats, roaches, dress-maker’s dummies or demonic entities, her moving around Up There generated the same noises. We hear the noises one last time just as the Crucifix Scene begins. Now just as the homicide detective leaves, we hear the Attic Noises, and then screaming from Regan’s room. Originally, I connected the two. And I still do, except in a very different way. Regan was asleep, and just as the detective left, Attic Person went Up There, waking up Regan, causing her to…well, that would be getting ahead of myself. Still, we find this at the beginning of the film…

Sometime during the night, kiddo snuck into mom’s bedroom to sleep with her. Why? Well, we clearly hear the Noises in the Attic, prompting Chris to journey Up There. Regan had been hearing the noises…

Even if there was nothing supernatural about the Noises in the Attic…a twelve year old child doesn’t know that, and to suddenly start hearing scary noises in the attic overhead, well…that would frighten her indeed; well, until she finally figured out what was making them.

When we think of an attic, we think of a big open area above the top floor to hold your junk…or Bird Boxes…or Dress-maker’s Dummies. But even with the light not working, and just a candle to her name, how could the source of the noises have escaped Chris? There is a good answer to that question, and involves the bizarre structure of the attic. Now I must admit that at no time do we get a good look at the attic, i.e. with the lights on. But there is a strange situation that appears as Chris moves around the attic.

Chris will see Karlinian Rat Traps twice while she is Up There. This is the first time. And there are a couple of things to notice. First, the camera angle. Chris is looking down at the floor. Notice also to the right of the floor, there appears to be a drop-off. I would also point out that the wood floor is old, and the cut of the wood is smooth, and there is intact brick and what appears to be an old cast-iron pipe.

As Chris moved along the inside of the exterior attic wall, she suddenly passed behind a wall that extends roughly 10-12 feet. When she hit the beginning of that wall, she simply disappeared behind it, only re-emerge shortly after. In other words, Chris passed between two walls…the interior of the exterior attic wall, and a rather odd wall that would, on the surface, be hard to explain.

Now she reappears. But look at how much of Chris that we see, and how much of her that we don’t see. We see less than half of her. Then we see…

Another rat trap. But look at the camera angle! The trap is sitting on a floor that is almost eye-level, and if Chris is approximately 5’8’’, then we are forced to believe that at about the point that Chris disappeared behind the mysterious wall, the elevation dropped considerably. Important too is the cheap, beveled wood, the shoddy wooden frame, and crumbling insulation. This is far newer construction than seen at the first rat trap.

As Chris continues to move, we begin to see more and more of her. One is very tempted to believe that Chris was walking up some stairs after passing behind the mysterious wall, indicating that upon entering the attic, you would be standing at the high point of the attic, as you moved toward the attic at the front part of the house, you were walking down a gradient. Turning to your right, and following the wall, you suddenly began a rather steep ascent, after disappearing from view. It is this bizarre structure that enabled the Source of the Attic Noises to elude Chris and make a good escape. So why this strange architecture involving the attic? I must say that I’m not sure. But, I did notice this about the back of the house…

There is a rather large, ground story door on what is currently the back of the old part of the house. Contrast that with…

A far less imposing door. On the surface, it would seem possible that at one point in time, the back of the house was actually the front of the house, and the old house would have had a staircase in a different place than it is in the combined house. I think it’s possible that the elevation that appeared during Chris’s tour of the attic involved the remnants of the original stairway. Thus the newer looking construction was the result of the changes made to the old house when the new house was created.

Now a more obvious point to make. Chris lost track of the Noises in the Attic, but then heard them again and suddenly doubled-back…

Here she passes the two dummies. Now there were only four attic windows; two at the back of the house, both of which were over Regan’s room, and two at the front of the house, one over the hall window, and one over a window in Regan’s room. Chris, or so I believe, moved down toward the attic at the front of the house, only being in the attic over her part of the house quite briefly. In the above shot, I think she is passing the windows at the front of the attic. But suddenly…

…she reversed her course, and went back the way she came. Then…

…a hatch was opened that allowed a sudden flow of air through the attic, causing the candle to flare. And it wasn’t…

…Karl, who simply came up the already open hatch in the hallway. If someone in the attic were suddenly to break for the front of the house, and cross over toward the front of the attic over the new part of the house, that person could easily drop down through another hatch that allowed access to the attic. If that person had been in the attic before and was familiar with the strange configuration of the attic, Attic Noiser stood a good chance of alluding someone who was in the attic for the first time, had only a candle to light the way, and…most importantly, would have follow the gradient down to the front of the attic, then begin ascending the remnants of the original stairs, passing behind a wall long enough for Attic Noiser to break for the front of the attic. So, who was the Maker of the Attic Noises? It wasn’t any of these people…

Kiddo had been up in the attic…several times, or so I think. But she was lying in Chris’s bed when Attic Noiser was on the prowl. It obviously wasn’t Chris, seeing how she went up in pursuit of Attic Noiser. Nor could it have been Karl, who appeared at the opening of the attic hatch just as the candle flare occurred. And Willi? She seems somewhat too old to be skulking around in the attic, in the dark, making a lot of scary noises. That leaves only one person.

You’re gonna die Up There…Sharon!

Sharon was the only one who could have been the Attic Noiser. But if it was Sharon, why was Regan so afraid of the noises? That answer is simple…at first, she didn’t know it was Sharon. When did she come to know it was Sharon? I’m about to get to that.

Now before I conclude my, no doubt, very brief and somewhat unsuccessful career as an architect, I would venture to go from Up There to another interesting place. What better place to bottom-out than Down There? There was, indeed, a very peculiar attic, one that reflected the construction of the original, much older part of the house. Here is something interesting…

So there are any number of little arts-and-crafts projects sitting on Regan’s Primitive Culture Work-desk. Now it is rather hard to see, but I have made it easier…

What is sitting on the little desk to the right of the shot, near a phonograph, though not THE PHONOGRAPH obviously, and an old black typewriter that may well have come from the attic, is a group of three art projects. Now, these critters are quite hard to see, so I have endeavored to help…

Then, it is very strange that all of a sudden…

…there they are, a giraffe, a turkey, and a turtle. In my opinion, these are quite good, and obviously go together as a set of three. Why are we in the basement? This scene follows Karras’s rather messy first meeting with Regan. Chris is nice enough to clean the priest’s shirt, and while he waits, he admires Regan’s art work. So when did these Expertly Done Three Critters move from the back desk, to the front of the front desk? It might not seem as such, but it is a very good question, and one we are meant to ask. And one might add the question…why have they moved? Ah! They aren’t the only things that have moved…

Here, Detective Kindermann is admiring one of Regan’s art projects. It appears to feature five purple animals, with a mother and baby in the middle. It is rather cute.

Note the fish picture in the window. This is, of course, shortly before the Crucifix Scene will explode in it all its ferocity. But why do these pictures matter? I’m glad I asked! They matter for this reason…

So we know that the painting with the purple critters was, at the beginning of the film, on the wall in the basement. By the visit of Kindermann, it was, for some reason, upstairs in the kitchen work-space. Move forward in time…

So what this means is that at the beginning of the film, the Purple Critters Painting was hanging on the wall of the basement. Someone then removed it from the wall, and took it upstairs into the kitchen. Then between the Crucifix Scene and Karras’s first visit to see Regan, which was not a particularly long amount of time, someone put it back on the basement wall. Now for another...

So at sometime after the Crucifix Scene, someone took the painting of the fish down, and put it back on the wall of the basement. There is one slight problem…

There is a picture of what looks like a bull or a horse (castrated or otherwise), behind the picture of the little girl wearing a hat and just left of the picture of the butterfly. But…

…whoever rearranged the artwork neglected to put the picture of the bull/horse back up. So it seems rather strange that someone removed artwork from the basement wall, and brought some of it upstairs to the kitchen. Then, in the relatively short period of time between the Crucifix Scene and Karras’s first meeting with Regan, some of it was put back in the basement, though some of it was not put back where it originally was. I would surmise that the same person who moved paintings around also moved items around that had been on Regan’s work-desk, in the process, moving the Big Three Critters from the desk by the stereo to the front of the desk itself. One might think that following the Crucifix Scene, the people living in the house had a lot more on their minds than putting Regan’s art work, which for some reason had been brought upstairs, back in the basement, attempting to get it back where it had originally been, somewhat unsuccessfully.

Still, I wonder when it was that artwork began moving around the house!

So, at the beginning of the film these pictures were not on the windows in the kitchen.

Nor do they appear to have been there at the time of the party. That means that they appeared in the kitchen after the party. So when did they appear in the kitchen? I think that the only answer can be…

The Hypnosis Scene was really the turning point in the film for Regan. Burke is now dead. And the psychologist’s attempt to get in touch with the person inside Regan, which I will discuss in another essay, but suffice it to say here is not a demon, resulted in two things that sealed the deal on Regan’s situation at this crux moment. The use of hypnosis leads to…

…more bizarre behavior. But it quickly leads to…

…it isn’t easy to see. Chris puts her hand over her nose and mouth, and Dopey Doctor, the MD Who Just Didn’t Know When To Butt Out, suddenly moves backward, a disgusted look on his face. Maybe both are shocked by the sudden emergence of a demon? No. In the novel, Regan’s breath suddenly becomes very foul.

Are you trying to tell me something?

But seriously, is what is true in the novel true in the movie? I don’t think so. In the novel, Regan, following the wearing-off of her Tic Tacs, begins speaking backwards English, and it is in this novel-scene that we get the priceless…I Come From God. But that is completely absent in the movie-scene, and, as a result, there is nothing really supernatural here. If Regan’s breath was foul, they would have known it earlier in the scene. I would suggest that Regan suddenly had a nasty bowel movement. And that completes the…

…loss of bladder control she showed earlier. The scene ends with…

…a very violent attack directed at the psychologist; and not simply his nose…somewhat lower than that. And so Regan now has displayed several very problematic issues…

1. Loss of bladder control (at times)

2. Loss of bowel control (at times)

3.  Violent behavior directed at the doctor and the psychologist

4.  Sexually inappropriate behavior

5.  Her doctor and specialist gave up on a medical explanation for her issues, resulting in going the psychological route

 There simply was no choice but to…

…hospitalize Regan on an acute-basis for psychological observation. However Chris or the doctor felt about it, I’m sure the psychologist would have insisted on it.

Chris may have a point there.

Well, I grant you…it might not be the best recommendation I’ve ever made. But as I always say…if Modern Culture stuff doesn’t work, then look for a good a witch-doctor. We had one here awhile ago…until she escaped. You might be able to locate her, though I’ll admit, we can’t be sure what effect she’ll have on your daughter. I doubt it could hurt anything…

But maybe…

It could help steer your daughter away from her violent behavior.

Or…not. But hey! Don’t blame SukinotKeT for that! Still…nice shot, kiddo!

We do not know how long Regan was at the Berringer Clinic and Foundation, but it could not have been too long as her admittance was not on a long-term basis, for which I now believe her discharge was based on the correct determination made by Chris’s Supposed Army of Mental Health Professionals as to what Regan’s problem was not. The Crucifix Scene takes place on the same day that…

…she was discharged. And despite the fact that she hurt herself again, and escalated her violence to a new extreme, she was not re-hospitalized, again…because of what the problem was not; i.e. the problem was not psychological, or, for that matter…religious, philosophical, theological, nautical…etc. So I would suggest that someone took advantage of Regan’s being away from the home to mess with the artwork in the basement, which still had not been put back by the time Regan returned home, but would be back by the time Karras first visited Regan. Well, except for a few missing pictures. So a very strange thing results. The removal of the artwork took place during a period of time when one may rightly believe that re-arranging kiddo’s artwork would be the least thing on anyone’s mind. But clearly, that wasn’t the case. So why mess with the artwork?

No! Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf had nothing to do with it. I must admit that I didn’t understand why we get an extended close-up shot of these wall decorations. And then!

I decided to take my new job as the Spiral Architect very seriously. So I had no choice but to find importance in things that others regard as being somewhat mundane. And so I discovered…Cardea! She should be popular with architects and interior designers. Why? She is the goddess of…

Hinges! And that means that what looks like a green wall, is really a bunch of built-in cabinets. And people often put things in cabinets. And so I decided that a certain conclusion about the Noises in the Attic and the Changing Artwork In The Basement could be reached…someone, to put it simply, was looking for something. That person wasn’t sure where that thing, or things, was…or were. It could be in the attic, so at night, or when Chris was away from the home, that person would search the attic. Then desperate, the visit of the detective, the immediate time following the party, and the exorcism event itself, forced that person to take even greater risks of being caught. The stuff could be in the basement, and searching the cabinets meant removing Regan’s artwork, and none-too-much care was taken to put it back exactly where it was, which raised the risk that Chris, or Regan, might notice. But pull some stuff down that you didn’t put up, and it be will impossible to remember where everything goes.

As for the artwork, and it showing up in the kitchen work-area, who used that area?

And…

And so I repeat a scene that I referenced earlier…

You’re gonna die Up There, Sharon!

So it would seem that the party was an important threshold. Regan had been terrified by the attic noises because she had no reason to believe that anyone living in the house would be Up There. Regan herself had been, probably several times, but who would be Up There in the wee hours? Any 12 year old would find these noises disturbing. But it would seem that during the party, Regan figured out that it was, in fact, Sharon. Big deal? It was a big enough deal to lead Regan to make a veiled threat. Why?

This scene would appear to be the first scene that locates Regan during the party. But Chris says…

“You sleepin’?”

I found that odd. Chris appears not have known where Regan was during the party. And this I found troubling…

Disturbing yes, but not because of what Burke thinks is floating in his gin. Look at the stairs. It would seem as though adults were up and down the stairs leading to the second floor, where, or so one might think, a twelve year old girl is sleeping. Child Protective Services to the rescue! However, that would not appear to be the case. This was very difficult to find…but I found it…

In case you don’t see it…

Kiddo was downstairs during the party, and at some point, Chris lost track of her. When she went looking for her, she found her upstairs in bed. But being present during the party meant that Regan and Sharon were crossing paths during the night. It is almost impossible to find Regan downstairs again, but I would suggest…

Seeing Sharon and Chris, and based on the angle of the man’s head as he talks, it is quite possible that Regan is present as well.

And so I come to a very strange situation involving Burke and Sharon. Following the dust-up between Burke and Karl, Chris and Sharon escort Burke to the door. But Sharon seems to have something on her mind far more than her role as bouncer…

So what?

And while taking a terrible picture in this scene, Sharon appears to be fishing in Burke’s pocket for something. But, I could be wrong…

Hmmm.

Sharon The Pick-Pocket? Alas. But having dug round in Burke’s pocket, it would appear that…

…something interesting is now lying on the floor. Something Chris’s seems not to notice. Perhaps Burke dropped a quarter!

I’ll bet it’s not a quarter…

Nope! It’s jewelry! Burke had a piece of jewelry in his pocket that Sharon seemed to think was worth getting away from him.

Presto! It’s gone! Now could it be that Burke had a strange love of women’s jewelry? I don’t think so. Burke loved three things in life…

So that settles that. And! Remember my Super-Duper Exorcist Joke Book? Well, here’s another one!

What is Burke Denning’s favorite card game?

Of course that’s funny!

See! Still, the piece of jewelry that Sharon took from Burke was clearly a bracelet, and it did look like a bracelet that Chris was wearing…

There it is on her left wrist. But there isn’t one on her right wrist. Are we to believe that Burke stole one of Chris’s bracelets, Sharon saw it, then surreptitiously sought to steal it back, and then kept it? I don’t think so…

Chris is wearing a bracelet on her right wrist, but it is NOT a bracelet that matches the one on her left wrist. The bracelet she wears on her right wrist is very important, and I will discuss it in another essay, but I will show this here simply to make my point about what happened at the party…

Many people, well…women…will recognize the type of bracelet Chris is wearing on her right wrist, and it is the one she is wearing it at the party.

So, something very strange happened during the party. At some point, Regan and Sharon both being present, someone stuck a piece of jewelry into Burke’s pocket. Burke was too drunk to notice, and that was probably the point. Sharon saw it, and knowing that it was part of something she was looking for, availed herself of the first opportunity to fish it out of Burke’s pocket at a time when he wouldn’t notice. She got it, but dropped it. However, Chris didn’t notice. So she picked it up and pocketed it before Chris knew anything about it. Yes, the party is very significant. Regan had a piece of jewelry, and it was part of some other jewelry that was in Regan’s possession. Chris knew nothing about this. Sharon found out, and she wanted this jewelry for herself. But she didn’t want Regan to know that she knew about it. So she searched the attic multiple times looking for where Regan had hidden it. But Regan didn’t know that Sharon knew. At first. So the Noises in the Attic were something that terrified Regan…naturally enough. Then, at the party, Sharon noticed the piece of jewelry Regan had. And! Regan noticed that Sharon noticed. Regan being an observant and very bright kid, now realized that Sharon knew about the jewelry. She panicked and hid it in Burke’s pocket when she had the opportunity. Sharon saw this, and she waited until she had the opportunity to get the bracelet from Burke. And so now Regan knew who was making the Noises In the Attic, and Sharon knew that Regan knew. And Regan knew that Sharon knew, and was attempting to get her hands on it. And so…

You’re gonna die Up There…Sharon. Of course, Sharon searched the basement…to no avail. But why the attic? Because Sharon found…

…the box, the Bird Box, in the attic. It was the box in which the jewelry arrived at the MacNeil residence. Here is a strange possibility. A delivery guy appears at the door. Regan answers the door. Is your mommy home? No! Why? I have a package. Ok…I’ll sign for it. I guess that’s ok. Now, it is just about Regan’s birthday. So Regan thinks…it’s for me! And! It is from…Howard MacNeil! So in Regan’s mind…it’s her birthday present! She takes it upstairs and opens it. It doesn’t take long to realize that it can’t be for her. But too bad! As far as she’s concerned, it is now! Then Sharon somehow finds out. And looking in the attic, she find the Bird Box…but it is empty. Kiddo has hidden it somewhere. Why didn’t Regan just throw the box away? Obviously…someone may well have found it in the garbage can. And Chris? Was she expecting a package of jewelry? Was she so busy with other things, such as making her movie, that she lost track of it? Or did Howard send the package without telling Chris about it? Still, Captain Howard MacNeil is Captain Howdy…

As we know, a desperate Sharon would make one last attempt to find the stuff during the exorcism. But in her haste…

…she stumbled and fell, inadvertently adding to the not-so-supernatural effects of what was going on during the exorcism. But was Burke killed because of a box of jewelry? No. Was Regan’s health situation due to a box of jewelry? No. Was Chris’s desparate gambit somehow jewelry-related? No. Did Merrin die for the stuff? No. Did Karras kill for it? No. The Noises in the Attic is one key storyline built around one of the main characters…Sharon Spencer. And whatever Regan’s feelings were as far as Sharon was concerned, under no circumstances was Regan gonna let Sharon get her hands on what was hers. And so I think it is time to take a look at the death of Burke Dennings, and perhaps find a satisfactory reconstruction of what happened that night. But! I must say that I consider my movie debut to be a smash hit! Still, before I plunge headlong into Burke Denning’s Final Moments Before Passing His Crash Course And Meeting His Hellava Fall, I have something to do first…

Knock…knock…knock

Just a moment please.

Hello, Mrs. MacNeil, I’m here to see Regan.