This essay will be rather short, which I’m sure will come as a relief seeing that I have a slight tendency to drone on…and on…and on…and on. It may seem a bit odd that the title of this episode is…Dolls. Money can buy dolls, of course…even creepy ones. Some dolls cost a lot of money. And some are unique.

Sorry to do that. This is the mechanical mannequin, or puppet, that was used in the movie, sitting beside Linda Blair, who is getting a diabolical make-over. The mannequin or, as some people refer to it…doll, was used because, contrary to what one little girl thinks, Linda Blair was, alas, unable to do the Head Spin Trick herself. So the doll was needed for two scenes…

…and…

That said, I found myself wondering if there wasn’t another Regan doll in the movie, or whether Icky Regan Doll could have been prettied up if necessary. Regan herself doesn’t seem to have been much into dolls. I did find one…

It’s a rather creepy looking doll. Now the little window seat is interesting in that it is so wonderfully balanced. The yellow book dead-center, then a stuffed thingy on either side of it…the creepy doll, and what all and sundry will recognize as the little dog that will appear on Regan’s bed during the Now-Not-So-Sweet-Pink-Nightdress Scene. Then two pillows on either side. There also seems to be another book, looking rather yellow, jutting out from under the little round pillow. Behold the dog!

This is of course the scene featuring Regan the Prestidigitator, and, as I’ve said before, she is hiding the Special Thing in her hand under the covers so Chris can’t see it. And no…that is not an allusion to a weird Crucifix Scene With a Bit More Modesty thing. That said, there is another dog…

That’s him, sleeping comfortably on top of two…boxes! I do love The Exorcists boxes. This stuffed dog will outlast the other, though he will not always have it quite so easy…

You can see him, bottom center, taking a Hellava Stuffed Dog Fall. I suppose that’s what happens when you crash in Regan’s room…literally!  That said, he did recover and make it back to the window seat…

Regan also had her own puppet…one that is not quite so diabolical…

That’s him under the fish tank and next to the Piggy Bank. And if you look really carefully, you can see another clown in this shot. I pointed him out in the essay titled, The Falling Sickness Episode 1, Beginnings. Don’t see him?

Now I briefly mentioned this before because it is proof-positive that one shot is out of sequence in the Blue Nightdress-Yellow Pillow Cases scene. The item looks like a drawing, attached to the wall. But it clearly isn’t, based on where its feet appear to be, and the fact that the balloons are clearly metallic. How do I know that? Because they reflect light back toward the light source, leaving small glowing circles in the middle of the balloons. The clown, wearing a bow tie…I hope, and not a bra, seems to be holding 4 balloons…but is it? There are 3 round balloons, and a phallus-shaped dark blue thing, which when seen with 2 round balloons on either side of it, gives one the impression of…well, you get the picture. There are actually more than 4 balloons. Here is a shot of the Crucifix Scene before it really gets going…

This is a shot from the Sow Is Mine scene…

I count at least 6 balloons. Step back to Pink Nightdress scene…

And that is simply another piece of evidence of the fact that one shot is out of sequence in the Blue Nightdress Yellow Pillow Cases scene…

As I noted in The Falling Sickness, Episode 1, Beginnings, the small circle-like images on the pillow case are the balloons held by the clown on the nightstand. The shot is from the other side of the lamp, which is on, and is casting these bizarre shadows on the pillow case. And going back even further, it is barely visible…though visible to be sure…at the very beginning of the film…

 I had an innocent, child’s hand puppet clown once. And it looked like…

Wow! That’s not him.

I did not have a Pennywise clown puppet…notice his teeth…look familiar?

The Poltergeist clown?

Very cool, but I didn’t have one of those either.

Krusty the Clown?

Ok…clowns can be creepy enough.

Still, here was one other dog. Merrin had three dogs, and Regan had three dogs…

Now one can move on from dogs, to dolls, to dummies…

Three dummies! I mean, two dummies and Chris. Two dress-makers dummies in the Great Up There, and it seems lost on Chris that these two dummies have been perfectly aligned with one another, something that I will attribute to Regan during one of her expeditions to the attic. Still, it would have gotten my attention. Two? I have stated my belief in another essay that the house in the movie was really an old house with a new house built on to it. The old house was quite old, and had been a tailor’s or dress-maker’s shop on the ground floor. And I will make one other observation that could suggest that someone may have been playing around Up There…someone with a sense of humor.

I make no reference to Captain Howdy’s Attic Bird Box…at least, not yet. But it seems to me that the dress-maker’s dummy is wearing something around its waist. Giving it a good look, I would point out that it is clearly Ladies Wear. But it also seems a little short, meaning that it was worn under something, or worn over something. I think that only the latter is possible, and given that, the only article I can think of is something like…

Ooops! Not quite like that. More like…

Yes…a French Maid’s Apron. This type of apron is worn over another garment, and so it is quite short, without being lingerie. The only thing about the French Maid’s Apron in Chris’s attic is that someone has…

…turned it around, meaning simply that we are seeing the front of the apron over the dummy’s backside, which would, of course, leave the dummy’s front side…shall we say…exposed for all to see. Very funny. So, someone has a sense of humor.

Now I will come to the real point of this essay. And that takes me back to…Chris’s party. Why? Because in studying the party, I was so proud of myself that I found Regan standing downstairs in the foyer as Chris’s guests come in. Then, in looking at it again, I became rather disappointed, before I realized that it was, essentially, a mere clue, and not Regan at all. I will show a series of shots from the sequence…

That’s her there, standing next to Chris. And she appears to be greeting Chris’s Blonde-haired guest. She is wearing something that we don’t see her wearing anywhere else in the movie.

Regan’s mouth opens as if she’s speaking, but she continues to have the same grin plastered on her face. In these shots, I have captured Chris as she speaks with Person C Tallman…

Mom is now interacting with Blonde Lady, and Regan continues staring ahead with the same old grin.

Mom is getting ready to greet Mrs. The Senator, something that will become very strange in a split second. Don’t take that the wrong way. And there stands Regan, as if she were frozen to that spot, with her face frozen as well.

So now Regan appears to have realized that she can actually move her head. But this is something very odd, indeed…

Now Linda Blair was a very slim girl. But look at where the neck is, and what would have to be her arm…notice how far away from her neck that it is. And what is she wearing? It’s huge, and obviously far too large for Linda Blair to be wearing. It’s like someone threw a pink tent over the top of her, which she wears as she finds herself unable to lose what is now an extremely annoying grin. The reason for the Linebacker-Wide-Upper-Body is the structure needed to support the mechanisms necessary to allow for the movement of the head…

Say that to Father Merrin again and your grounded, Young Lady! Notice the wide upper body as the mechanical mannequin is about to do the Classic Head Spin. Dummy Regan is also missing a right arm. More of the grin…

Enough!

Would someone please get Kiddo angry! I’m sick of this frozen-face smile.

Thankfully…

…she has almost disappeared. And then, in a split second, does. And take a look at this…

Notice where the top of her jaw is at the ear, and then where her chin is. Then look at the ridiculous slope. Her head does not sit right on her neck, if you will. I see only one explanation of this. This is not Regan. Not-Regan does not move…the head with the same old grin moves on the neck, and although the mouth can move just a bit, there’s no wiping the grin of her face. The upper body is ridiculously too wide, and the tent tossed over the top of it is telling. Did I say…it? Yes! This is a mannequin…a mechanical dummy rooted to the spot, with a head that turns around just like the Mechanical Puppet can do. The mouth can move, but the grin is permanent. The baggy covering has been put over the top of this Regan Device. I will skip forward to my own time…

This is a 1:1 full-sized Regan MacNeil figure. It is, of course, wrong in its details, particularly the color of the hair.

Here is a life-sized Regan MacNeil statue sold as a Halloween prop. Wrong! Regan never wears such a Nightdress. Believe me! I am Reganite Nightdressologist now. And there is never any blood coming from her mouth. Vomit is yellowish-green. And her eyes don’t glow like this.

Again…vomit is not red, I have no idea what she is wearing, the socks are new…and I don’t know whose bedroom that is. The crucifix is wrong too.

A certain someone with a certain someone, whose teeth don’t look like they did in the movie. This mannequin isn’t too bad.

Ah, yes…with her Ouija board.

Sweet Looking Terrible Regan! How hard can it be to get a nightdress that’s at least the right color?

Watch out, Stinker! That’s a Hellava Kiddo Fall in the making! Thanks for getting her a blue nightdress!

I don’t remember Regan hanging out in a graveyard, or having contracted smallpox on her lower right leg.

What in the world?

Where to begin?

Be sure to save the box, Mrs. MacNeil, in case you want to take her back!

Not bad…except for the nightdress and I don’t understand the arthritic hands…she never does this during the film. Regan does make strange hand gestures, but not like the above dummy, which, I have admit, has a very accurate face…except the skin should be bluish. But the strange hand gestures are very hard to see…unlike Unregan in the above shot. But Regan’s hand gestures are really Sleight of Hand Gestures made as she adroitly keeps her Secret Thing hidden from Chris.

Sporty Looking Regan in a sassy green turtleneck…ok?

Do me a favor, please! Watch the movie before you make a dumb dummy of Regan.

How about a…

…wait…who the hell is that? Regan wasn’t 40 years old, if I remember, and I don’t remember Bride of the Neanderthal Regan.

Who the hell is that? And although Regan’s head spins around…twice, I don’t recall Regan removing her head and hanging it on the door. If she had, then Karras, not to mention…myself…would be screaming for the immediate attention of a Witchery Witch Doctor; after we re-attached her head so she could say naughty things…which I find immensely entertaining. In non-The Exorcist essays on this site, I have discussed the Most Bizarre Part of Christianity…Cephalophores. These are saints who walk around carrying their head in their hands.  I will leave it there. Oh…the hair is completely wrong. And now for…

Frankenstein Regan! Victor Frankenstein…you cad! What did you do to Kiddo? There were no signs of any cuts on Regan’s chest, the cuts on her face were not bleeding, and the words…help me…were not carved into the skin like I am a prostitute and proud of it! That was a bit of bullshit from the Sylvia Likens Farce. Am I the only person who has watched this movie? Oh…Regan had hair, unlike Little Jimmy. And we all know that, as Marie Baniszewski believed, only people with no hair can be brain washed. Yes! Regan doesn’t need a priest, witch-doctor, or shaman imported from a primitive culture! We just need a secular, non-denominational brain washing expert! Wrong hair is better than no hair…or so I think.

Ok…I’ll stop at this point. There is no doubt in my mind that…

…this is a mechanical dummy. But why? I thought that the original scene from the original movie had been altered. In other words, Regan was not originally in the foyer, but when the director’s cut was made, the scene was altered to place her there. But with the technology available now, they could have done a much better job. And, watching the original, the shots appear to be the same. Why have a Mechanical Regan when she’s sitting in her dressing room in 1973? Just put Stinker in the scene and shoot it the way it was shot, where it is very difficult to see her in the bustling foyer with the party guests entering the house and milling around. Why would they ever have done this? That isn’t the only strange thing in the foyer scene. I will return to that in a moment. What about Regan? For some length of time, I had already concluded that she was downstairs during the party. Here are good reasons to believe this…

This is a shot of the party in the living room. And this graphic will appear in another essay that analyzes the people at the party. But for the purposes of this essay, Person 1 is Chris, Person 2 is Sharon, Person 3 is Mary Jo Perrin, and then there’s some guy. But it is clear that all four adults are looking down as they talk, which clearly suggests that Regan, who is shorter than all the adults present…Burke excepted, is in the midst of them.

Someone slipped a woman’s bracelet into Burke’s pocket during the party. Sharon saw it, wanted it, and finally got it away from Burke. Only Regan could have put the jewelry in Burke’s pocket. This too is suggestive…

…Mary Jo Perrin and Sharon head toward the stairs. Top center…a lady with a long, flowing pink dress. She and her date are coming downstairs. During the party, adults were coming and going upstairs, then downstairs. Why? All party goers know the answer to that! The bathroom. At Chris’s party the booze flows freely. And we all know that you only rent booze. You have to give it back, to coin an expression. The problem with house parties is the difficulty of finding an available bathroom. How does that relate to Kiddo? Her bedroom is upstairs, and she is all alone in her bedroom as a menagerie of adult males, most of whom Chris doesn’t know, traipse up and down past Stinker’s bedroom. This is an unacceptable situation, to say the least. So I come to this…

You sleepin’?

This clearly indicates that Regan went to bed all on her own…like a Big Girl. It follows that mom didn’t know that Regan was upstairs until she went looking for her. If Regan had been upstairs in her room the whole time, Chris would have known it. I believe that Regan was downstairs at the party. For a while, Chris knew where she was. Then she lost track of Toots, and at some point, went looking for her. Not finding her mingling with the guests, she went upstairs to see if she was in her room. What about my male guests upstairs objection? Well…this scene is followed by Get Burke Out Of My House Before Karl Throws Him Out A Window scene. Once Burke is gone, the after-party and Toidy Toid Toid begins. The only revelers left are those singing along to Father Dyer’s wonderful piano-playing.

Now I will offer one other piece of circumstantial evidence that Regan was downstairs. Like the foregoing, it does not require any reference to the Regan The Mechanical Not Dressmaker’s Dummy Mannequin. The foyer scene is shot in a most interesting way. I will try to capture it in screenshots, although this will only go so far.

Ok…let’s pretend that the camera is really the eyes in our Unpunched Face.

So much for that. Still, the camera is…us. So where were we in the first shot? I think we are standing in the upstairs hall…looking down.

Is that the railing? It is, and, being Camera People, it is obvious that we are walking down the stairs.

So we continue our trek, having left the Pseudo-Up There, we are getting closer and closer to the landing.

Closer still. So who is it coming down the stairs? We are? Ok, I’ll grant that. But we aren’t a character in the movie. The person coming down the stairs is Regan…coming down to the party to mingle and have a good time. Now you will object…not so! Can’t be! Impossible! Why did you say those things? Ah, yes…I showed you Kiddo downstairs in the foyer…with an unremovable silly grin plastered on her face as she stands motionless, only able to move her head on her shoulders, apparently unable, or unwilling, to provide the entertainment at Chris’s party by turning it all the way around. Now I will object to your objection…it’s not Real Regan…it’s clearly Mannequin Regan. And that means…Real Regan is heading down the stairs as we speak. Two Regans are better than one? Not if you’re paying attention to the movie. I will tell you what I think is happening. The makers of the film are, as we have seen at every exhausting step along the way…Over The Top Subliminal. In fact, they gave the American Movie Audience far too much credit for being able to note clues and use deductive reasoning. But to be fair, a myriad of clues shooting past the viewer at a mile a minute ensured that no one, even Mr. Little Gray Cells himself, could have put any of this together. But subliminal! They will not show you Regan out and about. They will give the indications that I have cited above. But they seemed to have known that it wouldn’t be enough, and if I’m right, Regan being downstairs during the party is critical to the story. And having a sense of humor, they decided to give us a comical clue in the form of Regan the Mechanical Doll. Alas! It was impossible to see that clue until someone with a computer and the right software could finally detect it. That, or so I think, is the reason for the mannequin. Why is it that Regan being downstairs at the party is so important? Because that is the context for Regan noticing that Sharon is noticing her jewelry, explaining the Noises in the Attic. Regan knows and Sharon knows Regan knows and Regan knows that Sharon knows she knows and I am the Walrus…Goo goo g'joob.

Now for the strange part. It involves Chris. I was at a loss to explain something very odd until I gave up being at a loss and moved into…Perhaps I’m in Right territory.

Mom laughs with Person C Tallman.

Mom laughs and jokes with Blonde Lady. Notice that Mrs. The Senator has entered the house.

Mom notices her gal pal. She will reach out to give her a friendly embrace. Not so strange. No? Look at this…

What kind of weird hand does Chris have?

Her hand just got weirder. And I’ll make is weirder still…notice the frozen stiff arm. But most important, look at the arm relative to Chris’s body. This simply isn’t Chris’s arm or hand, at least not in this shot from the sequence. And that seems to me like a very strange thing. It continues…

Chris is supposed to be embracing Mrs. The Senator, but this fake Chris-arm has overshot the other woman’s body.

And again this happens, and it is clear that this isn’t even an arm

That is Chris’s real arm, and a real embrace. Why the obviously fake arm? Why not simply film a real Chris-arm from beginning to end? And there is another thing that, if it truly is a coincidence, then it is an amazing coincidence. There is a strange light-effect created by a lamp in the room furthest from the stairs. I can only describe it as…intentionally created. And it slowly appears as Regan walks down the stairs…

And the vertical ray of light points directly at…the head of Mrs. The Senator’s wife? Well, yes. But it points at something else…

Chris’s gal pal has brought a gift. I have studied it for some time, and I believe that it is a bottle of booze with a kind of wrapping paper that looks, at a distance, almost metallic. So the light source also points directly at what I believe is a bottle of whiskey. Now I will return to the fake hand on the end of the fake arm…

And what is that?

Stop, in the name of love! Well, that is the universally recognized indication to stop, But it also involve…five fingers. If Mechanical Regan is a planted clue intended to allude to Regan’s presence at the party, then the fake hand/arm of Chris is also a planted clue. So too the bizarre light effect created by the lamp, along with the bottle of whiskey. You count five fingers, which gets you count to five. You can have five things. And if you did have five things and you focused exclusively on the very last thing you have, you are focused on the fifth. Fifth?

Here we go again! Boring! Attic Bird Box. I have offered the interpretation that this box contained the jewelry that Regan found, and Sharon wanted. Sharon was the Maker of The Noises in the Attic, routing around Up There in an effort to find it. At first, the noises over Regan’s room terrified her. But the party! Sharon noticed something Regan had, Regan noticed Sharon’s noticing, Regan hid it in Burke’s pocket, Sharon saw it, Sharon finally got it away from Burke. Now Regan knew who had been Up There, and so she appeared during the after-party to make the threat that Sharon would die Up There. Now I come to a thrilling moment for me. I have, or so I think, finally solved the Mystery of the Enigmatic Attic Box. And in so doing, I have also solved one of the All-Time The Exorcist Mysteries. What is that? Nothing less than…the real identity of the much maligned and wrongly persecuted…Captain Howdy. And you won’t believe who he really is! I will start by asking an important question…what kind of box is this?

As everyone knows well, John Dewar & Sons is one of the most famous Scottish distiller of whisky. Ok…the side of the box to our left…looks like a figure of someone wearing a Backwards French Maid’s Outfit? No. It does look like a figure wearing a dress or skirt of some kind. Looks can, and usually are, deceiving. I know something that looks like a skirt but certainly is not. And often, even hinting that such a person would wear a skirt could get you a Regan MacNeil Style Ass Whooping. I am, of course, referring to this…

That is the kilt and traditional Gordon Clan Tartan of this particular Scottish Highlanders Drum Major. John Dewar & Sons was a prolific advertiser, and they produced very impressive magazine advertisements for their flagship brand…White Label. There were a dizzying array of different characters in the ads, and it was the perfect opportunity to showcase the Tartans of the different Scottish clans. The most common form of the drum major is this guy…

He is featured marching all over the world, which helped the distiller become one of the world’s primo brands. All that marching made this noble Scotsman somewhat tired, so others could fill in for him…

That is merely a sample of Scottish Military Guys from all the horrible and depressing wars that people have glorified so much. And so I return to the box. The side of the box with the strange, enigmatic figure and illegible writing is not so anymore…

I have found a box that is comparable to the view of our Most Famous Attic Box…

There is a difference with our Attic Box…

White Label whisky was sold in quarts, as indicated by the box shown above, and fifths…which is what Our Attic Box once contained when it was shipped from Perth, Scotland. I have crossed out the words…party…and…pack, since our box was no such thing. But you can tell that those words of the box in the cool graphic are the exact same color as the word…quarts, which means that John Dewar & Sons printed those words on the box.

And so I became rather dejected…at first. Why? Because the Strange Orange Bird…he was printed in the same way as the word…fifths. And that meant that John Dewar & Sons literally stamped him on this box. That explains why I couldn’t find a shipping company, delivery company, or liquor importer with the Orange Guy In The Lower Left Side Of The Box…looking at it straight on. And I was well aware that there is no conceivable way that a Scottish whisky distiller would print an orange bird on some of their boxes. I even toyed, for a little while, with the idea that the guys who made the movie had it made up. But I think that no longer, and even if they, simply noting one permutation, did…it wouldn’t matter. What had me fooled was the Tricksy Regan MacNeil. I looked at her Big Orange Bird and then looked for the logo. Now Regan was a very creative, imaginative kind of girl, and she gave a very valid interpretation of the logo on the box. The only problem is that, as much as it looked like it, the image on the box is NOT a bird.  Now given all the guys in the ads shown earlier, and there are all kinds of guys, there is one kind of guy who I left out until this very point in the essay. Everyone knows that you can’t have Scottish Highlanders without…

Exactly! Guys playing bagpipes. But! I have an ad that features a view of a Bagpipeist that will prove most illuminating…

So that’s our bagpipeist. Notice how he looks…two legs, checkerboard Tartan, arms bowed out as he holds the bagpipes, mouth piece, and what sort of looks like a feather sticking up out of his cap. I have made this graphic…

Now for a super-duper cool graphic I made of Captain Howdy…

The letters denote the following…

 A:  Two legs, which are very useful if you want to stand

B:  Checkerboard pattern

C:  Two arms that bow outwards

D:  Beak-like mouthpiece

E:  Cap with a feather sticking out of it

 Do those things sound familiar? I’m sure they do!

And so I must state that…

Are you comfortable, Regan?
Yes.
How old are you?
Twelve.
Is there someone inside you?
Sometimes.

Does he play the bagpipes?

No.

Is he a Scottish Highlander serving Queen and Country?

No.

Sorry, Mrs. MacNeil, it’s not him. I take cash, check, or charge card.

A what…Kiddo?
How was I supposed to know that he was a stupid Scottish Highlander blowing his bagpipes?
Well apparently…
He looked like a big orange bird with a feather sticking out of his damn hat!!!
Ok…Ok…don’t get grumpy.

And so I must begin yet another stay at the Berringer Clinic & Foundation. Still, I have now answered conclusively a question that has been vexing humanity ever since 1973…just who is Captain Howdy? Was he a demon? No. Was he the Yucky Teeth Face that Chris created as a way to contextualize the alter-ego second personality that she believed was the cause of the Trouble with Toots? Of course not. Was he the Big Orange Bird Guy? Absolutely. Did he live on the side of a whisky box in the attic? Yes. But all the same, there is no doubt that the rightly famous, yet wrongly infamous, Captain Howdy…the Great Maligned One…is, in fact, a most unlikely entity indeed…a Scottish Highlander Blowing His Bagpipes. And so I have made my Primitive Culture contribution to womankind…I mean…humankind, accompanied by the sound of Scotland’s Favorite Musical Instrument, with a glass of Scotland’s Favorite Diabolical Whisky in my hand.  Still, I knew in advance that 88 Berringer Clowns were coming for me. How? A Big Orange Bird in my attic told me.