This shot clearly implies that the Noises in the Attic are deeply troubling to Regan, but there are still no indications that anything is really wrong with Regan, other than the claim about her bed shaking.

The first of numerous medical test scenes. Something is wrong with Regan, but there has been nothing between the two scenes noted above to suggest what problem that was.

We are about to see The Face for the first time:

I have taken the position that the only who sees The Face is the viewer. But even if you took the position that this is a demon who would possess Regan, and that she first sees him now, we have an even bigger gap. Nothing whatsoever has suggested anything supernatural in the symptoms, which would have to have developed for some time before they hit the medical tests scenario, and some of these tests were probably very expensive, and so to pursue them meant serious problems…none of which do we witness. The problem with The Face as an actual demon, is that, when she sees him, there has been nothing in the story to even suggest that there is a direct casual phenomenon leading to demon-possession. We know that in her dealings with the doctor, Chris accuses her daughter of lying about her bed shaking, and the subject of aggression and profanity arise. But the only things that could be mustered in support of demon-possession are:

1.     A silly Ouija board

2.     Noises in the Attic

And it must be taken as granted that none of these leads to any suggestion of the extremely rare, indeed non-existence of demon-possession to begin with. I will take the position that the opening of the movie is actually part of the end of the movie, and is a vision that Merrin has while he lies dying on the floor of Regan’s bedroom. But regardless, if the face is Pazuzu, known only to Merrin, then there is nothing in the story to indicate how he got to Washington D.C., how he got stuck in the attic, or how he possessed Regan, causing her to essentially “act out” in a way you might find any twelve-year-old would do. If The Face is a demon, whether Pazuzu or not, there has been, and will be, no tangible explanations for how this extremely rare phenomenon overtook Regan MacNeill. A straightforward demon possession story would, I believe, have not allowed this potential gap to actually exist. To get to the point of expensive medical tests, Regan’s sudden behavioral problems, far more likely to be the result of traumatic abuse, must have quickly escalated, though we are not shown even the starting point from which this escalation escalated. Seeing this face has the effect of Total Misdirection, one that will maintain it’s grip on the viewer until the end.

I don’t feel anything! Now for more aggression directed at the doctor, in a scene with dialog containing statements by the doctor that can construed as sexual in nature, though not intended by the doctor

Put this in your mouth and keep it there.

I don't want it!

Strange..and:

Possibly the indication of a psychotic state.

It’s disorder of the nerves. This is a strange diagnosis, seeing how I can’t find any confirmation that this is real. The symptoms:

1.     Hyperactivity
2.     Temper
3.     Performance in math

This is a list of symptoms that one could connect to ADHD…Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. This is the first time we’ve seen a temper problem, and this is the first time that we hear about both hyperactivity and poor performance in math. So again, there is a giant gap in the story. And if ADHD is suspected, then the correct route to go is Ritalin, which is the first of two medications that we are told Regan had been prescribed.

The symptoms could be an “over-reaction to depression.” This statement is suggestive. I’m at a loss as to what a NOT OVER-REACTION REACTION TO DEPRESSION looks like. Clinical depression is a mental disorder. His belief in ADHD, indicating Ritalin, and the suggestion, by a doctor who is not a psychiatrist and therefore has no business suggesting to Chris that depression is involved, but also that Regan is clinically depressed, leads him to disregard his own references to depression in favor of treating ADHD.

That’s out of my field

And that’s probably the first intelligent thing he’s said.

My daughter’s not depressed.

She mentioned her father and the separation. So now we have a tie-in back to the earlier scenes where Chris lies to Regan, and Regan overhears her mother saying nasty things about her father. And this is a cause of depression? Absolutely! And this can be very traumatic, emotionally, to a young person.

Do you think I should take her to a Psychiatrist?

Way to go, Chris! Great question. Time for a horrible answer:
 

No! I think we should wait and see what happens with the Ritalin.
 

Really? The Ritalin will help with ADHD, but not depression. The doctor, whose field isn’t psychiatry, thinks that adolescent depression, brought on by the separation of her parents, will go away if the second disorder is treated…depression. It’s as simple as that! Certainly, at this point, Chris was thinking the wrong thing, but the doctor is failing horribly. If depression is involved, then getting the right medication and getting counseling should start…as soon as possible. The longer it goes on, the worse it will get. And the more likely that Regan will fight it.  When Chris asks if the doctor’s convoluted nonsense will explain Regan’s lies about her bed shaking, he dodges the question in favor of asking her about her daughter’s vulgar language. She doesn’t swear, says Chris. She told the doctor to

Keep his goddamn fingers away from her cunt

Chris finds that funny, although I do not. If Chris’s perplexity is genuine, then this sort of language hasn’t been observed thus far. I think that it would only appear if Regan felt sexually threatened, which we know she did in two medical test scenes thus far. It is the doctor who will receive a good wallop in the Fuck Me! Fuck Me! Scene. It is the psychiatrist who will be left singing soprano for a while. The worsening of her symptoms and the vulgar language…she could be saying…Go to Hell! Fuck off! But she’s not, Regan’s vulgarity will focus on sexual vulgarity, indicating the ultimate source of her problem.

You're gonna die Up There. Then she urinates.

Immediately afterwards…an almost catatonic state. But we already know that something is wrong with Regan.

The bed is shaking, and

It continues to shake while Mom is on top. This should change things considerably. Chris had been worried about Regan’s lies, those lies being about the bed shaking. Now, she sees that they aren’t lies. But there is no indication that she recognizes her earlier, significant, error. Chris alone experiences this, and I suggest that what is really happening is that Regan is having convulsions, brought on by the visit of Attic Man. I pointed out earlier that one of the two in the movie that the light’s flickered was in this scene.

 Chris tells the doctor about what happened in the previous scene, and Dr. Malpractice gets it right when he assures Hysterical Chris that what was involved was convulsions and spasms. Good call! Still, Regan is becoming more aggressive toward the doctor:

I don't want it, you fucking bastard

And so it is that Regan continues to tell the Male Authority Figure that she doesn't want it.

Yes, the Sow is Mine Scene.And in this scene, she declares...It's burning! She will make this declaration later in the story, when she reacts violently to Karras throwing what he tells her is holy water on her, only reveal to Chris that it's tap wat

And:

And:

The breeding animal is mine! Well, that's my paraphrasing, if you will.

Oh, no! I almost forgot:

Now, Sweetie! What did I tell you about saying things like that?

Time for fits. There are two doctors, including a specialist, who witnessed the entire event, saw nothing supernatural about it.

A consultation among doctors! Dr. Chris MacNeill points out that Regan is behaving as though she were psychotic. I agree. But then she goes to suggest something that is completely false…split personality. Now it should be pointed out that laymen constantly confuse Split Personality Disorder, better called Dissociative Personality Disorder and Schizophrenia. The specialist points out that there have only been a relatively few validated cases of Split Personality Disorder; as skeptical as I am, I believe there have been as many cases of that as there have been cases of demon-possession…none. But Chris has no Psychiatric training, and I don’t know what in the world would lead her to see the events she saw as indicating Dissociative Personality Disorder, though I would point out that Father Karras, who is a Psychiatrist, believes the exact same thing. Typically, a person with this disorder display very distinct, and distinctively different, apparent personalities. They have names, and some may know about others, others don’t, and the main personality may claim to know about none of them. As a consequence, they often don’t remember what transpired when one of the additional personalities was dominant at the time. All Regan did was assume a threatening tone, which any one of us can do, and make a proclamation that none would understand, all of 6 words. If the sexual abuse angle is not envisioned, then it makes no sense. So Chris is clearly wrong.

“This is the not so aptly named Spider Walk. Now I asked a friend of mine, who just so happens to be a spider, and she said that you have to have eight legs and your head on top to do a real Spider Walk.

Arachnidikus Reganitikus

I discovered a whole new type of spider! Perhaps I should quit my job as a vomitologist and search for rare spiders instead. And I will begin my quest in Chris MacNeill's attic! We now, after much searching throughout the website, have finally reached a multi-story story:

UP THERE- Chris MacNeill's Diabolical Attic
IN BETWEEN- The Diabolical Back Bedroom and Regan's Room
IN BETWEEN MINUS ONE- Gertie Wright's Front Room and Diabolical Casino
DOWN THERE- Gertie Wright's Diabolical Basement
REALLY DOWN THERE- The Satanic Underground Complex and Inner Sanctum Beneath the McMartin Pre-School

But I digress. Chris thought she saw the Spider Walk. And we definitely aren’t talking spasm or convulsions. But even if she did, it is strange that she decided to then go with the whole Psychiatrist thing, since if Regan did really do this, I doubt there was anything a Psychiatrist could do, and I doubt that there have been any cases of Dissociative Personality Disorder where Spider Walking has been observed. But it is exactly the Psychiatric route Chris decides to go:

Unfortunately, Chris decided to go with Witch-Doctor Psychiatry, and get a guy in to hypnotize Regan.

Is there someone inside you?
Sometimes?
Who is it?
I don’t know.
Is it Captain Howdy?
I don’t know.

And so we now arrive at where I intended to go. The issue at this point is Regan inhabited by a third-party. That is in no way Dissociative Personality Disorder. There has been no manifestation of any additional personalities, despite the fact that Karras thinks there are three. I think that Chris has moved from that disorder, and has clearly moved to the explanation being demon-possession. And how does the Witch-Psychiatrist know about the Orange Bird-Thing? How does he know about Orange Bird Logo Stamped on the Box in Chris’s Attic? He could only know about him if he was told. And I believe that Chris told him. She believed that Regan was possessed by a demon that Regan had called Captain Howdy. It is possible that Sharon encouraged this. If someone in the house had passed on information about the attic hatch in Regan’s closet to someone who wanted access to Regan, then that person had a lot on the line should the sexual abuse scenario be made known. If, however, Regan’s bizarre behavior were due to demon-possession, and were sold as such, then the whole psychiatric route would fail. It is not the Barringer 88 who plant the demon-possession baloney in Chris’s mind. I think someone else did…the Barringers just gave it official sanction. If it was Chris who essentially crafted the demon-possession delusion, then the bizarre Primitive Culture Behavior noticed by the 88 could be the result of Regan manifesting the delusion created for her. Then Mommy’s line of unreasoning with the Psychiatrist would be nicely confirmed. So too in Regan’s mind. All that Chris knew was that Captain Howdy was associated with the Ouija board, and someone, which in the novel is Mary Jo Perrin, but is someone else in the movie, suggested this to her. He could only be a spirit of some kind, and angel-possession is something I haven’t encountered. And given the terrible developments, Chris’s view of Captain Howdy would have to be that of a demon. One may be tempted, wrongly of course, to conclude that Regan didn’t create the demon-possession delusion…it was created for her. And what of poor Captain Howdy? He can join the ranks of Pazuzu and The Face, well…the original face, not my new client, as those who have been blamed falsely for what happened in the MacNeill house. How strange it is that no one has blamed Lamashtu! Merrin would have known the specific role that Pazuzu played in Neo-Assyrian religion, and so in my favorite shot from the movie, he may have envisioned the fictional appearance of the fictional Pazuzu statue as actually boding well for how everything would turn out; well, for Regan at any rate. Still, I think things turned out well, for Captain Howdy at any rate. By the end of the movie, all slander and libel was gone. Perhaps he was guilty of no more than being a delusional spirit in the mind of Chris. Of course, she would have to have mentioned Captain Howdy to someone else before throwing him under a Diabolical Bus when the Side-show Hypnotist was there. Perhaps that person told Chris who Captain Howdy was, except that he wasn’t that person. But it would lead Chris down a crazy road, and have the added benefit of providing some much-needed sleight of hand for guiltier persons. If Regan was in search of an escape from the real cause of her problem, a delusion that would make her powerful and repulsive, then the Demon created by the Angel would fit the bill. Pazuzu is never named in the movie. Nor Satan, although Regan does refer to the Devil, and I’m not sure what references there were in the useless ritual book that Merrin brought with him. Although Captain Howdy’s name would not be mentioned again, he was still very much present:

Have a care, Karras! Captain Howdy is watching you. And with good reason!

So Birds with hats! Just like the original, Box-Gracing Federal Express Pilot! Speaking of boxes:

You were expecting a package that day?

This is, of course, the scene where the homicide detective visits Chris, and asks about who might have been in Regan’s bedroom the night that Burke Dennings was killed. Interesting, but no more than that. Still, we don’t know when the John Dewar & Sons Magical Whiskey Box actually got into the attic. The most likely scenario is that the previous owners put the box in the attic.

Was Regan in real danger? And I don’t mean from some demon, and I’m certain that Holy Water won’t kill anyone. But was she in danger from someone in the house? In an earlier essay I noted the fact that Felix the Karras produced his small medical bag, and removed a vial of medication that I think he intended to inject into Regan. Merrin walked in on him.

Is she gonna die?

I wonder where she got the strange idea that meaningless rituals can be lethal. Still, the Detective Who Inquiries About Packages clearly thought that Regan was in imminent danger:

Yes! The homicide detective is staking out Chris’s house. Why? Well, the answer to that is obvious. Regan is in danger. And that is obviously true:

But Karras stops:  Come into me! Karras perceives this as happening, then is about to continue his attempt to murder Regan:

Why does he stop?

So he could no longer continue his quest to end the life of someone else.

Still, it is possible that Regan’s psychosis was receiving a little help. There are different ways that someone or someones were making Regan’s situation even worse. But I suddenly noticed something that raised an interesting possibility. This shot is from the Sow is Mine scene. It is, of course, the desk that was to the right of her bed. Hey! See the blue library book! Now look back at the shot from the Crucifix Scene, and you will see a blue book fly across the room and land on the davenport. These books were still there after this scene.

Other items on the desk are interesting as well. There is, of course, Charlie Brown…who’s always interesting. We’ve seen the pictures before, and the one to the left may be her father. There are also the two books library books. Now, we have been told that Regan was prescribed two medications. The doctor first tried Adderall. This was switched out for Thorazine. But! There appear to be three pill bottles on the desk. Based on what we’ve been told, I would expect only one pill bottle. But we have more than that…we also have a bottle of Isopropyl alcohol. And sitting by the water bottle is something that looks very much like a tourniquet, which, if so, makes the white tube beside the pill bottles rather suggestive. It’s either a cigarette, and Regan has taking up smoking, or it something used to give injections. Now why would we need such things sitting on Regan’s desk? I am of the opinion that someone was giving Regan drugs, which, depending upon what they are, could go a very long way in manipulating Regan’s condition, and making it significantly worse.

In fact, one of the things we don’t know is whether Regan had been on any medications prior to the onset of her psychosis. The shot of the desk, which clearly shows three pill bottles, raises the question as to whether one of these medications wasn’t something that she had been taking already. As strange as it will seem, the doctor did not test Regan’s blood for drugs. How do we know this? As he and Chris began to become more desperate, the doctor asks her if she keeps any drugs in the house. Chris says no, and the doctor asks her… “are you sure?” Of course, if Chris were dropping acid or smoking angel dust, she would know for sure, so the doctor’s stupid question may be something more along the lines of…are you sure you’d tell me? But it’s a decidedly stupid question, or argument, to begin with. Why? Because if the doctor suspected that Regan’s condition could be related to drugs…all he had to do was check her blood. The fact that he asks the question suggests that he never did the blood test for drugs, and then takes Chris’s word for it.

The scene where we get this interesting look at Regan’s desk is the one where she clearly displays:

1.      Spasms
2.     Convulsions
3.     Her eyes roll back in her head
4.     And she suddenly becomes delusional and violent

 In fact, and I’m sure I’m wrong, but severe epilepsy may be suggested. And there is something interesting about Anti-Epileptic Drugs…they are well known to be capable of generating symptoms of psychosis; and there’s a strange twist to it:

“Often, the psychotic symptoms of AIPD persist in a fluctuating manner as long as the AED is continued. The patient may endure both the adverse effects of the AED and potential exacerbation of epilepsy by antipsychotic drug therapy.”

In other words, the medication taken for epilepsy can induce psychosis, and then the application of a drug like…Thorazine, can actually make the epilepsy worse. So one may be tempted to suggest that Regan was already suffering from a severe form of epilepsy before the story begins, and was taking a medication for it, one that the doctor didn’t know about since he didn’t test Regan’s blood, and he seems to be prepared to take Chris’s word for things. Perhaps Regan was already developing acute psychosis as a result of this, and the The Sow is Mine! Scene shows the result of the mixing of the drugs. It can also be the case that Regan was being given drugs, including intravenously, with the intention of inducing a severe psychotic state, and that the demon-angle was suggested to her, and the drugs contributed to a worsening delusion. Moreover, during seizures, biting the lips is common, which would explain the terrible condition of Regan’s lips. If Chris made it through the medical test phase without the doctor noticing the drugs, and then brought Regan home, then there would be nothing to interfere with dosing Regan with whatever is sitting on the desk. And! I would point out that in the essay I wrote about Father Karras and his Felix-the-Cat-esque bag of tricks, he produced a bottle of some drug from his bag, and set it on the desk…the exact same desk with the three pill bottles and the things needed to inject Regan with drugs. I suggested that he had intended to inject this drug into Regan before the exorcism was over, but Merrin was also present, which would have precluded this. So it is an interesting parallel…the little desk and the possibility that Regan was being dosed.

I must apologize for sharing my crazy ideas. However, the homicide detective might not think that they are crazy ideas after all. Following Chris’s question about Regan’s impending death, and Karras heads back upstairs to kill Regan, the doorbell rings. And guess who’s there:

Either he has incredible timing, or someone in the house, looking out for Regan, has contacted the detective for help. Still, in a certain sense we can connect him, esoterically, with Captain Howdy’s package in the attic. But could Orange Bird have other connections as well? Probably not, but I show the box again:

The box is difficult to read, to be sure. But it is clear that the delivery instructions include the phrase: VIA NEW YORK. That would suggest that the word above is the place of destination for this package. It is very hard to read, but it looks like it might have read…MERRIM. Of course, I can find no such place with this name, and we know that we are in Washington D.C. A typo for MERRIN? Tektonikus! You go too far!

Perhaps Captain Howdy, the one who brings packages to Merrim...is he significant, or insignificant? I can’t be sure, but a bird with a hat just might just reside on the outside of an attic box. In the end, Captain Howdy must be cleared of the charges made against him by Chris MacNeill, and have his besmirched reputation vindicated. When did Chris know what really happened to Regan? I can’t be sure of that either. But someone in the house knew from the start. And what of Attic Man? Chris almost caught him. I wonder how many times he snuck past Box-Dwelling Captain Howdy as he made his way through the attic. It’s too bad Captain Howdy can’t speak! And what happened to my client, Mr. Face, who also snuck into Chris MacNeill’s attic? He pled guilty to trespassing, but got a suspended sentence. He is now on a flight to ancient Nineveh to aid Pazuzu in his ongoing epic battle against Lamashtu. So I offer my legal services to Captain Howdy…pro bono. It only seems fair.