The prophet Isaiah told King Ahaz to ask for a sign. The apostle Paul spoke of the wonders and signs performed by Christ. And those things would make life interesting, to be sure. For those of us who weren’t there, life is a little more ordinary, and a lot less extraordinary. If the ordinary could be made extraordinary…that would be something indeed. Movies about the ordinary will surely prove unpopular. Give people the extraordinary! That will make life a little less ordinary. And I’m sure that if I dedicate this essay to taking things that couldn’t be more extraordinary…well, I might pull the “extra” off of “extraordinary” and make myself even less popular than I was before. Still, I will endeavor to do so. Perhaps I may actually make the extraordinary more extraordinary by making it ordinary first. Not all signs are alike, and things are often not what they seem to be.
I found a deleted scene from the movie. It was interesting, but, in my opinion, highly problematic. It features a mother-daughter outing:
Regan posing for the camera with her sunglasses on her head:
Very stylish. The scene culminates as the two ladies watch a ritual at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:
Then Regan springs a surprise question on Chris:
Mommy, why do people have to die?
Now we’re told that there had been a desire to put the scene back into the movie, except:
We could not find the soundtrack!
That is interesting. It’s playing during the clip I downloaded…Tubular Bells, a musical piece that I feel confident that most people think is really cool. If the soundtrack was lost, then someone should check with Father Karras…he’s quite adept at manipulating tapes. I figure that the idea is that a soundtrack deemed worthy enough couldn’t be found. It seems to me, and my opinion means pretty much nothing, that it wouldn’t have been hard to find a brief musical piece to go along with the scene. Hollywood always seems to be able to do that, albeit it might require a bit of work. Still, they always get it done.
I will say, as far as my interpretation goes, that the decision to remove the clip and leave it removed was dead-on. Sorry. Leaving it in would have been problematic in the extreme. If we think about the story-lines in the movie, the sub-plots, which are done with a virtually unmatched skill and genius, the above scene would have introduced a sub-plot not supported anywhere else in the film. At no point do we encounter the slightest hint that Regan was wrestling with understanding death. If the scene would have been left in the film, then we would expect to find it come up again and again as Regan attempts to comprehend something that very few ever can. Regan wrestles with Something Demonic…not the mysteries of death. Death makes its appearance, to be sure. Burke Dennings dies…actually, he was murdered; Mrs. Karras dies..or was murdered; Father Merrin dies..or was murdered; and Karras dies…by suicide. Oh, and there may have been three attempts to murder Regan. So, one might, if one forced the scene back into the movie, change it to:
Mommy, why do people have to be murdered?
And the answer to that question is difficult indeed. Or:
Mommy, why do people commit suicide?
That question is by far and away more difficult than the one about murder. And there are so many reasons to metaphorically throw yourself out of Regan’s Metaphorical-Window-That-Leads-to-Certain-Death.
Now, death and suicide usually permeate Canonical Stories. At least, the interesting ones. Can you have the dark side of humanity without death, murder, and suicide? No. And it will seem strange, but life just isn’t life without them. I can’t imagine what day-job my favorite detective would have had without them
And we would have never met the loveable
Miss Marple. For those who have not met this respectable British lady, don’t be fooled by her appearance. She has already figured out that you killed…Burke Dennings? Mrs. Karras? I’m not sure. But death and suicide are also prominent in a bizarre way in the Strangest-of-all-Preschool-Satanic-Cult-Canonical Stories. And animals! I wonder why they are so very much at the center of dark Canonical Stories. Those in the Sylvia Likens case…a shrinking police dog…a puppy…a malevolent spider that stalks Sylvia’s twin-sister Stephanie around 3850 East New York Street. What else would a spider do, seeing how Stephanie was too big to be trapped in a web. And spider? In the Exorcist we have the greatest of all spiders! I will discuss that in a moment. And the Amityville Horror? Shirley’s dogs didn’t have names..which would make sense if they never existed. The Defeo’s dog was named Shaggy. That’s a good name for a sheepdog…I wonder if Shirley had one of those too. Perhaps there’s a picture of him:
Oops, wrong Shaggy. Where for art thou, Shaggy?
Maybe. Why is Shaggy important? He and Scooby and Velma are the ones who solve the mysteries…wrong Shaggy. But what of the real Shaggy? He offers us one of the best indications that the Defeo Family Murder Canonical Story is really the Defeo Family Murder MYSTERY Canonical Story.
This is the supposed murder weapon. And it is a means of murder that is much easier to use than a vial of medication that you pull out of your Priest Bag, or even tossing someone out of Regan MacNeill’s Metaphorical Window of Death. It’s thrilling to know that the massacre occurred on November 13, 1974. Why? Because that is almost exactly a year from the chronological setting of the Exorcist story. How does one know that? I will cover that in Part 2. But the instrument of death in the above picture is a .35 gauge Marlin rifle. Ronald supposedly shot all the family members with this gun while they slept. So what…I’m sure you’d say. The rifle’s report was estimated at the time to be 140 decibels. And that is utterly amazing. Here is a list of the sources of comparative noise levels:
Thunderclap: 120 decibels
Chain Saw: 120 decibels
Military jet aircraft taking off from an aircraft carrier: 130 decibels
Jet take-off, measured at a distance of 25 meters: 150 decibels
At 150 decibels, the rupture of the human eardrum is highly likely, if one is standing close enough.
Hey! Captain Howdy!
Hey! Captain Howdy!
Captain Howdy, over here!
Methinks that Captain Howdy has been standing too close to the engines of his Federal Express jet.
On May 31, 1976 a group of four men generated 126 decibels of sound at the Charlton Athletic Football Ground in London
What does all this mean? Well, I should add that it was established that the rifle did not have a silencer. And when the weapon was tested, it could be heard almost a mile away. So how is it that Ronald fired 8 shots, moving from room to room, with a gun that was 10 decibels shy of:
That is why:
You must wear hearing protection devices. So the question remains…how did Ronald Defoe kill 6 people with the world’s loudest rifle without waking anyone? And the clincher…when the neighbors were asked if they heard anything from the Defeo family house on the night of the murders, they said…yes! Of course they did, the sound of the rifle must have sent them flying out of bed. Wait…that’s not right. The only thing they heard was…Shaggy barking. So the Marlin was the murder weapon? One of the murder weapons? Police did not dredge the canal that ran behind the house. Someone finally did:
And that would not have sounded like you were standing on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson when the jets were taking off. And the neighbors could very well have heard only Shaggy barking.
In 1979, Officer Paul Bynum was kicked out of the police department. It was claimed to be an indefinite leave for disability. He had been a successful cop, having brought serial killers Roy Norris and Lawrence Bittaker to justice, though the investigation may have unhinged him. Then he became a central figure in the McMartin Preschool Fraud. Why? He had been digging up
Squirt! Say it isn’t so! No, Bynum had been digging up turtle shells in the lot next to the preschool. Turtle shells. The children claimed that their abusers had killed turtles in their presence to illustrate what would happen to them if they told anyone about the abuse.
Make it stop, he’s gonna kill me!
I could swear she’s saying:
Make it stop, he’s killing turtles!
Bottom, center…Regan’s Turtle! Killing turtles isn’t easy. You know that once you pick one up, his head and legs will be pulled into his shell in a split second. And you will break your knife if you stab his shell. You could take your knife and shove it into the opening at the front of the shell. That, in every detail is ludicrous. If you were going to kill something to make a point to your victims, you would use a puppy or a kitten. But a turtle? Shortly before he was to testify, Bynum committed suicide. He wasn’t alone. Judy Johnson, the Great Prime Mover, the Insane Creator of the Goat-man, died of alcohol poisoning before she was to testify…she committed suicide by drinking herself to death. Of course, those who believed the McMartin nonsense asserted that Bynum and Johnson were murdered. Well…Bynum was killed by a gunshot wound to the head. That can be staged. But Johnson died of alcohol poisoning. And that is an impossible way to kill someone. A hit-man would have used a gun and inflicted a double-tap to the head and heart. I’m sure he wouldn’t show up at Judy Johnson’s house with a box of John Dewar & Sons whiskey that he got after rummaging around in Chris MacNeill’s attic, and then forced Judy to drink…and drink…and drink…spending hour after hour doing this. Perhaps he spent his spare time playing with Captain Howdy’s Ouija board. He could have borrowed Ronald Defeo’s Marlin rifle. Too loud, you say? If we could bring Shaggy to the Not-Alcoholics-Anonymous murder scene and get him to bark…then you won’t hear the jet fighter taking off from the USS Nimitz. The 150-Decibel-Dog! Impressive. And then there’s
Judas Priest…the band that was sued for using subliminal messages urging its fans to commit suicide. And Satan was involved too…of course. Ozzy Osbourne, another rock star charged with using subliminal messages, asked why he would want his fans to commit suicide when they were making him so fabulously rich. And Satan? That assumes a very religious person. Most rock stars will tell you that they couldn’t care less about religion. And if you believe in The Satan, then you must believe in God. And you must believe in religious rituals. Guess what rock stars would say if you asked them about that! Two young men made a suicide pact.
One followed through. The other, James Vance, tried, but instinctively pulled his head away from the barrel of the shotgun just as he pulled the trigger. So he survived, but was horribly disfigured. Vance’s parents decided to sue Judas Priest, whose album Stained Class was the one that the two very disturbed young men were listening to when the suicide pact was made. The parents’ legal team couldn’t decide whether what they found was
Backwards English Singing of "Halford Rob…I did it!", or subliminal messages...embedding lyrics in a song that can’t be heard by the conscious mind. They then magically cause the listener to do whatever the message says to do. And courts have ruled that subliminal messages are not covered by Freedom of Speech. Ozzy Osbourne was sued for subliminal messages that supposedly led to the suicide of John Daniel McCollum, who shot himself in the head. The parents, of course, chose the song Suicide Solution, stating that the following subliminal message was found:
Get the gun and try it, shoot, shoot, shoot.
Wow! Three “shoots!” If you shoot a .35 Marlin rifle three times, can you hear it from 3 miles away? Actually, you can find the part of the song that supposedly has the subliminal message, and Ozzy’s vocals have been isolated. You may think you hear
Shoot, shoot, shoot…
But you don’t. Get the gun? There is a live version of Suicide Solution on
Tribute…a tribute to Randy Rhoads, who tragically died in a plane crash. In the live version you hear exactly what Ozzy actually sang: Get the flaps out…which is a vulgar reference to the female genitalia, and not get the gun and try it. Oh, I might add, a cop who had been at the scene was asked what record was on the turn-table. The answer? Speak of the Devil. And that’s a problem. Speak of the Devil is a live album Ozzy recorded as a solo artist. So? The album features Ozzy performing songs by his previous band. Who? Black Sabbath. In other words, Suicide Solution wasn’t on the record that John was listening to when he committed suicide.
But no one ever accused Ozzy of being classy:
It takes a whole lot more to brain-wash someone then backwards lyrics and subliminal messages. The mind is highly resistant to such weak measures to wash it. And who can forget that Sylvia Likens was accused of brain-washing Little Jimmy, forcing him to pilfer candy bars at the store? According to Shirley, Sylvia was able to brain-wash Jimmy because he had no hair on his head, which apparently gives one unfettered access to the human brain. Of course, they did not find Satan’s Little Tool Shed, which may have been in either the garage next to the McMartin Preschool, or Gertie Wright’s Diabolical Basement. Then they decided that the song Better by You, Better than Me, a song Judas Priest didn’t write, and was probably intended as “filler,” was the real culprit, since it contained a subliminal message…Do it! Hey…someone took two plays from Not-Pazuzu’s playbook:
Let Jesus Fu** you!
And we also know that someone was hollering...
Do it!
…which we hear as Chris MacNeill runs up the stairs. Yet again there is obvious borrowing from The Exorcist. The charges were finally, and rightfully, dismissed. But that hasn’t stopped people from finding kooky speech reversal lyrics, like this one:
An innocent man help us. Get out of it, get out of it. Say, am I sexy. Give us the truth. You silly fuck. I took my life.
Get out of what? An innocent man? Though I must admit, I wouldn’t mind one bit if someone said to me…You are sexy! Isn’t the truth a good thing? And if you call me a silly fuck again, I will get Regan MacNeill to beat you up.
Nice shot, honey! And:
That's my girl! And:
Down goes Mommy! The doctor; the priest; the mother…Regan takes ‘em all out! So, insult me? Hey, Regan Sweetie, I know someone else you can clobber. By the way, Professional Wrestling just called. God is evil? And so we summon one who is innocent to save us from an evil God? If the intention of such messages is to get kids to follow The Satan, and the Cosmic Dualism is right and all the evil in the universe is being directed by The Satan, then why aren’t God and the Antagonist-Who-was-Really-Only-a-Literary-Character-in-the-First-Place…on the same side? I would think that such non-existent messages would create a sharp contrast between God Who is Good, and Satan Who is Evil, and then tell the listener to follow Satan. But no! God and The Satan are at war with…with…the Great Cosmic Dualism has just gone out the window, seeing how we have no one for the Strange Religious Bedfellows to make war against. But flipping God on His head is not new:
Wow! Flirty Fishing…also called, and I really dig this one…Love Bombing! The Children of God used its more attractive female members to bring men into the group by enticing them with sex. Talk about reversals! Someone finds the statement that God is Evil in song lyrics, and the Children of God believed that God loves Sex, but the Devil is too busy being an advocate for a morally upright approach to sexual matters. It would be strange if the Prince of Darkness insisted that his followers refrain from fornication, adultery, orgies, prostitution, and any number of things like sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl, unless you’re a Righteous Sexual Abuser who preaches the hypocritical and morally repugnant deviancies of the American Evangelicals. And if sexual victimization doesn’t matter, then perhaps we could call them the Evangelical Children of God; or the Evangelical Attic Men. Still, if you are such a respectful paragon of virtue, then you are certainly to be trusted in a leadership role. Ah, yes…so many prospective victims for the taking! So, a puritanical Satan demands strict sexual morality on the part of his followers…then one might ask, why would I follow him? I figured that if I followed the Devil, I would get laid. But I must refrain from sex? I must, like Father Karras, live a life of strict celibacy? I must content myself with trying to come up with ways to kill turtles in front of preschoolers? I always figured that the Devil, who is really only a literary character, but if he were real, I always figured that he would certainly not be boring! Perhaps the desire to have a little fun…not too much…must needs lead me away from the puritanical ways of The Satan. Or maybe it’s just something like this:
There’s a cold shower, to say the least. The Evangelicals found a demon uglier than Lamashtu! And that is quite a feat. Whoever the horrid demon is in the twisted imaginings seen in the above picture, she…or…he…will be of no use as a Flirty Fisher or a Love Bomber! But then there’s
Satana…Satan’s daughter. Just imagine all the Flirty Fishing possibilities! Wait, the Devil hates sex. So much for Satan’s Baby Girl. How do I join the Children of God? Let’s not forget the Sons of God..the Sons of Elohim…the divine members of Elohim’s Great Council…they too were enticed by sex. And they got it, although antiquity had to suffer the effects of the Heracles-like demi-gods who were born to them. Still, how do I join the Sons of Elohim? I’ll take either.
And as far as Regan’s whole…Let Jesus F*** You, how about more from
The Children of God. Going all the way? Are we in high school? Maybe…round third base and head for home, baby! There are actual instances of backwards masking in rock songs…but they are short little lyrics done for effect (e.g. the band ELO), or in the case of the Beatles’ song Rain, the refrain played backwards, recorded, then inserted into the song. It sounds really cool. There is no need to offer any arguments against the Messages Backwards of Finders other than this…the messages they find are incoherent, amount to gibberish, have no meaning whatsoever, and sound stupid when you read them. But I’ll bet you could find Alabama-style Evangelicals who would eat it up. And, oh! I saw Judas Priest in concert, and it was one Hell of a show; sorry. And I’m still here. Of course, my silly essays might just prove the existence of real backwards messages…Idiot-You-Essays-Crazy-Write! Perhaps Lamashtu was the one who wrote the band’s lyrics. And I am currently suing Judas Priest for turning me into what I am today! No I’m not…I just want an autograph. By the way…stop plagiarizing the Exorcist! You get it all wrong, whereas the Exorcist gets it all right..I think. And by the way…James Vance mysteriously died of an overdose of pain medicine before he could testify. The “Stand-the-Take-to-Have-I-Before-Myself-Kill-Will-I” virus must be catching. Especially, if what you have to say is flat out false and often, rather stupid. Of all the songs discussed above, I found one that outdoes Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, the Who, and Ozzy Osbourne:
Suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes,
I can take or leave it if I please,
The sword of time will pierce our skin
It doesn’t hurt when it begins
Wow! And yet…I’m unaware of any lawsuits. Suicide is Painless was a song in the movie
The song then became the theme song for
One of the most successful TV shows of all time. I wonder how many people ended their lives as a result of Suicide is Painless? How many people tragically ended their lives watching the antics of the characters from the 4077th? Still, Dropped Scene Regan certainly asked a good question. And who thought that death could be so complicated? Of course, everyone has to die. It’s strange how something so ordinary is not quite so in the end. But death, murder, and suicide permeate my interpretation of the Exorcist, for what that’s worth. If you’re busy looking for the extraordinary, you might find yourself gazing at something that is really quite ordinary, or can be made so. In the end, you fail to see the best part, the extraordinary lurking behind the ordinary. Hey, Regan! I have an answer to your question! What is it? It’s this…I don’t know.
Dogs, turtles, and spiders…oh my! Yet another scene is equally problematic as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier scene. And that is the original Spider Walk Scene. In this version, Sharon clearly sees Regan coming down the stairs:
And along came a spider:
She flips over so that her down-side is down and her back-side is up:
I actually wrote elsewhere that Regan never came down the stairs in the manner that Chris saw her. So, I think that Regan coming down the stairs on all fours is what actually happened in the Artificial Reality. Then the scene quickly became ludicrous as the spider turned into a lizard…or a frog!
Ok, it was hard to get a clear shot of Regan’s tongue darting in and out her mouth. Frogs eat bugs…and they catch them with a flick of the tongue
Got it! Lizards too:
I’ll bet that if a frog or a lizard was hungry enough, they’d eat a spider! I saw my cat eat one once. But now we reach the bottom of the stairs, and in the position I think actually occurred in the Artificial Reality:
Hey! I finally got a shot of the silly tongue-flicking nonsense:
And I have to say that this is probably the creepiest scene in the whole movie. Moreover:
Still doing her frog-lizard imitation. And now we see the insect that Frog-like Regan is after:
Sharon…serves her right! Now I will admit that Regan’s tongue is featured in two scenes..two really cool scenes, in the movie. Both take place during the exorcism. This scene occurs soon after the ritual begins, and after Regan says something very naughty to Father Merrin:
Stick your c*** up her a**, you mother-fu***** worthless c*** suck**!
Now, Sweetie! Didn’t Daddy tell you not to say such things?
Merrin retaliates by throwing magic water on her. And it’s safe to say that Regan doesn’t like it one bit:
We saw her react this way when Karras threw tap water on her. So, it would appear that if we are dealing with a demon, we’re dealing with one that doesn’t know the difference between holy water and regular water. As I thought about this, I suddenly felt that I finally found the demon in the Exorcist:
“I’m melting!”
Maybe demons, like wicked witches, don’t like water because it makes them melt. But Regan gives as well as she gets:
Father Karras has, quite wisely, stayed well back. Once bitten, twice shy…as it were! But:
And it’s a direct hit:
Throw something wet on me, I’ll throw-up something wet on you. Don’t complain! That’s nothing compared to what Father Karras got! It’s too bad that Merrin didn’t let Karras tell him about the case! He might have been on the look-out for this. Then Regan goes into bizarre fits:
There’s the tongue! We will see it again, and so will Karras:
Honey! Good girls don’t do that!
In the previous shot, I don’t think that the flicking of the tongue is meant to be sexually obscene. But I do think that it is so intended in the second shot.
Despite the fact that there are other scenes featuring Regan’s tongue, I maintain that the original version of the Spider Walk Scene makes no sense, and ruins the clear significance of the scene when the real Spider Walk Scene is encountered:
There is a key difference between this shot and
Yes! In the original, Sharon is the one who sees the Creative-Way-of-Coming-Down-the-Stairs Regan. In the proper version, Chris sees it. This difference is, in my opinion, extremely important. In my commentary on the movie, I have identified Chris as Overly-Hysterical, and suggested that at various points in the movie when Regan does something, or supposedly causes something, that would appear to be supernatural, only one particular character alone is actually seeing it. In most instances, apart from the appearance of the Pazuzu statue, it is Chris and Karras. But not Sharon…never Sharon. She is not hysterical like Chris, nor is she insane like Karras. And I have suggested that she may be involved in the things that happened to Regan. The most important difference is one that can’t be overstated. In the proper version, three people are present as the scene unfolds- Sharon, Chris, and Chuck. But too bad for Chuck! He leaves moments too soon and misses the show! That leaves two people. And only Chris sees the Spider Walk. A flicking tongue? No way! This is the right shot:
And here it comes:
Burke has been murdered by a strong, sick priest in Regan’s bedroom. His head was violently twisted all the way around, and then he was shoved out of Regan’s Diabolical Window. Chris arrives home from a mysterious night-time meeting with the doctor who just won’t go away. Sharon is conveniently gone. Chris finds Regan asleep in her room, lying on her stomach. I have stated elsewhere that Burke was left in the house while Sharon ran out to get the Miosis-Causing Pharmaceutical Poison. Hearing a struggle upstairs, he goes UP THERE and walks in on a scene featuring Regan’s Abuser, and Regan herself. The reason we see Regan lying on her stomach is because she was bleeding from the nose and mouth while she was lying in bed. So, we don’t see the blood, and neither does Chris. Regan then awakes, hears the noises downstairs, crawls down the stairs, and then her bloody nose and mouth become apparent. She was hit in the face during the struggle. The movie ultimately revolves around the idea that Burke Dennings was murdered in Regan’s bedroom. And since Burke was not the one who was abusing Regan, he went upstairs when he heard the fight. The Sick Priest had entered the house through the attic window, dropped down from the ceiling hatch in Regan’s closet, and Regan put up a fight. I contend that we can not get to the true nature of the events in the Artificial Reality without the proper Spider Walk Scene. But I would, for what it’s worth, pull in part of the Silly Spider Walk Scene and combine it with part of the Proper Spider Walk Scene to create what really happened, only fictionally, in the Artificial Reality:
That’s not too bad! Even if I do say so myself. I flipped the shot on the right upside to affect my reconstruction. Regan crawls down the stairs the right way, then suddenly rears up, lets out a terrible, demonish growl, and the blood flowing from her nose and mouth are now clearly visible. Really, now…a demon made Regan bleed? There is no other scene in the movie featuring the sudden, and inexplicable, flow of blood from Regan. But there is, of course, something of tremendous interest to me…vomit! If one reviews the basic list of the signs of demon-possession, inexplicable bleeding and vomiting is not on it. One does find “unnatural bodily positions” on the list. But, as I have said, the two instances where this is seen in the movie, i.e. the Spider Walk and the head turning around on the shoulders, are not what they appear to be, and in the case of the latter, we know that Burke’s head was twisted all the way around on his shoulders. But the detective makes it crystal clear that this was done by the Strong Man, not a demon, and the only two people to see Regan do it, Chris and Karras, had been told about Burke’s situation by the detective. So, I say that there was no Demon Spider Walk. Chris’s own imagination, and not Sharon’s, flipped Regan down-side up and turned it into something with supernatural connotations. I keep harping on it, and that’s only because no one has apparently noticed, that if Regan did crawl down the stairs down-side up, and at a pretty good clip, then we must have a supernatural explanation. And that takes us to the demon again. And the head turning around on her shoulders? Twice? This demon is able to produce physical effects in Regan that are simply impossible. One of the important signs of demonic possession is supernatural strength. This probably derives from the gospel story of Jesus and the Demoniac. The possessed man was said to be so strong that when he was bound with chains, he was able to break them. I have discussed this story in another essay, where I took the possession…sorry, I mean position, that it is an etiological story, not an actual event. And, I do not believe that the bit about breaking chains was in the original version of that story, but rather, was added by a later redactor. My harpy
I mean, my harping…where was I? A demon who can run down the stairs down-side up, and can negate everything about human anatomy to actual allow the human head to turn completely around on the human shoulders…that demon can’t get out of wrist restraints? Really? Apparently not, so the demon is left to whine and beg Karras to do it. So it is that two of the “big ticket” signs of demonic possession are not present…speaking languages, and supernatural strength. Oh, and no “unnatural bodily positions” either. What more can I say?
And it makes me wonder.
That’ll do just fine. I will go one step further, doubling back to my Super Cool Spider Walk Scene vs. Silly Spider Walk Scene. And that involves a sort of Chris vs. Sharon consideration as well. I speak of Sharon’s role. The more I thought about it, the more I began to get the feeling that Burke Dennings had been set up. Set up to be murdered. Someone wanted Burke dead. That someone also wanted Regan dead. For the same reason? Sort of. It is of course strange that Chris and Sharon, not to mention, Carl and Willie, are all gone when Burke was killed. Four out of four adults had the good fortune of having been gone when the crime was committed. Chris was at a strange night-time meeting with Doctor-Didn’t-Know-When-to-Quit. Sharon was supposed to be keeping an eye on Regan. But she suddenly had to get the Thorazine prescription filled. At night. If she was charged with getting Regan’s medication, why didn’t she do it earlier in the day? Why didn’t she wait until Chris got home? And when she decided that she had to go at that very minute…where was Burke? Was he already hanging around the house? Or did Sharon call him? By leaving Burke at the house while she conveniently headed for the pharmacy, the most bizarre of situations materialized. Attic Man appeared Up There. Burke heard the commotion, went upstairs, and was murdered. And how lucky was Sharon? Had she picked up the prescription earlier, or waited until Chris returned home, she would have heard the commotion. She would have gone upstairs. She would have been thrown out the window. Unless, she was involved in setting up Burke. In other words, the whole thing was arranged. And! Sharon needed an alibi…and she got one…the pharmacist. However, she would have to return from the pharmacy, and that left her in a bind. Timing would be key. After Chris left the doctor’s office, she drives home. And as she’s pulling into the driveway, we hear a phone ringing. That phone, it turns out, is the phone in the house. So, it is already ringing before Chris gets out of her car. Entering the house, the phone is still ringing. I believe that it has been ringing off and on for some time. We also see the lights flickering, and based on what I said in another essay, that is an indication that Attic Man is moving around in the attic. We also see The Face momentarily appear in the hood over the stove. In this case, Attic Man was quickly making his exit from the house…from the murder scene. Notice this:
Would someone answer the phone! Oh, someone finally did. But, wait! There’s a problem. And no, I’m not referring to the inevitability that the eggs in the egg basket to the right will go bad.
So, let me get this straight. Whoever is calling the house has been content to hang around and let the phone ring. And ring. And ring. And ring some more. Whoever it is, appears dead-set on getting someone to answer the phone. Then when someone finally does, the other person hangs up. A very patient person suddenly decided that she didn’t want to speak to Chris after all. Actually, this makes complete sense. If you were someone who might get chased around by a Lizard Girl, or a Frog Girl, and you decided to go to the pharmacy after getting Burke to come over and watch the house, and you and Attic Man were setting Burke up to be murdered…well, the pharmacist becomes your alibi. But! It would be best if you didn’t get home until AFTER Chris got home. Otherwise, your alibi isn’t really as good as it could be. So, what do you do? That’s easy. Go to the pharmacy, get the Thorazine, and then go to a payphone. Call the house…let the phone ring…let it ring as long as it takes for Chris to finally answer it. Then you know it’s safe to go back to the house, and you’re in the clear, because you arrive home AFTER Chris. Of course, when Chris finally answers the phone, you don’t want her to know it’s you. So when she answers, you simply hang up. Then you hurry home. Now that’s cool.
But why kill Burke? The party is the beginning of that story. It is at the party that we are given a special sub-plot.
You’re gonna die Up There.
I have said elsewhere that I do not believe that she is speaking to the cosmonaut. Just like the scene featuring projectile vomiting, it is sleight of hand. Regan’s abuser is in the room, and she has just threatened to do something about him. So Attic Man might just conclude that Regan was planning on doing something like…telling someone. Who? Mom? Perhaps. But I would point out that Regan speaks fondly of Burke at the beginning of the movie, to the extent that she suggests that Chris should become intimately involved with him. So! If Attic Man now had a reason to fear that Regan was going to disclose their secret, he might come to suspect that Regan has told Burke. If so, then Burke had to die. And Regan had to die. I’m sure that it would be going too far to suggest that the plan had been to kill Burke and Regan. Police might suspect that an intruder entered the house, and ended up killing both. After all, everyone else was conveniently gone. But although Burke was killed, Regan was not. Something must have gone wrong. Maybe Burke had more fight in him than his size would suggest. Before Strong Man could kill Regan, Chris was pulling up in the drive-way. So, he had to leave immediately, and when Chris walks into the house:
The lights are flickering. But we also get another bit of sleight of hand, assuming that that is what it is:
Carl looks strong, and has attacked Burke when the latter’s racist taunts finally brought out the devil in Carl. As a result, we are given someone with a motive to murder Burke.
On the issue of the signs of demon-possession, levitation is also a big-ticket item. And we get a really cool levitation scene. It starts when the straps…I want no straps…finally break:
Here we see the restraints around the left wrist finally break. Now it could be that Regan constantly yanking on them all the time weakened them. It is interesting that the broken part of the restraints appears almost linear, like someone cut through it with scissors, leaving just enough in place that it would break the rest of the way very soon. We don’t see the straps on the right wrist break. I maintain that someone cut almost all the way through the straps on both wrists. If the straps on one wrist split apart because the constant pressure weakened it enough to do so, the odds that the same phenomenon would also lead to the failure of the straps on the other wrist are remote. For the levitation scene to begin, the restraints on both wrists would have to fail at the same time. The only way for that to happen is that the straps on each wrist were cut to the same extent with scissors. The part of the restraints, shown above, that were cut was the weakest strap, as is visible in the shot.
The above is a very interesting shot. If Regan is actually levitating, and has floated up to the ceiling, why is Merrin looking in the wrong place? He is looking forward, whereas I would expect him to be looking upwards. Although Merrin isn’t, Karras is. And the next shot focuses on Karras alone:
A similar thing happens on other occasions during the exorcism:
The bed begins to levitate. Who sees this?
Yes, Karras sees it. Whereas Merrin, throughout the scene, appears not to notice it at all. Merrin gives no indication that he was seeing this:
But Karras does:
And so it goes with the Floating Girl.
And having slowly unlevitated back down onto the bed, she ends up back where she began:
Oh, well, it was a good try. We are given a close-up shot of what happens when holy water hits the lower part of Regan’s left leg, just above the ankle:
I have to say that if holy water hitting Regan’s skin would cause terrible tears in the skin…then what possible good could come from throwing the water on her to begin with? Your holy water is essentially cutting her up. Notice that the above shot shows Regan’s left leg. Now notice this:
We see a shot of the right side of Regan’s body. Notice the gash mid-way between her ankle and the hem of her nightdress. I will blow it up:
This is exactly the same type of gash in the skin that supposedly appeared on Regan’s left leg as a result of the holy water. Now look at the left arm:
The gash near the end of the sleeve of the nightdress is readily apparent. I will enlarge that too:
All 3 of these wounds are apparently the same. Now I know that in the close-up of the straps on the left wrist indicates that the restraints were not as high up on the arm as they are in the above shot. But that means nothing. Notice this:
So there is a strap in about the right place to have caused the nasty gash on the inside of the left forearm.
During most of the film, when Regan is strapped to the bed, she is covered in blankets. So what? We don’t get to see her ankles. But just before the wrist restraints break, there is a shot that lasts a split second, when the blanket is blown off the bed. Looking at the exposed left leg; the gash that the holy water makes was actually already there. In the above shot, notice the terrible bruising around the left ankle:
It seems clear to me that, although she isn’t now, but certainly at one point, she was also restrained to the bed with straps around the ankles. So, the gashes weren’t caused by holy water at all. But if Regan wasn’t actually levitating, though Karras believed that he was seeing exactly that, then what happened? Here I will do something that I’ve done on two other occasions:
It’s a very crude graphic, I know. But in other words, what really happened was that, after the restraints on both wrists broke at exactly the same time, Regan slowly stood up on the bed. Even on her tippy-toes. She then fell back down onto the mattress. In this sense, Regan is quite lucky that she wasn’t Sylvia Likens, since falling back on the mattress is what killed her. Well, or so Dr. Stephanie told us. Nonetheless, another key sign of demon-possession, levitation, may not be what it appears to be. It may actually be…somewhat more ordinary.