In
case you've been living underneath a rock for the past thirty-some odd
years, The Exorcist is considered by many to be the scariest film of
all time. Well, I have to take issue with that opinion. No disrespect
is meant or anything like that, because I DO own and enjoy the thing...
But, the scariest movie of all time? Maybe in the 70's it was, but not
now. Granted, I find it a HELL OF A LOT more disturbing, better acted,
and more suspenseful than any of the rubbish produced by Hollywood
today, but scary? No. Catwoman was scary. This was just a good flick.
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The
Story Behind The Story
Contrary to popular belief, The Exorcist was NOT based on a true story.
It was, however INSPIRED by an event that supposedly happened in 1949.
The incident involved a 13-year old boy in Cottage City,
Maryland who, as the story
goes, apparently had begun playing
with a Ouija Board. One bizarre occurrence led to another, and before
you knew it, his parents sent him to church to talk to their minister.
The Minister, and other colleagues felt an evil presence, and
petitioned the church to permit an exorcism. After reviewing the
evidence, the church granted permission, and the exorcism began .
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The exorcism lasted about a month, and the boy came out of
it fine with little or no memory of it. Now, that was the very short
and condensed version of the story. There are plenty of books and
websites that will document the whole thing for you. I've gone ahead,
and at the bottom of this page, I've linked to the most informative one
that I found about the incident. If you're interested, be sure to check
it out.
The Film
So, they made a movie about it. Again, it wasn't a true story though.
It was completely made up using the original exorcism idea. It was the
same Idea that 'Law & Order' uses every week. The writers open up a
newspaper, close their eyes, and point. Wherever their finger lands,
thats what they write about that week. |
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Religion can be
a very touchy subject, and when you mix it with horror, it
isn't necessarily going to go over well with everybody. At that time, it was the most
successful horror film ever. It scared the crap out of people. Aside
from maybe a Kiss concert, this was like
nothing anyone had ever seen before. As a matter of
fact, the movie caused mass hysteria! People were screaming, and
fainting in the theaters. Paramedics had to be called on more than one
occasion. The movie was banned in Finland, and Linda Blair was even
getting death threats. The whole thing was crazy.
Exorcism,
The Real Deal
Every religion seems to have their own rituals for removing an evil
presence. Most of the time we hear bout the Roman Catholic
version of the ritual. I'm not catholic so I have to admit, I have not
done much research n the subject. I Did however find an exorcism
website that explains the Roman Catholic
Procedure in more depth than I would care to attempt to explain.
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