I think this might be my most controversial choice for this series. However, I stand by it 100 percent. See, for me, The Exorcist remains one of the greatest horror movies ever made. The reason stems from so many different sources, from original book to screenplay to direction to casting to practical effects to makeup to special effects…this movie had so many moving pieces that fell perfectly into place to make this well-oiled machine of a movie.
Two of the oft-overlooked but integral cogs in this wheel are the two women who helped to make the demon Pazuzu even more terrifying than a little head-spinning, naughty language, soup-puking, crucifixated little girl could by herself. First, however, I don’t wish to take away from Linda Blair’s performance as Regan MacNeil. I think she was amazing in this role, and her ability to make Regan sympathetic and believable as this vessel for the demon Pazuzu are two reasons why this movie remains as powerful as it is more than 40 years later. However, Regan as her own character does not fulfill my requirements for the Ladies of May-hem, because she is not the proactive central character. She is the receptacle for the proactive possession by Pazuzu.
Back to what I was saying. One of the creepiest recurring themes throughout the film is the split-second splash of luminescent white face we see throughout the movie (even more throughout the jazzed up re-release they did back for “the version you’ve never seen” DVD release). The flashes are so brief…just long enough for you to register that horrific visage and shiver as a result. That face was actress Eileen Dietz, see on the left:
The lady on the right is the one who ultimately makes Regan’s possession the most believable. Close your eyes. Now, imagine the sounds emanating from that possessed little girl. The wheezing breaths. The raspy moans. The guttural, vile, almost multi-voiced heaving and threatening and cursing and screaming and laughing…all of it, so terrible flowing from the mouth of a child.
Only it wasn’t really a child making all those noises. It was silver-screen star Mercedes McCambridge, who went uncredited for her vocal talents at first but later received the credit she most definitely deserved. McCambridge went through hell to provide those voice-overs for Regan, sometimes having the sound recorders tie her to her chair and leave her in the dark, to put her in the proper frame of mind. As if there were such a frame of mind for those sounds. Those awful, demonic, spine-shivering sounds.
Just thinking about them now is giving me a strong case of the NO.
Dietz and McCambridge actually both went uncredited for their parts in The Exorcist. However, they both helped give Pazuzu its true face and voice, thus solidifying the demonic presence even more and solidifying their places in horror history.
