‘The Exorcist’ Reexamined – Was Regan Molested?

It’s that time of year again when horror remakes are on the rise and this year a new Exorcist movie is out in theatres, The Exorcist: Believer (2023). But as a sweetener to this new remake, I wanted to take a step back and revisit The Exorcist (1973) with a mission to unravel one of its mysteries which I feel has been hiding in plain sight for the past 50 years now. If you already know the subplot I am alluding to then you are ahead of the curve, but, if not, I hope it will give you a new reason to re-watch the masterful original with new eyes. I plan to Sherlock Holmes the hell out of a certain mystery at the centre of The Exorcist (something the suspiciously inept and hopelessly naive Detective never did in the film himself).

We see a shadow move across the window of Regan’s room. We cut to a sorrowful looking Virgin Mary. And then to the cutting and excruciating music into the title card which breaks into an Islamic prayer call. An odd tone for a ‘come to faith’ movie for Catholics, like The Exorcist was at the time. I guess to give it an ‘otherness’ or maybe an attempt at subtle xenophobia or perhaps to suggest the location of Pazuzu the demon expressed in the film? The Demon of Famine and Locusts which is a demon that is invoked to kill other demons.

We then fade into the target, to Georgetown, where we find Chris MacNeil, played by Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore), who is the mother of Regan. The name “Regan” is one of the daughters of King Lear, known for being one of the treacherous daughters who wishes her father’s death. Her father is missing from the story, as the parents are divorced, and he is only alluded as Regan overhears behind the door as Chris MacNeil says he “doesn’t give a damn about his daughter’s birthday” which plays a deep, psychological purpose as the seed which allows a lot of these evil thoughts to enter her head. It opens the door. This missing father figure opens the door for all manner of demonic possibilities, both in human flesh and spirit, as we shall see.

Chris MacNeil is filming this anti-Vietnam protest movie called Crash Course, and I think this is where the anti-institution message begins with this ‘get the military recruitment off of our campus’ and this is where the subliminals start to begin for Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller, The Exorcist III) and he’s walking by the crowd and sees this movie taking place and the person on the bullhorn says “you can’t accomplish anything by shutting down the system.”  Like what if the Church was shutdown? This is for him to question his faith in the institution he works for. Ultimately the pandemonium of the angry protesting crowd was all for him.

The subconscious elements of the hidden subplot in The Exorcist begin in the very first scene we are introduced to Linda Blair’s (Exorcist II: The Heretic, Savage Streets) character, Regan. There’s a kind of psychological melodrama playing out and I didn’t like the psychological undertone of it. It really creeped me out which once I saw it I could not unsee it. I think there is a psychodrama of rape and drug use underneath and throughout this entire story. A subplot which unfolds subtly. But I think there is some pretty strong evidence I will unpack, and you can tell me if you think I’m full of shit or what but there was a definite relation going on under all this. A victimhood has taken place. But back to this first scene, Regan is talking about ‘wanting this horse, sooo badly’. I didn’t like the implication of that. And then at the end of the scene her mother wrestles her to the ground “give it up, you’ll be sorry.” This is a creepy premonition. Unsettling. Unnerving.

Then we go to the Ouija board and discover Captain Howdy which if that isn’t a double entendre for a penis pet name, I don’t know what is. Someone’s sick joke. “Captain Howdy says Hello!” 

It’s interesting how they first talk about Captain Howdy as the spirit, the name that the evil spirit is going under to trick Regan to use the Ouija board and then I don’t know if it’s subliminal, but then they just transfer over to start talking about Burke Dennings (Jack MacGowran, The Fearless Vampire Killers). The associative meanings transfer from the hidden spirit no one can talk about to Burke Dennings, this director who is directing his mother’s film. This friend of Chris MacNeil’s who’s this British drunken actor. 

Regan says this: “You can bring Mr. Dennings if you’d like” with a cold, ominous glare. Like why is she asking her mother to bring Burke Dennings, this old drunken British guy to her birthday? Chris MacNeil innocently says Burke Dennings only comes around here because “he’s lonely and hasn’t got anything better to do” and Regan says, “I heard differently,” like the Devil was speaking in her ear; like she was keeping a disturbing secret. But Chris points out “Burke and I are just friends.” Why Regan cares about this drunken sod of a man with a violent temper, certainly portrayed as an unsympathetic character, it’s a mystery as to why she wants him at her birthday. In the common vernacular, it’s suss!

Burke Dennings gets in a furious argument with a German servant, Hans, accusing him of being a Nazi with furious indignation. This seemed rather unprovoked in the context of the film. Burke Dennings doth protest too much? However, WW2 Brits, as an old man in the 70’s maybe even fought in the war, at his age… red herring.

Regan is soon in the doctor’s office and another wave of ‘rape responses’ occur. “Can you feel this?” asks a Nurse. “I don’t feel anything!” Regan replies. That’s a spooky response for a kid to make. Is it the demon or is it a response when someone is put-upon or victimized, they externalize and pass along that victimized anger to other people. If you know what I mean. Those upset feelings end up somewhere. By that logic she might rape someone else, you may ask. She does try to rape her mother later. Like metaphorically if there were no demons, why would this be taking place? I’m thinking of the psychiatric possibilities within the story if that’s even still possible. It might be implied. But “Keep your hands away from my God Damn cunt” as one doctor relays of Regan’s foul mouth, is another clearer rape response. Like get away from me sexually, I don’t want anything to do with you sexually, while she’s in this fugue state, spinning around the room, fully disassociating from reality. This is all building up to better and more concrete clues but I’m laying the foundation for this case, one clue at a time to bring you along. But she is angry and numb and defiant. A logical mindset if being raped.

One interesting scene is when Regan comes downstairs during one of the parties and pisses on the floor and says to the astronaut “You’re going to die up there.” This is several years before the Challenger Disaster or Sweet Baby James Taylor’s song “Fire and Rain” with the lyrics “Lord knows when the cold wind blows/It’ll turn your head around”.  Coincidence, I hope.  But the statement “You’re going to die ‘Up There’ could mean the Astronaut is going to die up in space as a premonition OR it’s a statement that the Demon is going to kill Burke Dennings ‘up there’ in her bedroom soon before he is thrown out the window and down the ominous stairway/metaphorically the top of the temple to the sacrificial pile of corpses, below at the side of their flat (which the Demon eventually does).   

Then we come to this other party scene, which there are many of, but I was watching this particular scene very late at night, while the family was asleep several years ago now, and had the closed captioning on and it is here that I picked up on a line, but because the actor was very drunk it was a very muddled British, and I had never heard it before. Burke Dennings looks into his glass and says at the 39/40-minute mark “there seems to be an alien public hair in my gin. I’ve never seen it before in my life.”  Like whoa. Whoa! Hold up! Okay so what does that mean? Does it mean he’s Captain Howdy? I don’t know but I think it may have meant that in the same party he gets upset at the Swiss-German servant Hans, Regan is upstairs, facedown on a pillow, prone, with the sheet off. Was that ‘alien pubic hair’ Regan’s? If not, why the hell is it part of the story? Who else? And why the hell does she want him at her birthday party and this whole thing suddenly became this creepy whoa! Like why is the whole movie to this point focusing on her talking about him and him talking about this pubic hair? The whole thing when you add it up, it isn’t conclusive, but it’s suspicious. Hiding in plain sight!

The confusion of transferring her affection for her absent dad to a reluctant fondness for Burke Dennings despite the sexual abuse, as the ‘only guy around’ might explain her ‘you can bring Burke Dennings if you want’ comment from earlier.

So, Chris MacNeil comes home one night and discovers that Burke Dennings is dead. Like a sacrifice at the bottom of an alter, with his head twisted completely around, which they never show. And I read up on the idea of this head being turned around, and what it implies is anal penetration as the Devil wants to look you in the eyes while raping you, so that it can look at it’s victim while having its way with you.

So Chris MacNeil comes home, and she finds Regan in her room, sheets off, the window is open, facedown. My interpretation of what happened before Burke Dennings’ murder: Burke sneaks upstairs during the party, takes off the covers to rape Regan, the Devil springs to life, does something to Burke, twists his head around, throws him out the window, then goes back down into the prone position, like the victim. That’s the way I would interpret the series of events.

Chris MacNeil begs Father Karras to do the exorcism. He agrees to examine Regan’s condition. Karras starts by asking the demon his mother’s maiden name. The Devil just vomits green bile on his face. That’s what you get for asking impertinent questions of the Devil. The Devil dominates by ‘not saying’ what he wants. You’re going to play his game. He’s not playing yours. Ever. Example, the holy water. Father Karras throws fake holy water on Regan to ‘test’ if it was indeed the Devil. The Devil pretends to be affected by the fake holy water. Why does the Devil do this? To cast doubt on whether it was the Devil, and to undermine whether an exorcism is even needed and undermines his faith altogether. Half truths! Ask him a question in one language, he responds in another. Fun and games man, fun and games.

So, there’s a vicious attack at one point and they start to come to the ‘power of Christ compels you’ moment, but there’s a Christ ascending pose, but was it just another game, but it’s a great question: was Christ ever present in this movie? Did he help, heal, hurt Regan at any point in this movie or is it just the demon mocking Christ by levitating? It felt more like the latter to me. I remember when I was younger, I used to say ‘finally! Jesus shows up to help this kid’, but really, it’s more like the Devil shows up but Jesus, wellll, he seems to have better things to do with his time.

There’s a scene where they feel really worn out and beat-up by the Devil, where Father Karras and Father Merrin (Max von Sydow, The Virgin Spring, Flash Gordon) are out in the hallway, and they’re feeling despaired and Father Karras asks “Why this girl?” “I think the point is to make us despair. To see ourselves as animals and ugly and to reject the possibility of God.” And I thought that was an important line as it gives some frame of reference as to why religion exists at all. That people should aspire to something higher than their basest animal instincts, which we all have in one variety or form or another.

Father Merrin goes to take his heart medication and leaves Father Karras alone with the Devil which is where the personal psychological attacks begin. Possessed Regan poses as Karras’ dead mother. He just has to shout it “You’re not my Mother!” He just sold the shit out of this line. It was real drama at this point. It’s not just the crabwalk down the stairs but there’s a real human story under all this which really helps bridge the gap between the supernatural and the real world. The guilt of his following his faith rather than becoming a wealthy psychologist where he could have afforded better healthcare for his mom, perhaps saving her life with the money he gave up by joining the church. More doubts. Instead, he had to leave her in a nuthouse to die an undignified death.

Karras goes out and Ellen Burstyn just asks, “Is my daughter going to die?” And this is where Father Karras starts to get militant. “No!” This is not going to happen, and he gets pumped up about this. He runs back into the room and… Father Merrin is dead. Another murder or death you don’t see. It leaves it to your mind to imagine what happened. To imagine; to doubt.

So that’s it. Karras starts beating the shit out of Regan, like just kicks her ass like a boxer, like oh my God.  He’s just like ‘take that’ as he lays in the roundhouses to her. Later she only has a few little scratches on her but really. But Karras is like ‘I’m the one who’s faith you’re trying to test, alright then, you come into me! You face me!’ The self-sacrificing hero. The demon then obliges and comes into him but now it looks like he’s going to attack Regan as the demon. But in the split second, presumably God gives him a split second to decide, and it’s interesting that the decision he’s allowed to make is maybe the only time a suicide might be forgiven by the Catholic church, because it’s a suicide, if you don’t look at it from the demonic possession angle. He wasn’t possessed when he jumped out that window. Right? Later what’s he going to say? “I was possessed! I didn’t do it!” It’s like you go to hell for this and this is a pro-Catholic movie. And if that’s the case he’s going to go straight back to hell. One second later, “Hey remember me?!  It’s Pazuzu!” But seriously, in that moment he chose to save the girl and kill himself in a self-sacrificial moment, as a second later he may not have been able to make that decision, so perhaps that is the loophole out of hell. Maybe when the final priest friend holds his hand at the bottom of the steps and reads the last rites and Karras squeezes his hand he was forgiven? It’s a highly contrived circumstance where I guess you could get away with suicide. Any Catholic viewers out there who know better, let me know the rules here. Is it a half-suicide thingy? I don’t know.

The Exorcist Uppers:

The absolute believability of the performances from Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller, the demon effects, the voicework by the terrific voice actress Mercedes McCambridge who was the Devil’s voice, the mercurial tone, psychology, the subliminal sound effects, the offsetting and original scares, the music, the whole “damned” Production was the best. No surprises here.

The Exorcist Downers:

Lt. Kinderman (Lee Cobb, 12 Angry Men, Exodus), the Detective in this movie was a comic relief but logically why wasn’t he interrogating everyone who was in contact with Regan? Why wasn’t he contacting everyone at those parties to find out what happened to Burke Dennings and Regan? Or ask Regan herself what she knew? How come there was not a real investigation just joking around with the priests. He suspected the priests but didn’t go far enough. Another level of story could have done more with this character. We see the scientific reaction, the religious reaction but no legal reaction, which is very telling of the Catholic reaction to rape and how they perceive their relationship with the police. This reminds me of when I watched Spotlight where I watched the police let the Catholic priest go even knowing he’s committed the most heinous of crimes. And what’s the one group they try to keep out of this, keep it off the books: the police. Let’s keep this a ‘community issue,’ certainly not a legal issue. So, the idea the police are portrayed as dupes is very telling here for a Catholic centric film, such as this was.

And there is something a little too ‘poor me’ about the Catholic church within the narrative of this story given the uncovered realities of the hundreds of thousands of child pedophile cases across the world. Hiding behind the torture of this little girl when we know the reality was how many real children were abused by priests is the height of art metaphorically abstracting the demon hiding in the human animal nature of the Catholic church (and many institutions of unchecked power, let’s face it!), again hiding in plain sight.

The Exorcist Silver Lining of the Downers:

Kinderman brought a note of needed comic relief in this double dark film. A moment or two of levity were merciful it could be said.

Overall:

The rape subplot of Regan by Burke Dennings in The Exorcist has so much circumstantial evidence that it is virtually undeniable once you see it. If you don’t believe me, take the British voice of Burke Dennings within Regan while possessed: “Do you know what she did? Your cunting daughter?” That’s the line she says before she turns her head completely around in mocking parody of what happened to Ol’ Burke-boy. How much more proof do you need? I ask you.

But alas, it is another round of The Exorcist parody films, I mean remakes, sorry. I’m sure The Exorcist: Believer will make us all believe, but if it doesn’t, maybe try rewatching the original instead and watch it with this demonic subplot in mind and see it with new eyes. The eyes of the Devil that was hiding in plain sight the whole time: Man.

Directed by: William Friedkin
Written by: William Peter Blatty
Produced by: William Peter Blatty
Cinematography by: Owen Roizman
Editing by: Norman Gay, Evan Lottman
Music by: Mike Oldfield, Jack Nitzsche
Special Effects by: Marcel Vercoutere
Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jack MacGowran, Jason Miller, Linda Blair, Kitty Winn
Year: 1973
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 2h 2min

Studio: Hoya Productions
Distributor: Warner Bros.