The most frightening scene, for me, in the film version of The “Exorcist” was the time when the director, William Friedkin, led us slowly, deliberately toward Regan MacNeil’s bedroom. We all knew something was about to happen, and I still hear the gasps, the squeals, and the watchouts being muttered from the theater audience. I knew something was about to happen. My anxiety filled my body, and thinking if I closed one eye entirely while keeping the other halfway looking, it might make whatever was to come next a bit more tolerable. I presumed that there was going to be some kind of horrific creature waiting, lurking, creeping inside Regan’s bedroom, and the walk down that hallway seemed an eternity.
My friend, sitting next to me, with one hand over his eye and his other almost turning blue from grabbing the armrest, was able to whisper (I do believe with less enthusiasm than he wanted to project) what if all this is, is William Friedkin, showing us that we imagine the worst, fearing what might happen, and behind the bedroom door, is just Regan sleeping.
I watched “The Exorcist” in 1973, and some 51 years later, whenever I even think about the movie, I still feel the knot of gnawing angst, and the nauseating grip of anxiety fill my gut.
It is 2024, only 6 days until an American election, which seems spooky, haunted, nightmarish, and doomed for me as I watched the long and tedious walk down the hallway within the MacNeil house. In the movie “The Exorcist,” it took Chris MacNeil perhaps only a few excruciating minutes to reach her daughter’s bedroom and see what was actually waiting for her behind that door. This TRUMP/VANCE horror flick began for me when, on November 15, 2022, Trump announced his campaign for President. It is still a long walk down that hallway, and I want to stop fearing that behind the election door for America is nothing like the Demon in “The Exorcist”!
