Why is the exorcist so controversial

Here are some lesser-known facts about the classic that's been "turning heads" for over 40 years. The film is based on William Peter Blatty's novel The Exorcist , which drew from accounts of an actual exorcism.

Much of the source material for the book and the movie were culled from the journals of Jesuit priests who documented an exhausting battery of rituals they performed on a young boy named "Roland Doe" in These priests claimed to have witnessed the following phenomenon: speaking in tongues, mysterious skin markings spelling the words "hell" and "evil," the violent shaking of the boy's mattress, and the breaking of hospital restraints and a priest's nose, to name a few.

Many claims are admittedly embellished in Blatty's novel and the film adaptation nowhere are hot green vomit and spinning heads seen in the diaries , and the gender of the child was changed to further protect the anonymity of "Roland Doe. It may come as a surprise that many officials of Catholic Church praised the film upon its release. Not only did it drum up plenty of interest in Catholic tradition, it highlighted Catholic priests as heroes performing a time-honored ritual that dates back to the New Testament.

The Church credits the film with a huge uptick in applications for the priesthood. The Catholic Church is known to be pretty protective of its secrets, but one official made an exception for The Exorcist.

While doing DaVinci Code -style research for the film, director William Friedkin met with the president of Georgetown University a Jesuit Institution , who reportedly handed him a red folder containing the diaries of the supervising priest in attendance, as well as eyewitness accounts of the exorcism. The production of The Exorcist was riddled with complications and tragedy.

Early in production, the set depicting the home of the MacNeill family mysteriously caught fire, delaying filming. Even more mysterious: the set for Reagan's room, in which exorcisms would be filmed, remained completely undamaged. Linda Blair's grandmother, Max Von Sydow's brother and two of the film's actors died suddenly during the course of production, and Jason Miller's son was nearly killed in a freak motorcycle accident. As many as nine total cast and crew members are rumored to have died during filming.

Further, Ellen Burstyn sustained a spinal injury while filming a violent possession scene, which reportedly still bothers her today. As the unexpected problems piled up, the production extended well past its projected deadline. Using the BBFC, they were able to move from cinema regulation to regulating home video, enforcing heavy penalties on the plethora of video shops that had, previously, stocked many, many horror films.

You see, horror has always captured the imagination. Yet, as with videogames in modern times, they struggled to be accepted as a valid medium. Ad — content continues below. Horror fiction, for example, has been a genre of continued influence for decades, if not centuries.

It may not be respected, but it is often mined as a source for ideas and inspiration. So, whilst we may enjoy the wares of horror-meisters such as John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, or delight at the Saw franchise, Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday the 13th and many other examples, there are many who feel they are not worth the media on which they are printed!

As they could pause the video, freeze frame and slow play the most grotesque scenes, the viewer could seek to focus solely on these sections, sections of violence and anti-female perversion that would corrupt their simple minds. Admittedly, anybody that tried this with a s video player was in for a tough time when it came to actually seeing what was happening in these freeze frames.

Starting in , when the Video Recording Bill became the Video Recording Act, Parliament decided that videos would all be categorised by the BBFC and even went as far as establishing a list of films as part of a Department of Public Prosecutions sting that outlawed the vilest of films.

Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! The action was retrospective, too, which meant that stockists had to consider titles they already had in their possession and could be prosecuted for carrying a title that had, subsequently, been banned. So, why this fear? Moral panic. Children could be exposed, thanks to their local video retailer and their careless parents, to all sorts of depraved activities by simply popping in a black plastic rectangle.

Furthermore, people needed this regulation in order to protect themselves from themselves. Eerily, the only part to remain untouched by flames was the room used for filming the actual exorcism scenes. Actors Jack MacGowran and Vasiliki Maliaros, whose characters also die in the movie, both passed away shortly after shooting wrapped. Meanwhile, Blair and on-screen mother Ellen Burstyn both suffered serious injuries during production due to falls on set. This so-called curse was also said to have followed the movie on its release into cinemas, on Boxing Day It was an extremely hot topic in global media when it hit cinemas.

In Rome, fans were forced to travel to the cinema in a torrential downpour. As the film began, lightning reportedly struck the church opposite the cinema. The hype around the movie helped fuel record-breaking box office figures. The Exorcist remained the highest grossing horror film of all time, until it was knocked from its perch earlier this year by Stephen King adaptation, It.