What an Excellent Day for ‘The Exorcist’: William Friedkin on the Making of his Horror Masterpiece (Part 2)

In our initial post about the DVD commentary on WIlliam Friedkin’s The Exorcist, we learned that Friedkin can be just about as blunt and direct in his collaborations as the demon in it’s exchanges with Fathers Karras and Merrin, as well as the reason (or lack thereof) behind Regan’s possession. In this continuation, Friedkin explains how he emphasized the demon’s influence on Karras.

(Spoiler alert! Although I doubt people would read a review of the commentary before seeing the movie itself, but just in case….)

A test of faith

In putting him to the test, the demon doesn’t hesitate to hit Karras where it hurts, and it was up to Friedkin to make sure the audience felt the full force of each blow. For example,

What an Excellent Day for ‘The Exorcist’: William Friedkin on the Making of his Horror Masterpiece (Part 1)

As a kid, Christmas was my favourite time of year. Snowmen, sweets, Santa – what’s not to love? Now that I know snow requires shoveling, sweets give me breakouts brighter than Rudolph’s nose, and Santa’s grossly overloaded sleigh is actually my Visa, I prefer Halloween. Rather than the occasionally strained goodwill that’s demanded of us over Christmas, Halloween gives us license to let our freak flags fly. So, after a long absence that will forever remain as mysteriously unexplained as life’s other great mysteries – including timeless questions like how the alien in Alien 3 could burst out of a dog one-third its size; who thought it would be okay to put aliens (sorry, “interdimensional beings”) in an Indiana Jones movie; and how, even in a pre-9/11 world, Crocodile Dundee could possibly get away with using dynamite to fish in NYC’s Central Park – I’m back!

(Spoiler alert! Although I doubt people would read a review of the commentary before seeing the movie itself, but just in case….)

From humor to horror

Let’s start off with a classic. Still seen as one of the scariest movies of all time, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist is a masterpiece of horror cinema. But it might not have been made if Friedkin hadn’t overcome his initial skepticism of the source material, William Peter Blatty’s novel of the same name.