There\u2019s never been and never will be a better movie about the devil and demonic possession than The Exorcist<\/em>, director William Friedkin\u2019s 1973 thriller about a little Georgetown girl (Linda Blair) possessed. The making of the film, its controversies, and its critical and box-office successes don\u2019t need recounting here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (It\u2019s worth noting that the demon that possessed Regan was probably not the actual devil. The entity inside Regan claims to be the devil, and Father Karras scoffs at the idea, but that\u2019s what I\u2019ve always rolled with: The demon, legendarily Pazuzu, is the devil or close enough for jazz, their intentions and tactics sufficiently dire that Father Merrin decides the details don\u2019t matter.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Honestly, I\u2019m not quite sure how I got into the theater to see The Exorcist<\/em>; I was too young, by a couple of years, to get into an R-rated movie. But my friends and I all saw it. There had been weeks of anticipation among us, and in the run-up to seeing it, one friend seemed to think the Exorcist himself was the cause of the spooky goings on in the film. \u201cIt\u2019s the Exorcist!\u201d he would shout when a thunderstorm raged outside our school and rattled the downspouts of the 100-year-old building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was low-key beside myself with eager anticipation, reading articles in Time<\/em> and other magazines that recounted how early audiences had reacted to the film: with hysteria, fainting and vomiting. When we went, two women in the row directly behind me in the packed theater kept talking about how anxious they were and that they were afraid they were going to be sick. I was literally on the edge of my seat during most of the movie, in part because of the unsettling artistry of Friedkin\u2019s film, and in part because I was afraid the women would upchuck on me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Two lesser sequels followed in the years to come, with reboots and sequels and the like continuing to spin off clear through The Exorcist: Believer<\/em>, set for release in October 2023. At least one more sequel is planned after that. But some of the quick-and-dirty efforts to capitalize on the success of The Exorcist<\/em> are much more interesting than the official sequels and remakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 1970s was a time when a movie could do huge business at the box office and, within seemingly months, low-budget imitators \u2013 sometimes retitled import films with a canny marketing campaign \u2013 appeared at theaters and drive-ins, happy to catch a little ticket sales spillover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond the Door<\/em> was an Exorcist<\/em> imitator with Italian origins, completed in 1974 and released in the United States in 1975. It was nightmare-inducing for women in its potential audience: the main character, played by actress Juliet Mills, becomes possessed while pregnant. Beyond the Doo<\/em>r was likewise sued by Warner Bros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But by the time Exorcist<\/em> imitators began to slowly decline in number, moviegoing audiences had already found their new devilish tormentor. To me at least, it seems clear that the source of deviltry in The Omen<\/em> is not the devil himself, but who but the devil could be behind the plans of global domination of the Antichrist? The figure, long prophesied as the evil counterpart to Christ, got the starring role in The Omen<\/em>, released in 1976 and directed by Richard Donner (like Friedkin a Hollywood pro) and released by a big studio (in this case 20th<\/sup> Century Fox).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, this is a familiar story, so just a brief note: Damien is the son of the U.S. Ambassador to England (Gregory Peck) and his wife (Lee Remick). But five-year-old Damien isn\u2019t their child, and his origins are quite bizarre. A priest played by Patrick Troughton and a photographer played by David Warner investigate, try to persuade the ambassador, and meet grisly ends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Omen<\/em> plays a bit like a murder mystery, with suspects \u2013 and in some cases guilty parties \u2013 played by the likes of crazy nanny Billie Whitelaw. Like The Exorcist<\/em>, The Omen<\/em> was a hit with moviegoers, made the Antichrist and the sign of 666 touchstones of the cultural conversation, and inspired sequels in which creepy little Damien grows up \u2013 by the third installment \u2013 into Antichrist Sam Neill. The original was remade in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Race with the Devil<\/em> brings together the best of three worlds: Motorcycle racing, RVing and small-town devil cults. Two couples \u2013 played by Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit and Lara Parker – think they\u2019re going to have a relaxing vacation in the backwoods, but they see devil worshippers conducting a human sacrifice and the titular race begins. If you think small towns are scary, wait until you see how alarming highway mayhem with an RV and various trucks and old station wagons can be. Also in 1975, The Devil\u2019s Rain<\/em> took satanic movies into new territory: What if Ernest Borgnine were the ringleader of a small-town devil cult? And what if you turned out a drive-in staple that featured Eddie Albert, Tom Skerritt, Keenan Wynn, William Shatner and Anton LaVey, the actual founder of the Church of Satan in the United States?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what was the cause of this particular subgenre \u2013 and why did these pictures prove so popular? No less an authority on horror fiction and movies than Stephen King celebrated and explained the appeal of The Exorcist<\/em> in Danse Macabre<\/em>, his 1983 book that mixed autobiography and cultural commentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The film is about \u201cexplosive change,\u201d King wrote, \u201ca finely honed focusing point for that entire youth explosion that took place in the late sixties and early seventies. It was a movie for all those parents who felt, in a kind of agony and terror, that they were losing their children and could not understand how or why it was happening.\u201d In other words, the the 1970s, these movies helped Americans face the devils in their own lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From ‘The Exorcist’ to ‘The Omen’ to the drive-in schlock that rode their coattails, ’70s audiences (and filmmakers) couldn’t get enough of Old Scratch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":643,"featured_media":20608,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1422],"class_list":["post-20605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/643"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22509,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20605\/revisions\/22509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Abby.jpg\")
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Abby<\/em>, a blacksploitation take on The Exorcist<\/em> released by American International Pictures in 1974 and directed by expert exploitation director William Girdler, drew a lawsuit from Warner Bros, which had released Friedkin\u2019s film. Girdler was unapologetic that Abby<\/em> was perceived as a rip-off. \u201cI got more on the screen for the money spent on Abby<\/em> than Billy Friedkin got on the screen for the money spent on The Exorcist<\/em>,\u201d Girdler told the Courier-Journal<\/em> in Louisville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/omen-1024x648.jpg\")
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With the Antichrist dominating theaters, it was up to the drive-ins to bring the devil back to moviegoers. There\u2019s something wonderful about a premise as broad as \u201cThe devil and his minions get into hijinks\u201d that allows for a movie treatment like Race with the Devil<\/em>. Released in 1975, the film is like The Fast and the Devil-Curious<\/em>, turning the devil story into a Cannonball Run<\/em>-style stunt movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n