50th anniversary: To Save Us All From Satan’s Power

https://quillette.com/2023/12/26/to-save-us-all-from-satans-power/

Today marks exactly five decades since the film version of The Exorcist debuted in theatres. There’s already been a rush of commemorative books, magazines, and other reflections on the enduring impact of the landmark horror story. Adjusted for inflation, William Friedkin’s 1973 adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s bestselling 1971 novel remains one of the highest-grossing in cinema history, and has generated its own franchise of sequels, prequels, reboots, and ripoffs. The deaths of director Friedkin this year and author Blatty in 2017 also prompted extensive analyses of their masterpiece’s enduring influence. But as we celebrate an ancient religious holiday, what better time to reconsider The Exorcist’s lasting impact on culture, politics, and faith?

Despite the shocking scenes of desecration and defilement committed by the demonically possessed 12-year-old Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair in her most infamous role), many critics have judged The Exorcist to be an inherently conservative story, affirming the strength of traditional beliefs and depicting a misbehaving adolescent’s tormented journey back to decency and respectfulness. In the aftermath of the 1960s’ protest movement, and in the year that abortion was legalized in the United States, the film’s message found a responsive audience. In his 2015 history The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, Rich Perlstein even suggested that The Exorcist‘s huge success foreshadowed America’s eventual Republican resurgence.

Yet when it first appeared 50 years ago, The Exorcist was only one of many entertainments that seemed to defy a hitherto orderly society’s moral conventions. This was the era of the occult revival, in which systems of knowledge that had long been discredited in the rational world (astrology, Tarot cards, witchcraft), and pseudoscientific hypotheses never given credence by experts (Bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle, the “ancient astronauts” of Chariots of the Gods?), had already become hot topics and big business. San Franciscan Anton LaVey (nee Howard Stanton Levey) had founded the Church of Satan in 1966, shortly after the cover of Time magazine asked, “Is God Dead?” The diabolic scares of Ira Levin's 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby had been turned into a popular 1968 film by Roman Polanski.