I just watched this after being forbidden to watch it on TV years ago. I like this film, but it is hard not to think of the Exorcist when watching it, since it is from the same era. It seems that the mother and Ivy were cast with actresses that somewhat resemble Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair. Did anyone else feel this? This is not a criticism of this movie, by the way...
shareThis was actually based on a true experience the author had. So although it has similarities it is a little more factual than the exorcist:
Raymond is De Felitta's son, and through him the author first became interested in reincarnation. As De Felitta tells it, he and his wife, Dorothy, were relaxing on the terrace of their Los Angeles home in the summer of 1971. Suddenly they heard piano music in the style of Fats Waller coming from the house. "We went in and there was Raymond at the piano, going like the devil. We were shocked. In fact, we were scared. Raymond said his fingers were doing it." The boy, then 6, had never before displayed any hint of musical talent.
De Felitta consulted a Los Angeles occultist named Barbara Ryan, who explained Raymond's mystifying talent as "an incarnation leak." "She told me that Raymond was one of those souls who had been through many lifetimes," De Felitta says. "They have innate memories of past lives, and they pick up where they left off in a past life." Fascinated, Frank began to read American mystic Edgar Cayce, Hindu texts on reincarnation and the works of a University of Virginia psychiatrist investigating the subject.
Also, he claims this but many on here will not believe it to be true as they are too jaded, sadly, to believe anyone:
De Felitta insists that he read The Exorcist only after his own book was under way but agrees that there is a similarity. "He's got a girl going crazy. I've got a girl going crazy. I always had the girl in mind. I felt it would be wrong to use Raymond since I had gotten all this input from him. Maybe that was superstitious."
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