The Exorcist

I got very close to losing my father on Christmas Eve. It was one of the hardest nights of my life.


Alone and in the darkness, I was assailed by regrets. Every shitty thing I'd ever said, every time I could have done better and did not... they came for me. They had claws and fangs, they carried whips and knives, and they outnumbered me a million to one.

Since we've turned this corner, I've been able to relax a little bit and consider what happened that night. So naturally I started thinking about THE EXORCIST.

It's generally acknowledged as one of the scariest movies ever made. It's also one of my favorite movies of all time. I find new things to love about this film every time I watch it. I own the book, and I've read it at least a dozen times. There are differences, but the film retains everything it needs from the novel, giving this multi-layered story a visceral aspect that cold words on a page cannot offer.

I love this story because it discusses something I consider to be a deep truth.

Whenever you start talking about THE EXORCIST, the first things that come up are all of the crazy shit that happens to the possessed girl, Reagan. But this is only the surface of the narrative.

Several years ago, I saw an expanded version of THE EXORCIST in the theater... it was one of the last movies I watched in Chicago, before moving to LA. Again, Reagan's creepy spider-walk scene got all of the attention.

However, the true heart of this film is in one of the other scenes that been previously cut, a scene that exists in the novel. In act three, Marin and Karas take a brief respite from the exorcism. (Conducting these things is hard work). Karas wonders aloud why a demon would come to torment a little girl who never did anything to anybody.

Marin says the demon's true target isn't Reagan; it's after the people around her. It wants to show them that they have been abandoned. There is no help, because they are unworthy of love. The demon is trying to get them to see themselves as vile, and thus lose their faith in anything higher, be it a loving God, or just their capacity to do good.

Father Karas had just lost his mother. Not only did he lose her, but she died in poverty. He's a smart guy, a psychiatrist, hence his involvement in Reagan's case. He could have easily gone into private practice, made a lot of money and given his mother the best of medical care, ensuring her a longer and happier life. But instead, he chose the priesthood, and so she lived a pitiful existence in a tiny apartment. It was days before anybody noticed she'd even gotten ill, and she finally dies alone, ranting in the poor house. It's heartbreaking.

He's tormented with guilt. Her death has caused him to question everything, including his faith. And that's why the demon goes after him. This man, who had so much faith that he'd given up so much to follow his path... if THIS guy is wavering well, shit, the demon can break anybody.

In the novel, whether the demon is an actual supernatural evil is much more in question. The climax occurs behind a closed door, whereas in the movie we actually see the demon rise out of Reagan. But the effect is the same... as a metaphor, the demon is the external representation of the internal demons borne by Karas and Reagan's mother. They're faced with their greatest weaknesses, and cannot see themselves as anything but the most evil and vile of creatures, unworthy of love and unable to do anything good.

The demon first speaks to Karas in the voice of a bum he refused to give money. He's a smaller guilt. Later, it appears to Karas in the form of his mother, the core guilt driving Karas. She asks the question Karas asks himself: "Why you do this to me?" Karas loses it and screams, 'You're not my mother!"

This is true on two levels... he knows it's a demon posing as his mother, but he also knows that it's just a reflection of the worst part of himself, a dark mirror held up before his soul. His real mother loved him so much that she would never ask that question, but in that moment he cannot see that. He only hears his own thoughts, repeated back to him by the demon.

There are lots of romantic comedies talking about "love." I don't hold anything against them; they're entertainment, a fun night at the movies. Popcorn.

But there is another love to be found in THE EXORCIST, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR and, in a more recent example, THE ROAD. It's the love found in the midst of ugliness, the worst possible circumstances. It's easy to talk about love when you have a couple of yuppie douchebags trading witty one-liners... not so easy when the characters are fighting for the lives and souls. Yet in these darker movies we find a stronger and more pure emotion, a lone flower in the midst of a barren winter field.

And in that way, aren't the demons there to help us see that? In JACOB'S LADDER, Danny Aiello's character tells us that the demons aren't our tormentors... they're our servants, helping us to strip away illusions. It's a painful process, of couse, but nothing worth doing is easy.

So my demons were able to help me see what I didn't understand when I was younger, that these differences we create for ourselves - particularly with the people we love - are so often nothing but petty illusions, and only by clinging to them do we make ourselves vile.

Spoiler in case you're one of the few people who hasn't see THE EXORCIST...

In the final moments, Karas sacrifices himself to save Reagan. In so doing, he proves he is capable of doing good, committing himself to a noble act. He shows the people who attend his death that the demon is wrong. It's a victory. His soul is saved.

No matter what mistakes we've made, or how often we've failed, there is nothing preventing us from continuing to try to do better, revealing our guilt over past sins as only so much weight we carry for no other reason than to give our demons tools to use in our darkest hours.

I wish some lessons didn't come with such a high tuition. But again... would we value them as much if they didn't?