Now everyone is doing it
It is thanks to movies that we find a renewed interest in exorcisms.
Rev. Gabriele Amorth, An Exorcist Tells His Story
When I covered the evolution of the zombie sub-genre through the lens of George Romero’s Dead series, it was very much with the understanding that zombies were not limited to those films. There were zombie films before Night of the Living Dead, and there were zombie films of many types afterwards. But so far as I can tell with The Exorcist, that really was the first. Even if it wasn’t, much like Night of the Living Dead, it’s the one for whom everyone followed. What did possession movies look like after The Exorcist?
Before The Exorcist, the only films I can find that broach the same subject is Ken Russell’s The Devils and a Polish art film called Mother Joan of the Angels, both of which were inspired by the Loudon possessions. The Devils paved the way at least in the mainstream West (despite WB’s attempts to bury the film), but once The Exorcist was released it opened the floodgates for everyone to have a go. Naturally, the first to exploit the idea of possession and exorcism were the Italians. The Eerie Midnight Show was released a year after the original Exorcist, alongside the obvious porn version Sexorcist (SFW – IMDB link). But it seems that the genre wasn’t yet fully exploitable.
Perhaps what limited the scope of similar possession films was the Italian film Beyond the Door. The film was first released in 1974, but released in America in 1975. Warner Brothers didn’t take to it very well, filing a lawsuit against the film for infringing against The Exorcist. WB won, receiving a cash settlement and a portion of future revenue from the film, which may have put a dampener on anyone else wanting to cash in the success of the original. This didn’t stop there being sequels to Beyond the Door being released – I hesitate to say made – but the formula of a young possessed woman seems to be generally ignored for the time being.
The 70s did see the rise of a sort-of similar possession film. The Amityville Horror, which spawned an unbelieveable amount of vaguely related sequels, has as part of its backstory the DeFeo murders perpetrated by Ronald DeFeo. DeFeo claimed that ‘the devil made him do it’ as part of his legal defence. Rather than a person though, it is a house that is possessed (which would form part of the much better Poltergeist plot a few years later). Despite its inanimate subject, it does feature some of those features introduced by The Exorcist. There are vile liquids of various descriptions, violent messages and a priest who tries to exorcise the place. Rather than an exploration of faith though, this instead explores fears of homeownership and economic uncertainty. It’s also a bit rubbish. However, the concept is an interesting one; vaguely a development of the ghost story genre, swapping out ghosts for demons for more violently scary opportunities.
The next prominent example of demonic possession of an individual comes from The Evil Dead in 1981. In its way, the deadites of the film combine the idea of demon possession with zombies to create their own unique mythology. Though it may not seem obvious, the tropes established by The Exorcist are very much in play with Sam Raimi’s take on the concept. We have the foul language, the floating, impossible body contortions, the rituals to banish demons, the screeching voices… What’s lacking is the religious element that makes The Exorcist compelling. Instead, The Evil Dead replaces it with a unique mythology that owes something to Lovecraft and the Three Stooges in equal measure. As a fan of both Exorcist and Evil Dead, it seems strange even to myself to put both films in the same sentence, bearing in mind their wildly different tonal approaches to possession, but they absolutely belong to the same conversation. Where The Exorcist is subtle and thoughtful, The Evil Dead is out to scare you as relentlessly as it can, and where you aren’t scared you should be laughing at its deliberate absurdity. It shows the versatility of using possession as a device to power your plot, and though not scary in the same way The Exorcist is, The Evil Dead and subsequent entries in the series (a far more consistent horror series than perhaps any other) are the most fun you’ll have getting scared by demons.
Possession is rarely the centrepiece of horror however, and exorcism even less so. The other major possession in film during the 80s was the Ghostbuster films, which I think are more representative for how possession is used in a film as a threat to a character rather than the centrepiece of a film. This is not to denigrate any of those films! Only that possession becomes an element as part of other things rather than a thriving sub-genre of its own. It shows the impact of The Exorcist that such devices don’t require any form of explanation, but there aren’t really any films about it. The Exorcist itself is so thorough in its examination of exorcism, what else was there to say? Also, that time WB won a lawsuit because someone had the temerity to make a film similar to their one.
There are a smattering of possession movies, mostly in foreign markets away from WB, in the 80s and 90s. Maybe the brilliance of The Exorcist and subsequent failures of The Exorcist II and III put filmmakers off the idea of doing films in the same genre. This seems odd to me. The idea of an exorcism is quite a cheap one, similar to how the zombie genre is a cheap horror film. Perhaps even more so; an exorcist movie requires a cassock or two and a sexy girl (in Ghostbusters, Rick Moranis’ possession is played for laughs versus sexy Sigourney Weaver’s possession). But the idea was present in the mainstream. If you wanted to do a horror film about an exorcism or possession, The Exorcist had set the precedent for what those films entail, and so invoking those words meant your audience knew what you were doing. Blatty and Friedkin had done the hard work, you don’t need to explain the rules anymore.
It seems that possession films didn’t really take off until the 00s, and partially as part of another sub-genre of horror. There were the two prequels to The Exorcist, but most people rightly ignored them. The first major one that seemed to get people talking was The Exorcism of Emily Rose. It took as its inspiration the unfortunate case of Anneliese Michel, and combines the exorcism with legal drama for a surprising twist on the genre that also puts some distance between it and The Exorcist. Though not to my personal taste, the film won lots of fans at the time of its release, bringing the idea of possession more immediately to people’s minds. It’s an interesting film, similar to The Exorcist in its attempts to ground the horror within the real world rather than spinning off into some other wild story. It also reminds us of the religious element, if not explored in the same way Blatty did.
But the film that really did the business in making possession a thing and brought it back into the fore was the Paranormal Activity series (a film series for which I have a soft spot), first released in 2007. Excellently marketed and cheaply made, it made a lot of profit as a result and signalled to studios that this was something that could be exploited. Yet despite everything, it doesn’t actually use many of the things that were established in The Exorcist. There isn’t even a priest, though the role is fulfilled by a psychic, which future possession films will begin to use instead. Though it hasn’t got the thematic depth, it arguably plays a far more subtle game in its depiction of possession. It’s the lowest of the low budgets, but the terror instilled by nighttime voyeurism and a broken picture frame speak volumes about the horror the concept can still hold in the right hands, even if it is exploited for six more films.
The other possession film from 2007 was the sublime [•REC], which mixes in elements of the rabid possessed seen in The Evil Dead, the religious iconography of The Exorcist and the pulse-pounding intensity of found footage. Religion is treated not as a pure shield to defend against evil, but almost like a weird cult investigating the power of evil. This was something expanded upon, particular in the first sequel, and gives the film a very different flavour. The Catholic Church, once unimpeachable, has rightfully been criticised a lot over the years, notably for their abuse of children, and so giving them a more ambiguous role in possession films still rooted in Christian iconography is suddenly much more interesting. Arguably, the desecration that was so intense in The Exorcist struggles to carry the same weight today, and so [•REC] wisely dispatches with the vulgarity for fastpaced violence instead, partially as part of the fast running zombie trend popular at the time too. The one-two punch of [•REC] and Paranormal Activity, particularly as continuing series in their own right, gave rise to other possession films, including the likes of the underrated The Last Exorcism (and it’s much less good sequel), Unfriended, and Jennifer’s Body, amongst many others. Some would hew closer to the model established by The Exorcist (e.g. The Rite), others doing their own take on possession.
Filmmakers began to realise the fun they could have with the genre. The lockdown movie Host is a great example, as is Deadstream and The Cleansing Hour. Possession formed an important subplot of American Horror Story: Asylum too, and when a horror idea hits AHS you know it’s a common trope now. Even The Exorcist TV series is more in keeping with modern possession and exorcism stories, only with the patina of Blatty’s similar thematic obsessions. Possession stories are back fully, with everyone doing them in their own style.
The most popular films about exorcism are The Conjuring horror films about Ed and Lorraine Warren, arguably the second most successful cinematic universe after the MCU. Tangentially related to the story behind what would become The Amityville Horror, the recent Conjuring films make the Warrens out to be essentially Christian superheroes. The Conjuring series returns the idea of exorcism to its Christian core, and the faith the Warrens show is integral to their characters. These are the films that probably most utilise the tropes established by The Exorcist, especially the use of religious iconography to defeat those pesky demons. Faith is back in a big way. However, more important is their faith in each other as a married couple: they are primarily horror films about love. The spin-off films (Annabelle and The Nun films) are similarly about demonic possession and the chicanery those naughty demon boys get up to. What they lack however is the deeper foundation of faith that The Exorcist put forward back in its original incarnations. The Warrens may be Christian, but the films themselves are not.
Exorcism and possession movies can still be scary, but operate on a Hollywood version of what exorcism is rather than the grounding Blatty worked so hard to achieve with his story. Many modern possession stories, if they don’t follow The Evil Dead approach, are more likely to have religion be a tool in the film’s approach, as that’s how things should be done. Thematically, they tend to be more about family or abuse rather than faith. More often now, priests are replaced by psychics or demonologists. Possession as allegory for other forms of trauma are welcome, but what gave The Exorcist a lot of its power was its grounding in a world of science and faith. A film like Paranormal Activity or The Conjuring is scary because of its grounding in domestic life, and something like The Last Exorcism or The Devil Within use religion as the necessary tool to get rid of a demon. It just hasn’t got the same impact as The Exorcist, and your mileage may vary for how scary that is. It seems as though something is in air though, with both Immaculate and the surprisingly good The First Omen coming out within weeks of each other, both films being heavy on the terror of Catholicism. The recent Late Night with the Devil is another fun example of the genre, playing with form to produce something interesting, if not exactly scary.
This is not to say that there are not good examples still from the genre. Though there are ones I like within the it, there are few that try to match The Exorcist and even fewer that succeed. In fact, I would argue there is one true possession story since The Exorcist that truly matches it for horror. Though not interested in the theology that Blatty was interested in exploring, Ari Aster’s 2018 film Hereditary explores grief, generational trauma as well as demon possession in one of the scariest films I’ve been lucky enough to see in the cinema. That Bit (if you’ve seen the film, you know what I’m talking about) was enough to silence an audience into trauma, and makes Hereditary probably the only film since The Exorcist to really attack an audience’s sense of wellbeing in order to horrify it. Critics may quibble which is better, but in the storied history of the genre, Hereditary is the only film to match The Exorcist in terms of tone and horror, and frankly deserving of its own essay.
Having spoken of exorcism movies losing touch with the foundations of Christianity, how were actual exorcists affected by The Exorcist? In the real world, exorcism seemed to have a resurgence because of The Exorcist. Prior to the film’s release, cases were generally on the downturn, and the Catholic Church tried to downplay the existence of exorcisms within the Church. Following the film, it became more popular as a cry for attention for people who probably needed more medically sound methods of help. And yet, they continue. The real Ed Warren performed exorcisms as part of his demon hunting, but there were others too. Ronald DeFeo murdered his family in 1974 on the devil’s instructions, nearly a full year after The Exorcist‘s release; the exorcism of Anneliese Michel occurred during the mid-70s, though she was showing problems as early as 1970; Father Gabriele Amorth claimed that by 2013 he had performed over 160,000 exorcisms, as well as that yoga was satanic and Harry Potter was the King of Darkness. Still, Russell Crowe played him in the recent film, The Pope’s Exorcist, so there’s that going for him. But unlike the case that inspired the book, this was well-known by the general public too. Exorcism was known and mainstream knowledge.
Exorcism in the real world also cannot escape the Hollywood touch. In the early 2010s, the so-called Teen Exorcists became well-known. Brynne Larson and Tess and Savannah Scherkenback were three young women who believed that sin allowed a demon to take up residence in a human host. That three, young, attractive women were performing exorcisms can’t have hurt their popularity, as there were numerous articles from around 2013 about them, including a BBC documentary. They also are not fans of Harry Potter either, and I am absolutely certain they are not being exploited at all by Bob Larson, who goes by @therealexorcist on Instagram. A far cry from the haunting private diaries of a priest to YouTube exorcism videos. Having the exorcist equivalent of Charlie’s Angels attend your exorcism does not carry with it the same weight or gravitas as Father Merrin.
The Exorcist was a deeply spiritual tale, using (and often creating) the tropes of horror to tell an actual tale of faith and doubt that was deeply personal to Blatty. The popular conception of it has meant that those that have come in the wake of the original will find it hard to match. Ironically, the further away you get from the original (The Evil Dead, The Exorcism of Emily Rose or [•REC] for example) the more success you may be able to find in carving out your own niche. But how will that distance within the genre affect the return of The Exorcist to cinema screens?
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