SCREAM YOUR ENTHUSIASM (6)

By: Michele Carlo
October 22, 2024

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of favorite horror movies. Series edited by Heather Quinlan.

THE EXORCIST | d. WILLIAM FRIEDKIN | 1973

The girl onscreen looked about my age, and terrible things had been happening to her for what seemed like forever. Bruises. Levitating. Unorthodox use of a crucifix. And when she spun her head around, screaming, “Your mother sucks cocks in hell!” we, the feral children who had made the long trek “downtown” to Manhattan, sneaking on the #6 train from The Bronx, cheered. It was a cold, cold Sunday after Christmas 1973, and we were in the front row of a packed movie theater watching The Exorcist.

The seats were accidental—we had been waiting on line for hours and those were the only ones left. There were seven of us: Big Lisa, Little Lisa, Nicole, Dawn, Janey, MayRee and me. We were 12, 13, 14, and going-on-15. The movie was rated R so none of us should have been there, but they let us in anyway, even though the oldest, Big Lisa, was three weeks away from turning 15. But she was tall with a full-grown woman’s body, so maybe the ticket person thought she was our “guardian.”

Had we been older, we probably would have needed a drink (or three) afterwards. But most of us wouldn’t taste beer or smoke weed till the following summer, so we had no way to process what we saw except by laughing, hysterically and inappropriately, every time something gross happened. The levitation: Bwahhh! The crucifix scene: Bwaaahaha! The barf and head spin: BWAAAHAHAHA!

The Exorcist was a big deal at the time. It had come out the day after Christmas and had a LOT of press (not that we read any). According to The New York Times, “…a number of moviegoers vomited… Others fainted or left the theater… Several people had heart attacks…. One woman even had a miscarriage.” Also, reportedly, an usher at one theater fell under a subway train and lost an arm.

As for us, the formerly feral children screaming for blood while barfing hot chocolate? Were we scarred for life? NO! It was the 1970s, any day could scar you. And until we stopped going to movies as a group somewhere around the time some went to college (and some didn’t), we always went to see scary movies together. Maybe there’s something about safety in numbers, sharing the fright in the dark, laughing when you barf. Maybe that is what exorcises the darkness inside you, so it doesn’t remain.

But what do I know… *

*I only remember what I think I remember. Because when I picked The Exorcist for this series, I asked the friends I’m still in touch with about what they remember. We all agreed on the wait in the cold and the front row seats, but two said they didn’t laugh and watched the movie with their hands over their faces; one remembered someone barfing but not who; and another said she did the sign of the cross the entire time. So, was I was the only deranged one who thought The Exorcist was kinda funny?

BWAAAHAHAHA!

***

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

SCREAM YOUR ENTHUSIASM (6)

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