Regan…

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Demons can fly… Pazuzu… Has wings… As does Regan’s lion… They are quintessentially… Denizens of the air… You may be able to feel them… Coming… In the film… You can certainly… Hear them… The first shot we see of Georgetown, America… Is the local church… Where a statue of the Virgin Mary… Has been vandalised… Specifically, sexualised… It is a shocking image… Possibly… Despite all the later gore… The most shocking… Even back then… It arrested the thought process… And defied… A resolution… Now, it is clear… It is innocence… That is being defiled… The innocence… Of children.

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We were little more than children… Ourselves… When we subjected… Ourselves… To this horror… Peer pressure… Media hype… The latest industry machines… Affordable to some… Even on our street… The Exorcist… Was probably designated… A video nasty… At the time… It is far from that… It is a classic… But were we ready to watch it… At our age?… Clearly not… Which is why we spent… Most of the film… Under the covers… Film actor, Burke Denning… Is the child rapist… He gets knocked back… By Regan’s mother… And takes his revenge… On her daughter… He is the first victim… Of the Demon…

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The charge against organised religion… Is more subtly made… For the Catholic Priests… Are, after all… Trying to save Regan… From the clutches… And ravages of the Demon… The denouement of the film… Has the Demon transferred… Into the body of… Father Kallas… Clever huh?… Who, when he realises… Manages to throw himself… Down the steps… Outside Regan’s window… To his death… But the clincher…  Is perhaps the other… Utterly horrific moment in the film… Which has… A possessed Regan… Violently mutilating her genitals… With a crucifix!… Symbolically, could anything be clearer?