On December 26, 1973, people stood in freezing lines around city blocks to see a film already famous for making audiences faint, vomit and flee the theater. This deep dive examines how The Exorcist went from a commercially disappointing novel, rescued by William Peter Blatty's serious late-night talk show discussion about the devil, to a cultural phenomenon. It covers the casting battles with Warner Bros., who pushed Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Audrey Hepburn and Jane Fonda, while Blatty and director William Friedkin insisted on unknowns like playwright and former theology student Jason Miller to preserve documentary realism, and the search for a twelve-year-old who could handle the material, which ended with Linda Blair.

The episode details the hidden performers behind the possessed Regan, including Mercedes McCambridge, wh ...