Villian(s)  Demonic possession

Actor(s):  Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Winn

Brief Description  The Exorcist (1973) is a cinematic landmark directed by William Friedkin and produced/written by William Peter Blatty, who adapted his own best-selling 1971 novel. Widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential supernatural horror films ever made, the movie explores themes of faith, guilt, and maternal love through the harrowing lens of a 12-year-old girl's demonic possession.

Plot:
The film opens at an archaeological dig in Al-Hadr, Iraq. The elderly Father Merrin unearths an ancient amulet of Saint Joseph alongside a small stone statue of Pazuzu, an ancient Mesopotamian demon. After experiencing ominous portents—including a confrontation with a giant statue of the demon and feral dogs fighting—Merrin senses that an old adversary has returned and a spiritual showdown is imminent. In the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., actress Chris MacNeil is filming a movie. Her daughter, Regan, discovers a Ouija board in the house and claims to be communicating with an imaginary friend she calls "Captain Howdy." Soon after, strange occurrences plague the household: unexplained noises echo from the attic, and Regan begins exhibiting uncharacteristic behavior, including violent mood swings, bed-thrashing, and extreme profanity .During a crowded party hosted by Chris, a sleepwalking Regan enters the living room, ominously tells an astronaut guest, "You're gonna die up there," and urinates on the floor.

Chris takes Regan to a series of medical specialists. Regan undergoes an agonizing battery of tests, including a painful cerebral angiogram. The doctors are completely baffled as her physical state dramatically deteriorates. Regan begins levitating, speaking in demonic tongues, displaying superhuman strength, and self-mutilating .Meanwhile, Chris's close friend and director, Burke Dennings, is found dead at the bottom of a steep flight of stone steps outside the house, his neck violently twisted. Detective Kinderman investigates the death, suspecting a homicide, and notices that the crime scene is tied intimately to the MacNeil home. Exhausting all neurological and psychiatric explanations, the desperate medical doctors suggest that Chris seek spiritual assistance—specifically, an exorcism—hypothesizing that a religious ritual might act as a psychological placebo for Regan's delusional state.

Chris turns to Father Karras, a local Jesuit psychiatrist. Karras initially refuses, approaching the case with scientific skepticism and asserting that the Catholic Church rarely sanctions exorcisms anymore. However, upon interviewing the creature inside Regan, his skepticism begins to fracture. The entity speaks backwards, knows details about Karras’s late mother, and displays supernatural awareness. When Karras discovers the words "Help Me" physically branding themselves onto Regan’s stomach skin, he formally requests permission from the Church to perform the ancient rite. Recognizing the extreme danger, the Bishop summons the experienced Father Merrin to lead the ritual, with Karras acting as his assistant.

The climax of the film takes place inside Regan’s heavily frozen bedroom. Merrin and Karras relentlessly chant the Roman Catholic Rite of Exorcism ("The power of Christ compels you!") while the demon, Pazuzu, retaliates with absolute psychological and physical terror. The entity levitates the bed, projectile-vomits green bile, mocks Karras’s guilt over his mother's death, and physically morphs Regan's face into a monstrous visage. Exhausted by the intense spiritual and physical strain, Father Merrin suffers a fatal heart attack mid-ritual. Karras finds Merrin's body, and in a fit of rage and despair, attacks the possessed Regan. He beats the entity and demands: "Take me! Choose me!" The demon obliges, transferring its consciousness into Karras. In a brief, final moment of lucidity, Karras regains control of his body and sacrifices himself, throwing himself out of the bedroom window and tumbling down the steep stone steps outside to his death.

With the demon banished, Regan is completely restored to her normal, sweet self, remembering absolutely nothing of the traumatic ordeal. Chris and a healed Regan pack up their belongings to leave Georgetown behind forever. Before they depart, Chris gives Father Karras’s silver medallion to his grieving friend, Father Dyer, closing the film on a bittersweet note of spiritual redemption. Upon its release on December 26, 1973, The Exorcist became an absolute cultural phenomenon. It grossed over $428 million worldwide, adjusting to one of the highest-grossing films in cinema history. Audiences famously experienced intense physiological reactions, including fainting and vomiting, prompting many theaters to deploy paramedics.