When "The Exorcist" first hit theaters in 1973, the film drew its share of extreme reactions from viewers, with several news stations reporting that a few audience members became nauseous or even fainted while watching the horror flick. To create a film so viscerally unsettling, Friedkin employed all sorts of visual chicanery, including several new tricks that would forever change the horror genre. Besides layering in a tapestry of unsettling sounds (like industrial noise and buzzing bees), Friedkin peppered the film in post production with brief flashes of a pale demonic face, adding to the film a near-subliminal sense of dread.
Today's audiences, of course, can easily pause the film on their streaming box of choice and get an up-close look at the demon's white face, red lips, and dark eyes; back when the film was originally released, these frames were nearly impossible to consciously perceive.
In a 2012 interview, Friedkin explained that the face was that of Linda Blair's demonic stand-in, noting that while he did not love the overall look of the makeup, he became convinced that the effect could be ghoulishly chilling in miniscule doses, resulting in a sense of subconscious terror.
This semi-subliminal imagery would serve as rocket fuel for the Satanic Panic, with fundamentalist preacher Billy Graham denouncing the film as "obnoxious, repulsive, disgusting, pornographic, and obscene." Of course, such comments ultimately only helped sell more tickets.
