‘The Exorcist’ Director William Friedkin Fired a Gun Off Screen to Get Terrified Reactions on Camera

You can’t write a list of the best horror movies ever made without including The Exorcist. The 1973 classic invented a new language to scare viewers that is still influential to this day. Regan’s torment under demonic possession is deeply disturbing to watch, and stories about how the movie was made are similarly unnerving.

Many directors have been known to use intense and bizarre methods to derive great performances out of their actors, but few have done what William Friedkin did during the production of The Exorcist: fire a gun off-screen during takes. 

The move got the desired effect, but the story is emblematic of the chaos that went into the making of a seminal film. 

Friedkin went to disturbing lengths to get what he wanted from the cast

Friedkin was one of the most exciting young directors of his time. 1970’s The Boys in the Band turned heads as one of the first major American movies to center around gay characters, and his follow-up, The French Connection, won five Academy Awards, including Best Director.

The Exorcist was a provocative leap forward for him, and Freidkin used deeply problematic measures to push his cast to the limit. Shooting a gun to shock Ellen Burstyn and co into making a better movie is some galaxy-brain derangement, but the director defended his thinking in an interview with The Quietus.

“Never with bullets, just blanks,” assured Friedkin before explaining that he was inspired by former directors who also used weapons to control the set. 

“I remember reading about it when I was just starting out. There was an article in Life magazine about George Stevens doing it on the set of The Diary Of Anne Frank to get a reaction from people in this house that there was a Nazi occupation. It is very difficult to ask actors in film technique to go from a dead start and to create surprise or fear or shock. It’s very difficult. Most often it looks corny or unbelievable or like overacting. So as a film director you will utilize certain techniques to simulate the actions … that are real. It was overstated in the documentary [The Fear Of God: 25 Years Of The Exorcist]. They make much too much of it, naturally, because it sticks out like a sore thumb, so a lot of people ask me about it.”

Friedkin’s probably not the person who gets to decide if his strategy was over the top or not, but that wasn’t the only wild story about how The Exorcist was made. 

The making of ‘The Exorcist’ was filled with tension and tragedy

The production was a physical and emotional ordeal for everyone involved. In addition to worrying if an errant gunshot may go off if you’re not appropriately fearful, Burstyn and Linda Blair both injured their backs as a result of reckless filmmaking. Blair was also freezing during the famous levitation scene since the room had four air conditioners blasting so that each actor’s breath could be seen on camera. 

This is only the tip of the iceberg for weird events tied to The Exorcist. Nine members of the cast and production team died during filming. A studio fire damaged most of the sets – except for Regan’s bedroom, which somehow survived without a scratch. 

Most disturbing of all, Paul Bateson, a radiology technician that appears in the movie, was eventually convicted of murdering film journalist Addison Verrill and spent 24 years in jail. No wonder some consider The Exorcist to be a cursed movie. 

The tawdry stories have not diminished the film’s legacy in any way

None of these stories have done much to lessen The Exorcist’s standing in pop culture. If anything, controversy has only served to build its legend. The film’s initial showing in theatres was emboldened by reports of people fainting and vomiting during some of the more extreme scenes, as well as the pushback from religious figures angered by the movie’s commentary on Catholicism. 

The Exorcist was the highest-grossing R-rated horror movie – without even adjusting for inflation – until 2017. (The record was broken by the 2017 adaptation of It.) The film was also one of the rare scary movies to earn respect at the Oscars. It was the first of its genre to be nominated for Best Picture and won for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound. 

The legacy of The Exorcist is most tarnished by the sequels and the TV spinoff, most of which are better left unseen. Another reboot is on the horizon in 2023. The untitled movie is directed by David Gordon Green, who co-wrote the screenplay with Peter Sattler.