How making The Exorcist was scarier than the movie itself

In 1973, William Friedkin shocked audiences around the globe with The Exorcist, a horror film that remains iconic to this day thanks to its terrifying storyline and gory nature.

The filmmaker died aged 87 at his Los Angeles home on Monday 7 August, but he leaves behind a lasting legacy as one of the most influential horror auteurs the world has seen.

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It follows Regan (Linda Blair), a teenage girl who becomes possessed by a demon after playing with a ouija board and whose mother enlists the helps of priests to exorcise her of said creature, only for things to take on increasingly horrific turns as they attempt to do so.

From spinning heads to profanity-laden demonic rants, The Exorcist has paved the way for the genre for years to come, with sequel Exorcist: The Believer out now in cinemas. While the original film was scary for viewers to watch, the making of the film was not devoid of its own share of horrors.

How the making of The Exorcist was scarier than the film itself

Friedkin was said at times to be a terrifying presence on set in his own right, sometimes he would slap actors before takes so they would look angry, in others he would shoot a live gun in order to make their shocked expressions seem genuine.

He also insisted the set was refrigerated for the film's exorcism scenes so that the cast's breath was visible on camera, adding to the horrifying nature of the movie.

All of this led to the director being called a "maniac" by actor Ellen Burstyn, per The Independent, who played Regan's mother Chris MacNeil in the horror flick.

The director's unusual tactics aside, when The Exorcist was being filmed there were a number of strange occurrences that happened on set -as well as some that happened afterwards- that has led to the popular belief that the movie was cursed.

One such instance saw the set of the MacNeil home catch fire and burn down with the exception of Regan's bedroom, which was untouched by the flames. It was an uncanny event and led to production being shut down for six weeks.

In the end Jesuit priest Father Thomas Bermingham, who was a technical advisor on the film and also appears in it, agreed to perform a blessing on set as a means of settling apparent malignant spirits after a request from Friedkin.

In addition, there were a number of crew members who suffered injuries during filming, but the most famous of them happened to Burstyn.

Read more: Actors who were injured on Oscar-winning movies

Burstyn suffered a permanent spinal injury whilst filming a scene where her character was thrown from her daughter's bed, the rigging that she was attached to had pulled on her harder than expected which meant that when she fell on the ground the actor hurt her back severely.

The horrifying scream that Burstyn elicits in this scene was a real reaction to the pain of her injury, and Friedkin kept it in the movie.

In an interview with The Huffington Post in 2014, Burstyn said of the scene: "Billy is one of those directors that is so dedicated to getting the shot right that I think some other considerations sort of fall by the wayside sometimes. He's a brilliant director and I don't want to knock him, however, I did injure my lower back and had to work with it ever since. But it's okay."

Elsewhere there were a total of nine people involved in the film who died either during production or after the film was released, including Blair's grandfather and actors Jack MacGowran and Vasiliki Maliaros.

The Exorcist became the first horror film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture in 1973, and though it lost out to The Sting it will continue to be seen as one of the most influential films ever made.

A sequel titled The Exorcist: Believer, directed by David Gordon Green, is out now in cinemas across the UK, but critics have said it pales in comparison to the original.

Watch the trailer for The Exorcist: Believer