This Banned 'Exorcist' Trailer Is Still Pretty Terrifying
When it was released in 1973, The Exorcist became an unprecedented horror movie phenomenon: A film that made its first audience members faint, vomit, scream, and flee in terror from theaters (though they didn’t flee far, since The Exorcist quickly became one of the highest-grossing films of all time). As it happens, the film’s visceral effect on audiences began not on opening night, but with a teaser trailer so jarring, it was immediately pulled from theaters. Watch it above (unless you’re prone to seizures, in which case definitely skip this one).
Related: Watch the First ‘Exorcist’ Audiences Get Scared Out of Their Minds
The surprisingly experimental trailer is mostly a series of demonic, black-and-white images, which flash in time to the film’s original score by Lalo Schifrin. According to a Score Magazine interview with Schifrin, “The people who saw the trailer reacted against the film, because the scenes were heavy and frightening, so most of them went to the toilet to vomit. The trailer was terrific, but the mix of those frightening scenes and my music, which was also a very difficult and heavy score, scared the audiences away.”
Related: The Real Stories Behind All Those Exorcism Movies
The reaction to the trailer not only caused it to be pulled from theaters, but unfortunately, it cost Schifrin a job. The composer’s atonal score, only partially written, was axed by director William Friedkin after the trailer premiered in theaters. (Rumor has it that Friedkin literally threw the music out the window.) The final film score was written instead by Mike Oldfield, and included the eerie, now-classic theme song “Tubular Bells.”
(h/t Dangerous Minds)
Image: AP Photo/Warner Bros. Entertainment
