Why William Friedkin repeatedly fired a shotgun on the set of ‘The Exorcist’
While it is the task of every horror movie to instil fear and terror into its audience, some works seem to transcend the limits of the genre. They become interwoven with the history of pop culture itself, and William Friedkin’s 1973 classic The Exorcist has certainly achieved this latter accomplishment.
Based on the novel by William Peter Blatty, the film focuses on a young girl possessed by a demon and the attempts made by her mother and two Catholic priests to exorcise her. The movie remains one of the scariest of all time with its intense psychological horror and graphic depictions of demonic possession.
While The Exorcist has indeed scared the living Jesus of our audiences ever since it was first released, Friedkin still had to face the challenge of making his cast feel that same fear while they were on set. Many directors have gone to extreme lengths to get the best out of their actors, but few have gone full-Friedkin on The Exorcist.
In fact, the stories behind the making of the legendary horror film are nearly as terrifying as the movie itself and Friedkin, at one point, repeatedly fired a shotgun during takes. As if Ellen Burstyn and her co-stars needed any further motivation, the gunshots certainly seemed to get the desired effect of fear.
Oh, but thankfully, at least Friedkin justified his bizarre and extreme methods, telling The Quietus, “Never with bullets, just blanks”. He added, “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,” Friedkin continued. “It’s very difficult. Most often, it looks corny or unbelievable or like overacting. So as a film director, you will utilise certain techniques to simulate the actions… that are real.”
Friedkin argued that the press made too much of this gun-toting craziness on The Exorcist, and he was just doing what any old director would to get the best of his performers. Gunshots were not the only issue on set for the actors to deal with, though, as both Burstyn and Linda Blair suffered back injuries during filming, and Blair was actually frozen during the movie’s iconic levitation scene.
Throw in the fact that nine members of the cast and crew actually died during filming, a studio fire damaged much of the set, and a radiologist who appeared in the movie was convicted of murder, Friedkin’s trigger happiness suddenly looks like child’s play.
