“Your mother would enter this Contest in Hell” Or words to that effect - The Exorcist (1973)

Being of a generation who wasn’t born soon enough to witness first hand the uproar this film got on its release, I first saw this film with the back story fully ingrained in my mind, just like the story of Mary and Joseph or the fact the sky is blue.

It starts off slow, with Eastern prologue type scenes similar to the Italy scenes in The Omen. Whether we needed these or not I don’t know, but they are there nonetheless. Regan is a troubled child, her mother, Chris and father are separated and she begins to display signs of depression. They hear strange sounds in upstairs rooms and one night Regan gets in to her mother’s bed complaining that her own bed was shaking. In another scene Regan interrupts a small party her mother is having one night, stands in the middle of the room, urinates then utters the dreaded words “You’re gonna die up there.” That night Chris discovers her daughter seemingly convulsing and her bed shaking and levitating. Regan reveals she has been playing with a Ouija board and claims she can talk to spirits. As I said the film starts off slow, letting you gather all the information needed then suddenly, the shocking possession shows itself.

This troubling behaviour continues and secretly Chris suspects her daughter may have killed one of her friends. Several painful tests later the doctors are none the wiser, at first thinking Regan has a lesion on her brain. Believing her symptoms to be psychosomatic, and after exhausting all other possibilities, one of the doctors suggest an exorcism. His idea is that if she believes she is possessed by a demon, she should also believe this will remove it from her body. In fact, I’ve seen many documentaries on this subject, where exorcisms are merely a procedure used to rid the patient of dark and destructive thoughts. The ritual is quite traumatic and in some cases causes the “evil” to leave the body by way of vomiting.

Just looking at stills from this film is frightening. I think this is because for the most part the scary scenes don’t rely on the jump factor. They are played out in real time with you, an innocent onlooker, letting these scenes creep up on you. The dreamlike feel makes this less of a scary film but more of an experience. You cannot watch The Exorcist and not be touched by the oppressive atmosphere or be inspired by its message of hope. So much history and rumour surround this movie, much of it probably made up but you wouldn’t be blamed for wanting desperately to believe, just as I do, that the film itself is so powerful and full of evil that it infected the world around it.

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So that brings us to contest time again. Yeah, I’m hawking something new. If you want the chance to win this piece of Exorcist artwork painted by moi, just follow these rules.

- Be or become a follower of Scare Sarah. Just click on the Follow button up top and sign in with your Google, Twitter or Yahoo details.

- Tell me some Exorcist trivia and post it in a comment below.

- For an extra entry, spread the word on Twitter or your blog or wherever. Just tell me where.

- One entry per person.

- Entries consent to their screen name being posted on this blog.

- Contest closes at 23:00 GMT on the 23 April 2010.

- Open internationally.

One winner will be selected at random and I will announce the result by the 26 April. God bless you, fingers crossed, touch wood.

*** This contest is now closed. Thanks ***