Today is the perfect time to remember William Friedkin’s classic 1973 horror film, The Exorcist. Featuring a Jesuit priest’s battle against a demonic possession, the film stars alumnus Jason Miller, ’61, H’73 and is based on the novel by William Peter Blatty. The film would earn Jason Miller an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and Blatty a win for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The Exorcist was largely inspired by The Earling Possession Case of 1928, an exorcism conducted by Father Theophilus Riesinger in Earling, Iowa and detailed in 1932 by Rev. F.J. Bunse, S.J. Although copies are extremely scarce, one of two is preserved here at the University.
