The Fear of God: 25 Years of 'The Exorcist'

[first lines]

Mark Kermode:
Twenty-five years ago, an extraordinary movie changed the face of modern cinema. I was eleven years old when "The Exorcist" opened in America on Boxing Day, 1973. And I can remember like yesterday the amazing reaction it caused. You couldn't open a newspaper or turn on the television without coming across some account of audiences queuing all night 'round the block just to see the film, only to dash out of the theaters, some of them straight into the nearest church.

William Friedkin:
Jane Fonda, she said, "Why would I want to be involved with a capitalist rip-off piece of sh*t like this?" She was in her anti-Vietnam phase.

[last lines]

William Peter Blatty:
There is a power to move you and have a disturbing effect upon the viewer, which is greater than the sum of any of its parts. It's enormous and it's mysterious. But, my God, it's not a power of evil.