The Exorcist House Washington, D C.
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Nonetheless, when it was first released on the big screen in 1973, it caused quite a stir. A troubled actor’s erratic behavior on a supernatural film set sparks concern for his daughter, who questions if his struggles stem from addiction or something more ominous. Friedkin, who died in August at age 87, said his first brush with “bad karma” during production came when the statue of Pazuzu — the film’s evil spirit — didn’t arrive in Mosul, Iraq, as planned. The prop, which was built in and shipped from Burbank, California, mysteriously wound up in faraway Denmark instead. Unfortunately for history buffs, the house was built in 1950 and is really just an ordinary house. In 1993, author Thomas B. Allen wrote a book on the story of Roland Doe’s exorcism called Possessed.
Washington, DC
A stuntman with a wire attached to Burstyn’s waist would then rapidly pull the actress toward the wall. A more treacherous delay happened later at 20th Century Fox’s then-studio on West 54th Street, where a fiery blaze enveloped the MacNeil house set in the early hours of the morning. Actors and crew members perished, a huge fire shut down production for more than a month and star Ellen Burstyn, who returns in the new film as Chris MacNeil, severely injured her back.
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Permission was obtained from the archbishop to perform another exorcism. Another priest was asked to assist, and he stated that marks inexplicably appeared on the boy’s body, along with words such as ‘evil’ and ‘hell’ – he also had his nose broken by Roland during the violent exorcism. It was 11 days after this strange activity had started that Roland’s Aunt Harriet passed away, that poltergeist activity began to be experienced in the home. It is said that in an attempt to contact his Aunt, Roland took to the Ouija board once more, and it was through this attempt at contact that he became possessed by a demonic spirit. The house used in the Exorcist movie is located at 3600 Prospect Street NW in Georgetown, Washington DC and is probably one of the most (in)famous movie locations in the history of cinema. And the 75 steep stairs right beside it, which lead down from Prospect to M Street, were actually designated a Historic Landmark in 2015.
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Hunkeler’s exorcism didn’t even take place in the house, but at a hospital in South St. Louis. “When you look at the levels of freedom throughout history, and even around the world today, this is the exception. This freedom is incredibly rare and the journalists in this room help protect that freedom, and we cannot ever take that for granted,” he added.
The scenes where the possessed Regan's head rotates so she appears to be looking directly backwards drew notice from audiences and critics. "All I can tell you is that the way you think I did it is not the way we did it," Friedkin told Castle of Frankenstein at the time.[28] Like the film's other special effects, it was performed live. While the movie was based on the 1971 novel by William Blatty, it was a real-life story that was the original inspiration for the chilling tale. Instead of a 12-year-old girl, it was a 14-year-old boy who was believed to have suffered from demonic possession, and 8435 Roanoke Dr. was his home during the peak of his bizarre activity.
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The priests — playing as the “Demons” — defeated the “Exorcists,” 45-44. Whether the child was actually possessed is still a matter of debate, but the fact that priests did perform the archaic ritual of the exorcism is not. Stafford, a real-estate investor who has never lived in the three-bedroom house, says he became aware of the "rumors" only after he purchased it out of bankruptcy this summer.
Said fence was closed when I stalked The Exorcist home, but I did find some Google Street View imagery in which it was open. As you can see below, despite the missing wing and mansard roof, the house is still very recognizable from its time onscreen. “Renting slip space in Oak Bluffs on the Vineyard, and in the Boat Basin on Nantucket, we would split the week fishing off each island, catching bluefish wherever we heard they were running,” wrote Mark, who now lives in Bethesda. Mark Koenig used to spend summers in his uncle’s house on Buzzards Bay in North Falmouth, Mass., where he and his cousin Dan had regular use of a 28-foot sport fishing boat.
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Most Embassy Row tours don’t venture far beyond Dupont Circle. This stretch of Massachusetts Avenue used to be called Millionaires Row where Gilded Age robber-barons built grand mansions. Today those mansions house most of Washington’s embassies, along with private clubs and statues of world heroes such as Mandela, Gandhi, and Churchill – and we will be right in the heart of it. If it was ever here at all, it could have been placed there just for the movie. The interior sequences of the psychiatric ward were captured at Goldwater Memorial Hospital, part of Coler Specialty Hospital. Once located at One Main Street on the south end of Roosevelt Island, the chronic care facility is now permanently closed.
It's a real home in a real neighborhood and I won't give the address here. I will share the Zillow listing that was made public for the home 4 years ago when it was on the market if you're curious though. The majority of the home was built separate from Regan’s bedroom where the exorcism takes place. Chillingly, the house was no more — but the site of the horrifying religious ritual survived.
The last person to occupy the residence, a man named Elvis Fantroy, left the building in June and hasn't been heard from since. "That's what they say," acknowledges Jean Kustura, a 72-year-old widow who for twenty years has kept watch over the north St. Louis County neighborhood from her bungalow on the other side of the infamous house. "But all of that happened back in the 1940s. I'm told the victim is still alive. He won't talk about it."
It was in White-Gravenor Hall in a New Testament class where Blatty first heard of the 1949 exorcism of Maryland boy Roland Doe and that sparked his interest in writing about the possession of Regan. And the infamous fall of Father Karras was influenced by Blatty watching one of his physics classmates take a hospitalizing tumble after trying to steal a final exam. The demon, he says, “gets Karras so angry he makes the ultimate mistake, which is to [goad the devil into taking] himself, not her.” I questioned him on this.
The 1973 horror classic The Exorcist was mainly filmed on soundstages in New York city, but there were several exteriors shot in Georgetown, where the film is set. The house where the possession takes place still stands, however a large fence runs in front of it now. The wing of the house which overlooks the infamous steps is noticeably absent, owing to the fact that it was only a facade built by the studio especially for the film.
“The Exorcism” is produced by “Scream” scribe Kevin Williamson, Ben Fast, and Bill Block. It wrapped filming in late 2019 but has been sitting on a shelf ever since. And Vasiliki Maliaros, who played the mother of Father Karras (Jason Miller), also passed away during production in February 1973 at age 89. Burstyn, who was 40 during the shoot, recalls being pushed to the brink filming the punishing sequence over and over again.
The house at 3600 Prospect Avenue was never used for interior shots − those were all done on a New York City soundstage. Watching the movie probably turned the fear of their own sexuality to terror. "If I masturbate, or if I'm gay, or if have sex with my fiance, or if I even think about it too much, I'm going to get possessed." It's not far from what the Church teaches even now. In researching this article I spoke to a practicing exorcist about current practice in what is now often called the “ministry of healing and deliverance.” He agreed to talk about his work but asked that his name and diocese not be used. And one weekend the set for the MacNeil home caught fire when no one was there, shutting the production down for weeks.
Other neighbors, including the couple across the street and several families living on adjacent blocks, are also quick to share the mysterious story of the house. Indeed, it seems the only people who aren't eager to recount the sordid tale are the home's current owner, Gary Stafford, and the real-estate agent trying to sell the house. So has "The Exorcist," which has terrified and disturbed audiences for decades with the story of the possession of young Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) and the exorcism by priests Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) and Father Karras (Jason Miller).
But every day the enormous interest pushed the film to more screens. In 1946, William Peter Blatty was a senior at the Jesuit-run Brooklyn Preparatory School. He was the class valedictorian, but had no thoughts of further education. “I was there on scholarship,” he said in interviews later. “College was out of the question as we couldn’t even afford to pay for the books.” In fact, for years he, his four siblings and his single mother had never lived at the same address for more than a couple months. “Eviction was the order of the day,” he told The Washington Post.
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