Click here to read about the re-release of The Exorcist.

"...no mere words can do justice to the incredible impact of this powerful movie experience; it is utterly shattering."

Aaron Schindler, Family Circle

"As film art, THE EXORCIST is a true film majesty and personally, the most handsome, awe-inspiring motion picture I've ever seen."

Tim Lucas, The Queen's Jester, Cincinnati

"THE EXORCIST is a movie that will haunt and finally take possession of you."

Kathleen Carroll, The New York Daily News

Learn more about the 11 minutes of restored footage cut from The Exorcist and now restored for the upcoming re-release of the film, including the infamous "Spider Walk" scene...

One of the most widely talked about "missing scenes" from The Exorcist is the eerie "Spider Walk" which appears in both Blatty's novel and screenplay, but which was never included in the finished film. According to the director William Friedkin, "It was quite early in the story, and we hadn't yet seen any of the massive manifestations that were to come. At that point in the narrative, I just thought it was too much."

The entire sequence was filmed however, on April 11th, 1973, as special effects man Marcel Vercoutere remembers:

"According to the script, Regan was supposed to be at the top of the stairs where she would turn over, like a crab, and walk down the stairs upside down, with her arms moving about like a spider. She would come all the way down the stairs, then run into the foyer, chasing after Sharon and Chris."

"Well, one of the New York people said they had figured a way to do this scene using a fishing pole and a rig. He went out and bought this very expensive, deep-sea fishing pole with a big giant reel. Then they got this gal [Linda R. Hager] who was a contortionist, and they turned her upside down and strapped this thing onto her. I told them it wouldn't work, but they didn't believe me, so this grip stood on the landing with this fishing pole, and the poor girl went down the stairs, and she crashed and got rapped pretty good!"

"So then I took over. I made a rig that was in the exact same position as the stairs, but up in the overhead. Then I put a carriage up there, put the girl into a harness, and connected them with flying wires. That way, she stayed perfectly level as she went down the stairs, and all she had to do was to let me know how high to have her so her hands and feet would just be touching the stairs."

"We shot it that way, until she got to the landing at the bottom of the stairs, then all I had to do was release the rig and let her loose. I would let her go at just the right moment, and she would turn over, out of the rig and then finish the shot the right way up. We did it quite a few times, and as I remember, every time we shot it, it came out pretty good."