07 MONITOR BY MICHELE BAZAN GIORDANO

EXORCIST HOUSE

'Exorcist House' in Washington D.C.'s Georgetown neighbourhood is built at the corner of 3600 Prospect Street and 36th Street NW. It hasn't changed much (except for the demolition of the top floor) since August 14, 1972, the year filming started on William Friedkin's iconic movie that came out the following year. Built in 1900 in a typically American neo-colonial style, it stands out for its red bricks covering both floors. You enter the house through a door flanked by a pair of eerie lampposts. Of course, the building has been tied up and protected behind a kind of black gate to shield the residents who’ve lived there since July 2003 from curious onlookers. In actual fact, the house was only used for the exterior shots of the film (the interiors with the darker scenes were shot in a New York studio).

A dark and ominous rear shot of the shadow cast by the exorcist priest (Max von Sydow), wearing a hat and carrying a bag as he walked toward the house from which an eerie yellowish light spills out, also featured on the movie’s advertising posters. This image has since come to symbolise the entire film: Friedkin said he was inspired by René Magritte's *The Empire of Lights*. In 1973  the little girl’s room (Linda Blair, then thirteen) was moved closer to the long external 73-step stairway outside the building; the stairs that Jason Miller (who one of the exorcist priests) fell down at the end of the film after failing on his mission.  'Exorcist House' is now a proud part of the National Film Registry in the U.S. Library of Congress. The story told in the film is based on the William Peter Blatty’s 1951 autobiography that refers to an exorcism on a 14-year-old boy that actually happened in 1949 in Cottage City, Maryland. Since 2015, even the stairway has been a “historic site and official city tourist attraction".

And what about the curses people talk about? Are they just coincidences? The fact is, Blair was threatened by religious fanatics who accused her of 'glorifying Satan,' so she was provided with a bodyguard; after two days of filming, a fire (from a short circuit) destroyed the interiors of the house with the incredible exception of the possessed girl’s room; an air-conditioning unit (it was August!) broke down (and the technician died soon after). In total, 9 people lost their lives during or immediately after filming: among them, von Sydow’s brother, Blair’s grandmother, and a technician’s baby. And actor Jack MacGowran died of flu’ at the age of just 55. Meanwhile, Ellen Burstyn, the mother of the possessed girl, was struck by severe rheumatic pain, and Blair herself suffered permanent spinal damage due to a malfunctioning of the ropes that tied her to the bed during her erratic movements inspired by Satan. Finally, Jason Miller's son (the exorcist who jumps out the window) died in a motorcycle accident while heading to the set to see his father… “Coincidences?” As Friedkin said: “Who knows?”. Meanwhile, the film won two Oscars and got 8 nominations in 1974. Michele Bazan Giordano