 
In the early 1970's, America wasn't
ready for the intensity of the subject matter
in "The Exorcist."
Starting on December 26, 1973.... there were reports of mass hysteria,
people being institutionalized,
and one reported miscarriage. William Peter Blatty had
unleashed a horror icon........
he had released......... "The Exorcist."
 
 
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 screen
play, but which was never included in the finished film. According to 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 this 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 then 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."
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