Green Pea Soup

Mary and I went to see the new movie, The Exorcist, at a jam-packed theater in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas.  The line waiting to buy tickets for the movie looked as if it went on forever.  There were no multiple screened theaters in those days.  There was one screen per theater location.  Somehow, all of these people, including us, were going to squeeze into this theater.  We were in about the middle of the line, so I knew that we would get in.

No families were waiting to see this movie.  There were no older folks in the line either.  The attendees were all young, late teens up to about thirty-something.  It was a Saturday night, so there were a lot of couples in line.  People were talking excitedly about what they were going to see.  I didn't know, but the movie was being advertised everywhere, and there were many news stories about not only the movie but also the crowds flocking to see it.  That made it interesting.  Mary had read the book, but she wasn't giving me any hints about it.  

When the theater opened, there was a big push and a lot of noise from the excitement of the crowd

The Demon

hustling to seats.  We were sitting in about the middle of the place.  Right before the lights went out, I turned to look behind me at the crowd.  Every seat in the place was taken, even the nosebleed section of the first 2 rows.  Later on,  some people were going to be sorry that they sat there.

Mary went back up to get us drinks right before the movie started.  The snack bar had been too crowded earlier, with people buying popcorn and candy.  Some of those folks would regret their purchases later on.

In 1974 this movie was groundbreaking.  Scary movies up to that point had been pretty wimpy.  The technology was not very developed at that time.  Everything was pretty low-tech.  I had no expectations for the movie; I really thought it might be cheesy like most of the flicks in that era.  But I was open-minded.

The movie starts out a little slow, but they had to set up the plot.  Everything was status quo until after Linda Blair peed on the floor at a cocktail party in front of her mom's friends.  She was like 12 and peeing on the floor.  What was that about?  The movie continued building and setting up the plot.  The daughter was developing behavioral problems.  She was becoming a problem child.  So her mom takes her to doctors and shrinks and has her tested for mental disorders.   Her mom is terrified because the child is only getting worse, but we don't know how much worse she is.  Not yet.

As a last resort,  her mom begs a young priest to come to her home and see the child.  He didn't want to, but he did because she was so upset.  We, the audience, haven't seen the daughter Reagen in a while, she was the object of conversation, but they were not showing her.  

When the priest goes to the house and sees the kid for the first time, it is the first time the audience has seen her in a while. With his entrance into the bedroom,  the entire movie industry for scary movies is reborn.  People lost their minds when they saw her.  Good God, she was scary looking.  When she turned her head completely around 360 degrees. People in the audience started screaming.  There were many Spanish speaking people at this screening, and people behind us were yelling in Spanish and "crossing" themselves.  I just had my mouth hung open, and my eyes were bugging out.  Mary was laughing at me.

When the demon puked, retching green puke all over the priest, pandemonium erupted in the theater.  Some people were gagging and retching along with her, some threw up, some left the theater.  There was no more eating popcorn and candy.  It was vile.  There had NEVER been a movie like that before.  No movie had ever been so graphic.  It was brilliant, even if it did make me a little queasy.    Once the initial shock and gag reflexes had passed, Mary and I started laughing.  Not at the movie. at the audience reactions.  It was kind of a nervous laugh because we really didn't know what we might see after that.

The movie did not disappoint.  For that time so long ago, it was fantastic.  We were going to go and eat dinner after it was over, but we changed our minds.  We talked and laughed about it on the drive home.  It was going to be one of those movies that you had to see more than one time.

And there would be a couple of follow-up movies, but nothing could match the original.  Nothing.  I'm so glad that we went.

Maybe they will remake it with modern 3D puke scenes and super technology.  That would be great.  If you were around back then and saw it, I bet you are thinking about it right now in living color.