William Friedkin’s horror classic The Exorcist turns 50 years old here in 2023, and the film’s raw power is felt as much today as it was all those decades ago. One of the most enduring images of the 1973 masterpiece is the face of the demon Pazuzu, played by Eileen Dietz.
The image flashes on the screen multiple times throughout The Exorcist, turning Dietz into something of a horror icon in her own right. All these years later, rare footage from those Pazuzu makeup tests has surfaced, and it’s been shared by Paul Davis on social media.
Davis, who directed Beware the Moon: Remembering An American Werewolf in London as well as the films The Body and Uncanny Annie (both part of Blumhouse’s anthology series “Into the Dark”), has shared a brief snippet of what he calls the “holy grail of outtakes from The Exorcist,” and he promises that more of the unearthed footage is coming soon.
“I’ll be releasing a commentary video over Halloween that includes 10mins of unseen outtakes and the full 2min makeup test that was eventually used as the iconic face,” he writes.
As Davis explains, the face that became Pazuzu in Friedkin’s terrifying classic originally began as a makeup test for the possessed Regan MacNeil, and the footage from that rejected makeup test ended up being spliced back into the movie. The rest, as they say, is horror history.
“This is a very early makeup test for Regan, worn by Eileen Dietz and applied by Dick Smith. Director William Friedkin didn’t think that the makeup was organic in terms of what is described as Regan’s physical appearance in the script,” Paul Davis explains.
His tweet thread continues, “Nearly a year later, editor Bud Smith came across the reel and spliced two frames into the sequence in which Father Karras dreams of his mother. Friedkin found the effect so startling that he not only added another clip from the makeup test in the exorcism sequence (overlapped with the dummy of Linda Blair), but he had Dietz get back into this makeup to add another flash of the demon as Regan writhes around in the bed.”
Dietz ended up playing not only the face of Pazuzu in the finished movie, but she also doubled for Linda Blair during key sequences that required too much of the young actress.
Check out the footage below and expect more from Paul Davis soon.
Here is a snippet of the holy grail of outtakes from THE EXORCIST. I’ll be releasing a commentary video over Halloween that includes 10mins of unseen outtakes and the full 2min makeup test that was eventually used as the iconic “Captain Howdy” face. pic.twitter.com/iHgm5I4QMQ
— Paul Davis (@The_Kesslerboy) October 4, 2023
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