If you look around Youtube I think you can find a video which was a news report back then, which, while not actually showing anybody fainting, does say that people did, and there are interviews with people coming out of the theater and talking about how disturbing the whole thing was.

I was a child at the time, but I do recall one of my older brother's friends trying to see it at the theater but being so freaked out he left in the middle. This was an extroverted teenage boy who wound up becoming a marine, so if he couldn't take it, it must have been something to see (I myself have seen it, but I didn't until maybe the last 5 years or so, and of course seeing it now at home probably isn't quite the same.)

My sister went and saw it. I so distinctly remember. She slept between my mum and dad for at least two weeks. I haven't seen it, and I doubt I ever will...

My mother says they did. I can only imagine how much more effective the film is when projected onto a big screen in front of you. My mother was also scared by the book by William Peter Blatty (RIP). I was just a child when the film came out, and my mother said that one night, I had something called projectile vomiting, which is quite similar to what the girl Regan does in the film. The horror!!!!!!!

@Satch_the_man said:

My mother says they did. I can only imagine how much more effective the film is when projected onto a big screen in front of you. My mother was also scared by the book by William Peter Blatty (RIP). I was just a child when the film came out, and my mother said that one night, I had something called projectile vomiting, which is quite similar to what the girl Regan does in the film. The horror!!!!!!!

Yeah but you probably didn't vomit up thick green slime in a priest's face. LOL

What honestly shocked me the most when I finally saw the movie was the language coming out of 12-year-old Linda Blair's mouth. Although a lot of the time when it got REALLY bad it wasn't actually her, she was dubbed by Mercedes McCambridge, I think, but Linda did the notorious crucifix masturbation scene and just that she DID it physically was disturbing even if she didn't actually say the line. And the dialogue the demon uses with the priests is just awful.

As for the book - I am afraid of THAT. I started to read it once after seeing the movie, but I decided to just back out because it really could lead to trouble sleeping more than a movie would for me.

@jann said:

@Satch_the_man said:

My mother says they did. I can only imagine how much more effective the film is when projected onto a big screen in front of you. My mother was also scared by the book by William Peter Blatty (RIP). I was just a child when the film came out, and my mother said that one night, I had something called projectile vomiting, which is quite similar to what the girl Regan does in the film. The horror!!!!!!!

Yeah but you probably didn't vomit up thick green slime in a priest's face. LOL

You are right! I didn't. Ha, ha.

I agree that the language was shocking, especially when I first saw the movie at 12 or 13. I'd never heard anything so explicit or seen anything like The Exorcist before. At the time, it was the most shocking, most horrifying movie I had seen. I remember my brother was afraid to go down to his room in the basement that night, not before saying a lot of prayers!

I've read the book too. My parents couldn't get through it, it was too much for them. They told me my uncle was reading it and threw it across the room!

jann said: What honestly shocked me the most when I finally saw the movie was the language coming out of 12-year-old Linda Blair's mouth. Although a lot of the time when it got REALLY bad it wasn't actually her, she was dubbed by Mercedes McCambridge, I think, but Linda did the notorious crucifix masturbation scene and just that she DID it physically was disturbing even if she didn't actually say the line. And the dialogue the demon uses with the priests is just awful.

I remember news reports at the time that not only was Linda Blair dubbed but that it wasn't her in a lot of the possession scenes.

The only thing that really shocked me was the spider walk. It seems so unnatural and just plain creepy. I would say that was the scariest scene in any horror film for me.