The first major blockbuster in the history of horror cinema, William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973) has exerted a powerful influence on the subsequent development of the genre and on public reception of it. Never before had a horror film been the subject of so much prerelease hype, so much gossip about postproduction strife, so much speculation as to why people of all ages would stand in line for hours to watch something reputed to induce fits of vomiting, fainting, even temporary psychosis. The cultural impact of The Exorcist can hardly be overestimated: it challenged existing regulations specifying what was acceptable to show on the big screen, stole U.S. newspaper headlines away from the ongoing Watergate scandal (at least for a little while), led to a detectable increase in the number of "real-life" possessions reported, and, in the words of gross-out film expert William Paul, "established disgust...