A DEMONIC HORROR WHICH MADE EVERYONE'S HEAD SPIN

It's regarded by many to be the scariest film of all time and 50 years on, The Exorcist retains the power to shock... but did the film curse its cast and crew?

- Dominic Bliss

AT ONE preview screening of The Exorcist in America in 1973, some viewers were so terrified that they screamed out loud and fled the theatre. When the film later went on general release, many cinema-goers fainted or vomited.

A woman in New York was said to have suffered a miscarriage, and there were several reports of heart attacks. The manager of a London cinema where a UK preview took place said: "At one stage the lounge looked like a casualty ward." The Exorcist, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on Boxing Day this year, is considered by many to be the scariest film of all time. Half a century on, the chilling story of a 12-year-old girl called Regan who is demonically possessed and forced to undergo an exorcism by two Catholic priests, still has the power to shock us deeply.

Directed by William Friedkin, who died in August, aged 87, it features nightmarish scenes where Regan projectile vomits while speaking in tongues, spins her head 180 degrees, and inflicts wounds on her face which turn gangrenous.

The film was banned by some local authorities. And certain religious groups were deeply offended by it.

But at the box office it was a sell-out. Hordes of fans with St John Ambulance ready to treat those suffering adverse reactions - queued up outside cinemas all over the country. One of them was Christopher Frayling, one of the UK's leading experts on horror films, and author of Vampire Cinema: The First One Hundred Years.

"I saw The Exorcist the first day it opened, in the Warner Cinema Leicester Square, in London," he tells the Daily Express.

"The cinema was packed full of anticipation after all the publicity. And I went with my brother, who is a priest, and who was wearing his clerical dog collar.