This Film's Crap, Let's Slash The Seats, Pt.2

For some a trip to the cinema is all about popcorn and sitting in seat 2K. For others, it's all about fire, fistfights and nude satanic rituals.

The Exorcist
Place: Chicago/Berkeley/Boston/Oakbrook
Time: December 24th-31st, 1973
”My janitors are going crazy cleaning up the vomit,” howled Oakbrook, Illinois, cinema manager Frank Kveton as William Friedkin’s terrifying drama made made its big-screen bow. “The staff have the smelling salts ready at all times.”
The pea-soup spraying stunts of Regan MacNeil flipped stomachs the length and breadth of North America; there was even talk of the film inducing heart attacks.
But stranger things than cardiac arrests occurred in American movie theatres during The Exorcist’s first week on release. In Berkeley, a man rushed the screen trying to ‘save’ Regan from the demon and was carted off to hospital after severely injuring his arm. Meanwhile, a screening in Chicago was interrupted by a half-dozen men disrobing in front of the screen and pledging allegiance to Pazuzu.
It was in Toronto, however, that crowd reaction reached truly ridiculous proportions with four patrons being admitted to a mental hospital after their trip to the local kino. And the reason for their sudden confinement? Suspected demonic possession.