Credit: Dangerous Minds / Warner Bros.

The Exorcist was so brutally terrifying for audiences that it caused countless cinemagoers to faint in the movie theatre during its initial release in 1973.

A cursory watch of William Friedkin’s masterpiece in 2026 shows that this is a completely understandable and believable reaction to the movie. Even when its signature scenes have been referenced and parodied to the point of cultural ever-presence, it’s still absurdly frightening. It’s hard enough to watch scenes like the spiderwalk, Father Karras’ nightmare and the climactic exorcism even after watching it being parodied a million times over, let alone if you absolutely had no idea of what’s coming next.

However, the truth of the matter is slightly more complicated than that. While The Exorcist terrified audiences, no doubt about it, but the part that made people pass out was none of the iconic scares. Instead, it was the scene ithat sees Reagan Macneill undergo a carotid arterial puncture as part of her mother’s attempts to find out what’s wrong with her, a medical procedure which sees the patient get their spinal fluid drained via a lumbar puncture.

The visceral, disturbingly realistic depiction of the medical procedure was by far the biggest cause of fainting and vomiting in The Exorcist and for good reason, too. In fact, it’s the only part of the film that gets scarier over time. There’ll be a time when we look back at the flashes of Pazuzu and find them quaint, but they will also be a reminder of how brutal surgery used to be. What’s more, there’s one person in those scenes that’s scarier than any demon you can possibly think of.

After all, one of the extras was actually responsible for at least one murder shortly after the film was released.

Part of Friedkin’s commitment to realism in the hospital scene was hiring real-life medical professionals to act as supporting performers in it. At the time, Paul Bateson was a radiographer and appeared on the scene, yet within a few years, he had lost his job due to a severe drinking problem. Bateson, who was known to be openly gay, coped with the loss of his job by cruising in several New York City gay bars, where he met the Variety journalist Addison Verrill.

The day after they met, Verrill was found beaten and stabbed to death in his apartment. Arthur Bell, reporter for the Village Voice, covered the story and theorised that since there’d been no sign of a break-in, Verrill had invited his assailant back to his apartment. In a moment so terrifying that it could be its own horror picture, Bell received a call from Bateson, who said he’d thoroughly enjoyed his writing about his work, but wanted to set the record straight about why he killed Verrill. After all, in his mind, the article made him sound like a psychopath. According to Bateson, he wasn’t one.

Which is a pretty surefire sign that someone is a psychopath, especially when they readily admit that when someone makes it clear that they want nothing more than a one-night stand with you, you beat them with a frying pan, then stab them in the chest to make sure they don’t survive the ordeal. Bell, obviously, contacted the police after this conversation, and Bateson was arrested shortly afterwards. He seemed like he knew what was coming, and despite trying to change his story just before his trial began, he confessed to the murder at the police station.

There were also six other murders carried out in the New York City gay scene when Bateson was a free man, which have been theorised to have been committed by someone with a medical background. The prosecution tried to pin these murders on Bateson as well, but no further charges were ever brought against him.

Bateson was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released in 2003, with his whereabouts unknown ever since. While it has been speculated that he died in 2012, nothing has ever been 100 per cent confirmed.

Just another curse inflicted on the production of The Exorcist.