2) The Exorcist – Pazuzu Flash
For me to choose one scary scene from The Exorcist is like choosing my favorite aspect of bacon (it’s bacon, I love the entirety of it). So to say one scene is scarier than the other in a movie that is, frankly, filled with scares, is tough.
At first, I thought my vote might go to the scene when Regan talks to the priest as his dead mother, or the “crabwalk scene” from the re-release, which was also creepy as hell. But, the clincher for me was those very subliminal shots we would get of Pazuzu, the demon who was actually inside the little girl.
The funny part is, you can tell it is just some basic face paint, fake eyes and fake teeth when they flash the demon, but even in a still frame, as seen above, it is incredibly effective (AKA scary as fuck). At least for me, anyway. Sometimes, when I want to be scared, my mind will just flash that face into my head and it will be like an instant horror fix.
On the other extreme, the headspin scene was always ridiculous to me (possession doesn’t mean that the basic laws of how bones work change) and the vomit scene I’ve always found hilarious. So in the end, Pazuzu wins.
