Why 'The Exorcist' Endures

Halloween seems like the right day for a confession: I’m a little obsessed with The Exorcist. The obsession began in fear. The very idea of demonic possession terrified me when I first became aware of it; joking references by a classmate at my (Catholic) grade school to the 1973 movie only redoubled my terror. I spent many years thereafter trying to avoid the movie’s long, infernal shadow in popular culture.