When it comes to horror classics, you have to tip your hat to William Friedkin’s 1973 film starring Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair and Max von Sydow’s “The Exorcist”, a movie that paved the way for many others across its time. The haunting story of a young girl possesed by the devil and a desperate mother seeking the help of a couple of priests to perform a demonic expunge sends shivers down your spine.
There’s a lot of fun facts and trivia about this movie worth mentioning, like Max von Sydow’s character was too shocked by Linda Blair’s dialogue during her demonic possession that he forgot his lines, or that due to Sydow’s portrayal of Father Merrin as an old man, it made it quite hard for him to land a role afterwards because the production team thought that he was too old, but he wasnt.
Rather than focusing on stuff like these interesting pieces and bits of trivia we’re going to shift gears and focus on another piece of trivia worth exploring when it comes to this horror classic, and those are its filming locations.
The Exorcist Filming Locations
The Exorcist was filmed between the United States in several locations and Mosul, Iraq. Filming locations were chosen between production designers William Petter Blatty, Noel Marshall and David Salven and Owen Roizman, the movie’s director of photography whose work in Academy Award-winning movie “The French Connection” makes this film an impeccable piece of cinema.
Mosul, Iraq
The film’s initial sequences take place at an actual archeological excavation site located in Mosul, Iraq. At the time, the United States and Iraq had no diplomatic relations whatsoever, and Warner Brothers Pictures was afraid that the filming crew might face some trouble while conducting their business there.
But director William Friedkin himself negotiated and bribed several Ba’ath Party officials to film the scenes there with Iraqis who were interested in filming. Because of the extreme temperatures, the filming took place between dusk and dawn for only a few hours.
Warner Bros. Studios At Burbank, California
Several indoor scenes were shot in Warner Bros. iconic studios in Burbank, California, a movie hub and cradle of cinema that for over a century has been the filming locations for iconic masterpieces like “Blade Runner”, “Tenet”, “Barbie” or “Ready Player One”.
New York City
Several indoor locations were shot in the Big Apple, New York City. The hospital scenes were shot at the famous Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. The interior shots of the MacNeil residence were shot at CECO Studios, and other indoor scenes were shot at a now-defunct studio on West 54th Street.
Furthermore, the iconic exorcism scenes were shot a a basement in Fordham University’s Keating Hall in Rose Hill. And the psychiatric ward scenes were shot inside the hallways of Goldwater Memorial Hospital at Coler Specialty Hospital on Roosevelt Island.
Washington DC
The Exorcist story takes place in Washington DC, but in fact, as we’ve seen, it was shot in several locations around the US. Still, a considerable number of indoor and outdoor scenes were filmed in the United States’s capital to give ambiance and a sense of horror to the movie.
The MacNeill residence, whose interiors were shot in NYC, had its exterior shots done at night in Georgetown, in a house that’s on Prospect Street, said house was modified exteriorly and the production team even made up a false wing to make the windows of Linda Blair’s character Regan look closer to the stairs. But that’s not all, they created a prop on the roof for a scene in which the attic is being searched.
Also, some scenes including a desecration, an interview in the office of the Archbishop and some indoor bar scenes took place at Georgetown University’s campus: Locations like the New North Hall, the Dahlgreen Chapel and the The Tombs bar were chosen for these purposes.
