Hollywood, myth-infused home of the movie industry, is like any other town in that it has its share of curses and mysterious legends. Stories about cursed productions take on a life of their own, making horror movies in particular seem even more ominous and frightening than if they were just works of entertainment.
When a movie deals with the subject of demons, it is all too easy to believe in a curse. Be it superstition or not, many people believe that merely dealing with occult subjects, dabbling in them, is a sure way to invoke malevolent forces. The legend of the curse surrounding the film The Exorcist can be traced to promotional materials, specifically book tie-ins, including Harold Newman’s The Exorcist: The Strange Story Behind the Film. Blame might be more correctly placed on the book’s publishers, Pinnacle Books, for their marketing. Two fatal incidents related to the production are noted in Newman’s book. The most pertinent is the death of actor Jack MacGowran from influenza. It is something of a stretch to blame MacGowran’s death on The Exorcist, as he died on another continent four weeks after all his scenes had been filmed. Then there was the death of the brother of actor Max von Sydow, which the veteran actor learned of during the shoot. As with MacGowran, the death occurred in another part of the world, Scandinavia. It is even more of a stretch to blame this on The Exorcist.