In the eyes of many genre enthusiasts, The Exorcist is one of the best horror movies of all time, and it’s easy to see why. Even if you’ve seen The Exorcist multiple times, though, you might have missed one bizarre trick it used to scare us — more than the idea of a bad The Exorcist reboot.
The demonic film is well-known for its unsettling dialogue and frequently startling imagery, but as it turns out, there are some elements in its sound mix hidden under the surface to spook further.
Alongside industrial sounds in the background of some of the scarier scenes, meant to unsettle the audience, the sound of bees buzzing was used in a few early sequences to trigger a subconscious fear response.
While even audiophiles would struggle to pick the sound out of the mix, its most noticeable use is at the beginning of the story, when Merrin (Max von Sydow) is looking at the creepy statue.
Alongside the almost-undetectable flash of the ‘white face’ during Karras’ (Jason Miller) dream, the layering of those sounds was used to worry the audeince.
The use of subliminal messaging in horror may not be revolutionary now, but The Exorcist came out in 1973 when the internet and Blu-Rays weren’t there to help us analyze movies, so this effective trick helped to build quiet unease.
It’s time to revisit one of the best movies of all time and turn it up really loud, but after that, check our list of the best werewolf movies and best vampire movies for more scares and find out about The Exorcist Believer.