Laugh at the Devil

One of the most notable things about The Exorcist is just how unfunny it is. Despite coming from a genre (horror) in which black humour abounds, and being produced by a comedy writer (William Peter Blatty) whose previous outings included the slapstick Peter Sellers' farce A Shot In The Dark, The Exorcist is notably lacking in laughs from the opening titles to the closing credits. As Stephen King once pointed out, the key to its success (or failure, depending on your viewpoint) probably lies in the fact that, unlike most of its genre stablemates, The Exorcist takes itself deadly seriously. If you laugh during the movie, then you're laughing at it, rather than with it.

But even though Friedkin and Blatty may have embarked on their horror milestone with entirely straight faces, the temptation to smirk and snigger at the potential silliness of a story about a sweet young girl who upchucks her lunch, punches out priests, and turns the air blue with her fruity repartee has proved irresistible for many, meaning that we now regularly endure Exorcist gags in everything from 'The X Files', to Bill And Ted's Bogus Journey ("Are you sure this'll work? Well it did in The Exorcist... 1 and 3!") to the Warner Brothers cartoon Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, in which Daffy plays 'The Ducksorcist' and gets to levitate while his head spins through 360 degrees. Lord save us!