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Yes, actually showing Denning’s demise would be an interesting scene. It would have the shock-advantage of showing the viewer, whereas the novel and Friedkin’s film don’t show it. It could be very creepy. After a brief, casual conversation where Sharon asks Denning to stay while she gets the prescription: Dennings now alone in the house. The noises. Maybe a demonic rumble. Maybe a “Please help me!” from the upstairs room. Dennings makes his way up those frightful stairs, flings open the door – and then…! Yeah, this could be very effective.
Yeah, no second head-revolving, please. That scene started grating on me about the third time I saw it. Yes, the first one works just after the crucifix-rape scene, because it’s from Chris’s POV, and it could be (as the book offers) a momentary shock-hallucination. But when it happens a second time and is witnessed by both Karras and Merrin, it just strikes me as overkill and unrealistic.
That may be a grisly synchronicity between fiction and real life, but it doesn’t work thematically for the film, since Sal Mineo had not yet been murdered.
Yeah, Blatty/Friedkin established early in the story/movie that “poltergeist” noises were already present by the time Dennings went up to her room… or, as you say, Regan or the demon lured Dennings up with a call for help.
I would never have caught it, either, except for magus’ sharp-eyed commentary. It’s downright spooky, like those films in which “ghosts” are said to put in momentary appearances.
That would make a shocking scene indeed, but it would also remove the shock from the Karras/Kinderman dialog where Dennings’ death is described verbally rather than shown. Before that dialog, we know from “Chuck’s” visit to Chris’s house that Dennings broke his neck. But we don’t know that it had been turned completely around, facing backward. I don’t know which is more shocking, actually showing the head-turning or allowing this fact to hit the audience via verbal description…
Yes, the decapitation photo has been posted around. I don’t know if the film is better or not for not including this shot.
That’s possible, but unlikely, since Dennings had no particular religious beliefs and thus no motivation to do it. Also, Chris would probably have discovered the crucifix much earlier in the story. It’s a mystery why Dennings went upstairs to Regan’s room, but it’s certain that she broke his neck “in the witchcraft manner” and pushed the body out the window.
Good catch, and absolutely spooky. In the black, gaping doorway, a light figure does appear, and it does look like a nun – or the Virgin. Maybe a nun had been in the church, didn’t realize they were filming, and walked into the opening. She’s there only a fraction of a second. She appears as they are rounding the church (I think it’s a church – Dahlgren Chapel?) and the “nun” appears on the extreme left, just as Karras and Kinderman walk by the entrance. She appears just when Kinderman says, “It’s Othello.”
I don’t think the film contains any answers to this question. However, concomitant with the crucifix rape scene, we are again reminded that paranormal powers are associated with demonic activity. Earlier there had been the noises in the attic and the bed-shaking. During the crucifix incident, there are now large-scale manifestations such as the “wind” that blows the curtains and throws the 45-RPM records around, plus the moving of furniture to block Chris’s exit from the room.
Perhaps we are meant to figure it out that the demon “levitated” the crucifix back upstairs to Regan’s room during Kinderman’s interview with Chris. That’s all I can come up with as an explanation of how the crucifix re-appeared in Regan’s room. The only other solution is that there were more than one crucifix in the house and one was hidden (maybe by Karl?) somewhere in Regan’s room – which is quite a stretch.
