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If you read the book it doesn’t seem they left the house or that Regan was in the hospital for a long time… It says that Father Dyer went to visit them many times in order to find out what happened.
Just think about it… You know that your doughter has been posseded in that house, that 3 persons have died there… would you stay? Would you let your daughter in that room full of horrible memories? I won’t…
I really think Blatty used this stratagem because otherwise he couldn’t involve very well the other characters (Kindermann and Dyer) at the end of the story…I would presume Regan would have spent a fair period of time in the hospital. After all, she was at death’s door when Karras saved her. She was dehydrated, starving, probably had infections – she had been sick for a long time. I can imagine Chris staying in the house just out of convenience until Regan made a full recovery. The house had been a happy home for Chris and Regan. The possession was not the house’s “fault”, although it’s true that the demonic forces manipulated the house environment (the poltergeist effects, etc.). But the house itself was not “evil”.
So it’s possible, if not plausible, that Chris may have stayed in the house until Regan had recovered. She may have used that time staying with Regan at the hospital, striking up a friendship with Dyer (and maybe even Kinderman), and overseeing the repair of Regan’s bedroom before the house, which she was renting, reverted to its owners.
Yes great, probably Regan stayed in the hospital let’s say for two-three weeks… but not for six!!! I really can’t believe that in a real context somebody would stay any longer inside that house because he/she would be scared of the past! We didn’t sleep looking at the movie knowing it was all fake… can you imagine if you really did experience that horror? Could you stay there? I couldn’t… it can happen only in a book…
Then, if you read the book, you really get the impression that Chris and Rags were still living there…Maybe Blatty could have kept them in Georgetown… have Chris move into an apartment while Regan recuperates. I do acknowledge that six weeks does seem a long time to be hanging around the house “where it all happened” – especially after the emphasis Blatty put on the house description in the novel’s first pages. Seems like he should have resolved the house issue.
Actually, just to follow up sarcastically, perhaps Blatty should have burned the house to the ground, thus making it difficult for E2 Heretic to film its climactic scenes with Blair and Burton in the studio lot’s reconstructed house.
I think it is good that the house didn’t burn otherwise it would have been too typical… you know… there are 1000 of movies and stories ending in this way…
The problem is that Blatty needed at the end Dyer meeting Chris and Rags…and Kindermann meeting Dyer… so it would have been complicated to put them in another place… but actually possible like you said…
It would be interesting to know what Blatty thinks about it…“Would you let your daughter in that room full of horrible memories?”
Hi Edoardo, 🙂 I think that Regan was sleeping with Chris during her convalescence. At least that’s what the first draft screenplay implies.
“Just think about it… You know that your doughter has been posseded in that house”
Regan was probably very weak to travel and still needed intravenous feeding? Also, Chris was only starting to lean more to agnostic by the end, she still wasn’t a believer. So, in my opinion, she wouldn’t be afraid to continue to live there. She wasn’t certain if Regan had been possessed or if it was a case of psychosis, suggestion caused by the divorce and by the child reading a witchcraft book. She probably thought the exorcism was a cure through suggestion and that it had worked.
Yes I love that dialogue, but I feel that she wasn’t certain about the Devil either. Dyer asks, “As a nonbeliever, do you believe your daughter was possessed?” Chris answers that as far as God goes she is a nonbeliever, but that she could buy the Devil. I just feel that there isn’t any implication of Chris accepting faith. That’s why I don’t think it’s strange for her to continue to live in the house after what happened.
You may be right re: Regan needing intravenous feeding until she was able to eat normally. However, I doubt that Chris was only starting to lean more to agnostic.
If memory serves, Chris tells Dyer something like, “I’m still not sure about God, but I believe in the devil – he keeps doing commercials”. Then Dyer scores a point by saying something like, “But if all the evil in the world convinces you that there is a devil, how do you account for all the good?” Chris says something like, “Yeah, that’s a point.”
So it looks like Chris is keeping God on the horizon as a possibility, but is definitely inclined to accept the devil’s nearby existence.
The question of course remains whether or not her first glimmerings of belief would have impacted the length of time she (and perhaps Regan) continued to live in the house.
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