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Different interior pieces of the Georgetown house were recreated on sound stages for the filming of Heretic at Burbank Studios.
Exteriors were shot on location in Georgetown – so a bus stop must have been erected by the city between The Exorcist and The Heretic shoots.
The city of Georgetown declined the film makers’ requests to film on location, so Prospect Street was recreated on a sound stage.
While the production designers did an excellent job (particularly on the Hitchcock Stairs), one can clearly tell that this isn’t the actual location. Aside from the absence of sky in any shots, the differences are as follows:
– At the base of the stairs, the street is too close, and is a suburban location (trees can be seen) rather than the perpetually manic intersection at Key Bridge.
– The top of the stairs are level, rather than a ramp declining from Prospect.
– There is no intersection at Prospect and 36th Avenue NW. The Tombs and other restaurants on the corner are nowhere to be seen. Rather, Prospect Street is depicted as being a row of houses. This can be seen when Fletcher is running up and down calling for help at the end of the film. Compare this to the opening of EXORCIST III when Dyer is walking from the intersection to the top of the Hitchcock Steps.
Thanks for clarifying that Erik.
I found that Georgetown was a shooting location so naturally assumed they would have shot exteriors of the house there.
The fact that IMDB lists Georgetown as a location is false. In fact, due to the fact that the production couldn’t film there, as well as the inability to shoot major sequences in Africa, there were a good many artisans pulled out of retirement to create these locations artificially.
It’s an understandable mistake, though — only one who has actually visited Georgetown or who studies the fleeting glimpses in THE HERETIC on freeze-frame will notice these tell-tale signs. I myself didn’t notice this until I’d visited the location several times.
Thanks for that. When I watched Heretic many years ago I didnt pay much attention to such details.
The city of Georgetown declined the film makers’ requests to film on location, so Prospect Street was recreated on a sound stage
Do you know why they declined the request for Heretic yet allowed Exorcist 3 to go ahead and film?
The owners of the 3600 Prospect Street house felt overwhelmed by their home becoming a tourist attraction, and so they declined use of the location. As for the city declining a shooting permit: no answer has ever been made public.
Bill Blatty has a lot of pull with Georgetown University — hence his ability to dig a hole in the Jesuit cemetary and film an entire sequence there for E3 when no one is even allowed to walk on the grass. He graduated from the school, was and is friends with many of the faculty members, and lectures there regularly. So the fact that his request was well-received should not be viewed as any surprise.
Unlike most people I like Exorcist2 and having watched it again after about 10 years i have a few questions.
Was the original house in Georgetown used for the exterior shots? It looks kind of different.
What’s with the bus stop at the bottom of the Exorcist stairs? There is no bus stop there, as far as Im aware it is a parking lot of a gas station.
And where was the interior of the house filmed?
What years was he at Georgetown? Must have been the early 50’s I guess.
Do you know where Blatty lives these days?
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