'The Exorcist' Quiz

Some of the details seem too freaky to be true, but the story is based on events that happened to a 13-year-old boy in 1949.

It's been more than 40 years since the movie hit theaters, but it still holds the power to freak out today's modern audiences.

The Lutheran family looked everywhere for help with their possessed son but eventually turned to the Catholic church.

Some accounts said that nearly 50 people witnessed the crazy events surrounding the boy's traumatic experiences.

Before "The Exorcist," Friedkin was already famous because he'd won Best Director for his work on "The French Connection."

Linda Blair plays Regan MacNeil, whose increasingly bizarre behavior generates the fear that she's been possessed by a demonic presence.

She says, "You're gonna die up there," and then proceeds to pee on the floor, which is probably enough to give even a stout-hearted astronaut a serious case of the creeps.

Pazuzu comes from Babylonian or Assyrian mythology; he's a wind god that devastates humanity with famines.

The movie was fairly inexpensive to make, with a budget of around $12 million.

The movie vastly outperformed expectations at the box office, raking in more than $400 million and becoming a cultural phenomenon.

To create genuine surprise (and pain), she was purposely jerked during filming; it provoked a genuine reaction for the film but also hurt her back.

A famous radio actress named Mercedes McCambridge actually did the demon's voice work (and she almost wasn't credited).

If the raw eggs and booze weren't enough, she also smoked packs of cigarettes, all to generate the demon's creepy voice.

Reviewer Vincent Canby shredded the film, accusing producers of relying too heavily on shock and gore.

The movie was frightening enough and early audiences found the scary music was just too much.

The creators, however, were concerned that Brando's fame would overshadow the entire movie, so they went with Max von Sydow instead.

He bore an eerie resemblance to Father Bowdern, the priest who was called to perform the real-life exorcism in 1949.

The archaeological site in the first scenes was a location near Mosul, Iraq.

The pea soup mixture, which actually looks like pea soup even on film, was blended with a bit of oatmeal to give it some chunky texture.

Von Sydow was only in his mid-40s at the time, so he needed hours of makeup work each day to age him to 74.

The cause was never determined for certain, but the set caught fire and required major repairs.

Waves of viewers puked during screenings of the movie, so some theaters were reduced to providing vomit bags to minimize their clean-up work.

The film's creators didn't want to damage a young actress with the story's extreme content, and Blair seemed to have the stability to handle the role.

Ebert was puzzled that the film managed an R-rating; he thought it should have been rated X.

Actually, after adjustment for inflation, the film would be the No. 1 R-rated movie in history.

One scene caused him to faint, fall and break his jaw; the case was settled out of court.

The movie is set in D.C., but many of its scenes were actually filmed in New York.

Regan's bedroom was built inside a freezer so that the cameras would capture the actors' breath during possession scenes.

Some skeptics think the boy pretended to be possessed, others that he was mentally ill. Father Walter Halloran, a priest who took part in the exorcism, said he couldn't go on record as saying whether or not the boy was really possessed.

It was nominated for 10 awards and it took home two -- Best Sound Mixing and Best Writing Adapted Screenplay.