Regan MacNeil

Regan MacNeil (born Regan Teresa MacNeil) is a fictional character from William Peter Blatty's horror novel "The Exorcist", its first sequel, "", and their film adaptations. She was portrayed by actress Linda Blair.

Casting

Regan Teresa MacNeil was portrayed by Linda Blair in the 1973 film "The Exorcist" and its 1977 sequel "". Actress/comedianne April Winchell was seriously considered for the part of Regan MacNeil until she had developed a serious kidney infection, which caused her to be hospitalized and ultimately taken out of consideration. [ [http://www.aprilwinchell.com/archive/ 5 things you don't know about April Winchell, Mr. KABC Radio Show audio archive] , accessed February 8, 2007]

Plot

Regan MacNeil is a 12-year-old girl, and the daughter of actress Chris MacNeil. Regan is caught between her mother's gruelling working schedule and the fact that her parents are in the process of splitting up (her father is in Europe and is not seen in the movie).

One day, Regan finds a Ouija board game in the basement, and tells her mother she has made contact with something she identifies as Captain Howdy. Soon, however, Regan begins to act mysteriously, urinating in front of a gathering of dinner guests, often violently physically striking anyone within reach, mutilating her vagina with a crucifix, using strong profanity that surprises her mother and the doctors examining her. Unbeknownst to everyone, Regan had been possessed by an ancient demon known as Pazuzu. Chris becomes desperate when Burke Dennings, the director of the movie she is starring in, is found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs. The police conjectured that Burke must have been flung (with a considerable amount of force) from Regan's window, but this raises more questions than answers, since to prevent her from harming herself, Regan had been restrained to her bed.

Medical tests and examinations could find nothing wrong with her body or her mind, despite Regan bearing absolutely no resemblance to her normal self. With no help left to offer, a team of doctors (reluctantly) recommend an exorcism, conjecturing that she believes she is possessed, and this belief has caused her physical/mental change. If she believed in the power of the exorcism as much as her possession, the doctors conjectured she may become cured.

Out of desperation, Chris consults a Jesuit priest, Father Damien Karras, and begs him to exorcise (or at least examine) her daughter. Karras, going through a crisis of faith himself, expresses his belief that Regan would be better off undergoing further observation, but Chris is able to persuade Karras to come and look at Regan. Upon doing so, Karras notes that Regan's physical condition has deteriorated - her face becomes scarred, her voice becomes raspy and gravelly, she appears emaciated - but he refuses to acknowledge that a possession has taken place, he has seen this kind of thing many times before and therapy and observation is still the way to go.

As Father Karras continues to have contact with Regan, he becomes more convinced that an exorcism might be necessary after all, especially when a recording of Regan's seemingly nonsensical babbling turns out to be English, only backwards. Also, Father Karras sees the words "help me" scratched on Regan's stomach, "from the inside". Unnerved, he contacts his diocese, who recommend Father Lankester Merrin - the exorcist of the title and Regan's last hope.

The process of exorcising Pazuzu from Regan takes its toll on both men - Father Merrin suffers an apparent heart attack and dies. Father Karras, his sanity destroyed after finding Father Merrin's corpse and Reagan chillingly giggling about Merrin's death, willingly subjects himself to possession from Pazuzu by strangling Regan, and then commits suicide by throwing himself out of Regan's window (the same way Chris' director died) upon possession.

Following the climax, Chris and Regan decide to move. Regan, her face still scarred, has no recollection of what has happened to her. But when Chris introduces her to Father Dyer, a Jesuit priest who comes to see the family off, his collar seems to subliminally remind of the sacrifices of Fathers Merrin and Karras on her behalf, and she spontaneously kisses him as a way of thanking him (and the church) for saving her life and her soul.

Four years later, Regan is now a teenager living in New York with her mother's friend, Sharon. She visits a psychiatric institute run by Dr. Gene Tuskin. In an attempt to plumb her memories of the exorcism, Dr. Tuskin has hypnotized Regan, to whom she is linked by a "synchronizer" and is so overcome by "witnessing" Regan's memory of the event that Father Lamont has to rescue her. After returning from a tour of Regan's old house, he was hypnotized by synchronizer with Regan. He realizes that Regan has two demons, battling good and evil. They return to Georgetown, while Regan has to save the world. By the end of that, Sharon dies from the fire, and Regan goes with Lamont.

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