The Exor-fist
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The locale is an archaeological dig site deep in the
arid desert of Northern Iraq - near the ancient town
of Nineveh. An Arabic prayer chant is heard beyond an
oblong, burnt-reddish sun. Workers dig inexorably with
pick-axes through mounds of dirt to uncover ancient
artifacts. A young boy in a red head-dress runs
through the weaving, maze-like trenches to summon one
of the supervisors. " Master, they found
something...small pieces...At the base of the mound."
Father Breck, scholarly Jesuit Catholic priest and
archaeologist, slowly stood up and brushed the sweat
from his brow. He hurried in a tired fashion to the
area where they had un-earthed artifacts. Another
archaeologist at the area rushed to him and told him
excitedly that ancient objects have been unearthed
during his search for evil, "Lamps, arrowheads,
coins..."
Breck inspects a small silver, Christian medallion
depicting Mary and the baby Jesus and observes that it
is unusual to find it buried in a pre-Christian
location.
"This is strange...Not of the same period." Breck then
digs in a crevice near the Christian objects and
discovers a small, greenish, gargoyle-like stone
amulet or statuette. Closer inspection revealed that
it was shaped like a greenish claw like fist. Breck
gawked at it in puzzlement....he had never seen such a
thing.
In the Iraqi marketplace on the streets of Mosul, with
a throbbing, drumming sound, the strain is evident as
Breck's hand shakes when he takes his heart medicine.
Iron workers clang their hammers on anvils near a
red-hot burning furnace.
Back in the curator's office, Breck eyes the Janus
Zeal amulet. The curator looks up the identifing
definition of the Janus Zeal amulet. His finger skims
down the page of a book and rests it on a passage.
"Evil against evil.", he read out loud. He turned to
Breck and gave him a worried look. "What if we
disturbed something....what if we woke the spirit
up...."
Ominously, the swinging pendulum of the clock behind
him stops working. The curator knows Breck will be
leaving to go home to the States.
"I wish you didn't have to go. Stay and fight this
thing. We unleashed something evil. It could destroy
this entire country."
Weary and exhausted, Breck replies, "There is
something I must do. We did unleash something. But it
is not here..." The curator looked at him confused.
"It is in the states." Breck leaves the office and
passes by prostrate Muslim worshippers and into a dark
passageway. When he emerges in the narrow, sunlit
street, he is nearly run down by a fast-moving,
horse-drawn carriage carrying an old woman in a black
droshky, worn over her face like a shroud.
***
Breck drove his jeep to an ancient temple ruins
guarded by armed, white and black-garbed watchmen, he
walks up to a full-sized stone statue of the demon
Janus Zeal fist. He looked from his amulet to the full
sized statue. Nearby, two dogs begin fighting and
snarling at each other in the dust. He again has a
premonition that the amulet is a concrete
manifestation that something evil has been unearthed..
As he confronts the demonic statue that has been
called up for protection by the amulet's discovery,
the wind blows dust over the scene as he feels all
around him the presence of the devil.
***
Early morning traffic crossing the Potomac in
Georgetown outside Washington, D.C.
In one of the Georgetown houses a pale hand turns on a
different kind of bright light. The hand belonging to
Xell. Inside her bedroom, divorced mother and actress
Xell MacNeil is working on lines in her latest script.
She hears unsettling sounds from the attic similar to
scratching. She investigates and follow the sounds to
her 14-year old daughter Rach's bedroom where the
young girl is sleeping. The covers are pulled back and
the window is inexplicably wide open with fluttering
curtains. Xell senses a certain coldness or presence
in the room. Downstairs in the kitchen, Xell instructs
her housekeeper to purchase traps for "rats in the
attic."
On the Georgetown University campus, Xell emerges from
a movie-set trailer on the set of Warner Bros. Inc.
The scene that is being filmed at the Catholic school
dramatizes early 1970s student protest that threatens
to tear down the historic stone walls of the
university. Xell, a representative of the
academic-adult population, questions the Famous
director, Alita, about the unrealistic plot of
adolescent counter-cultural turmoil. One of the
curious onlookers among a crowd of students, a Jesuit
priest from the university, named Father Vendetta,
smiles amusedly after overhearing their conversation.
A few moments later into the shoot, when Xell grabs a
bullhorn and tells the rebellious students in the
crowd, "If you want to effect any change, you have to
do it within the system."
Vendetta walking away from the crowd and the filming.
He turns back to watch for a moment, and then
continues his departure in serious thought.
After the day's shoot is finished, Xell walks the
leaf-covered street from the campus to her home. It is
Halloween, and children run by in their masks and
costumes. For a brief moment, a roaring black
motorbike that passes behind her slightly drowns out
the sounds of the yelling children. Two nuns trailing
billowing black and white habits walk down a road in
front of a brick wall. Now in her neighborhood, Xell
turns and hears, from a distance, the priest Vendetta
counseling a fellow priest.
"There's not a day in my life that I don't feel like a
fraud. Other priests, doctors, lawyers....I talk to
them all. I don't know anyone who hasn't felt that."
Priest Vendetta rises up from an underground
stairwell, emerging into the noisy track area of the
New York City subway where the tracks spew jets of
steam. On the dirty, trash-littered platform of the
subway station, he turns to hear a tattered, derelict
drunk begging with an outstretched hand:
"Father, could you help an old altar boy. I'm
Cat'lick."
Wrapped up in his own problems and unable to be
charitable in this subway encounter, Father Vendetta
turns away from the wretched man whose bearded, sweaty
face is momentarily illuminated in flashes by the
window lights of a passing subway.
Father Vendetta continues making his way to visit his
dying, sick mother, Mother Vegetes who lives in
humble, pauper's conditions by herself in a derelict
area of New York City.
The street, lined with run-down housing, is populated
with unruly kids, drunks, graffiti, and litter. After
first stopping in his own room and reflecting on his
past, he enters his Mama's room. As he carefully
binds his mother's injured leg and then lights a
cigarette for a smoke, he suggests moving her
elsewhere, but she is a stoic, stubborn, Greek
immigrant woman from the Old World, and she doesn't
want to move.
"Mama, I could take you somewhere where you'd be safe.
You wouldn't be alone. There would be people around.
You know, you wouldn't be sitting here listening to a
radio."
Vegetes first speaks in her native tongue, "...You
understand me? This is my house and I'm not going no
place. Venny, you're worried for something?"
He sighs, "No, Mama."
Vegetes reached out a cold pale hand and placed it on
his cheek. "You're not happy. Tell me, what is the
matter?"
"Mama, I'm all right, I'm fine, really I am."
***
In the basement den, Rach - a bright, cheerful,
ordinary pre-teen amuses herself with arts-and-crafts
materials and paint. She creates an orange, bird-like
puppet figure.
Her mother discovers a dusty OUIJA board that Rach
earlier found in a closet. Lonely and without friends
of her own age, and without a partner to play
ping-pong in the den, Rach has amused herself by
playing with the board.
Xell watched her daughter play with the board...."Wait
a minute, you need two people to play..."
Rach looked up at her mother annoyed. "No ya don't. I
do it all the time by myself."
Xell sighed and smiled down at her daughter. "Well
let's both play."
One of her imaginary friends, 'Captain Howdy' spins
the planchette from under Xell's hands.
Xell, not really surprized at the sudden movement asks
softly, " You really don't want me to play, huh?"
Rach replies with a disapointed look on her face, "No,
I do. Captain Howdy said no."
Xell, now confused asks, "Captain who?"
Rach replies with frustration that her mother is not
aware of him yet., "Captain Howdy."
Xell tries to learn more of her daughter's imaginary
friend, "Who's Captain Howdy?"
Rach sighs, "You know, I make the questions and he
does the answers."
Later that night as a smiling, loving Rach is tucked
into bed by her mother and they share an intimate
conversation. She is reading a recent PHOTOPLAY
Magazine with a red-banner cover story: "Big Trouble
In the MacNeil Marriage! The Night Howard Walked Out
On His Wife."
The colorful cover photo depicts Xell with her
daughter. After taking the magazine away, Xell teases
her daughter about her impending maturity since she is
on the verge of becoming an adult.
"Look Rach, why are you reading that stuff?"
Rach answered sweetly, "Because I like it."
But Rach, honey, It's not even a good picture of you.
You look so mature."
Rach's birthday was coming on Sunday and she would be
a ripe, pubescent 13. And they planned for the special
sightseeing outing. As an undercutting aside, Rach
maturely suggests having her mother's director friend,
Alita accompany them with misleading ideas developing
in her head, she promotes a match-making liaison
between her mother and Alita.
"You can bring Alita if you like...Well, you like
her...You're gonna marry her, aren't you?
Xell was shocked. "Oh God, are you kidding me? Marry
Alita! Don't be silly. Of course not. Where'd you ever
get an idea like that? The two of us are both straight
women. We would never do such a thing.
Rach smiled thoughtfully, "But ya like her."
Xell rolled her eyes, "Of course I like her. I like
pizzas too, but I'm not gonna marry one. We work
together. And Alita already is dating Gohan.
Rach pouted, "You don't like her like Daddy?"
Xell was obviously getting annoyed at the
conversation, "Rach, I love your Daddy. I'll always
love your Daddy, honey. ok? But Daddy was a man. And
Alita is a woman. We are both straight and I do not
believe in the ways of homosexuality, ok? Honey, I
don't want you to stay up late anymore and watch the
Ellen Degenerous Show.
Rach smirked slyly, "Well, I heard
differently....about ALita likeing guys only."
Xell smirked back, "Oh you did. What did you hear?
Huh?"
Rach smiled, "I don't know. I just thought."
"Well, you didn't think so good, Rach."
Rach responded in a hurt manner, "How do you know?"
"Cause Alita and I are just friends. ok? Really.
***
A noisy bar environment where a jukebox plays an
Allman Brothers Band rock tune favorite, 'Ramblin'
Man.' Father Vendetta carries two frothy beer glasses
to a table where he is joined by his friend, Mewmew
who was president of the university. Clearly
juxtaposed with the atmosphere of the dark drinking
establishment peopled with 'rebellious' students, the
young priest finds himself in a troubling situation,
heavily weighted down by counseling his fellow priests
who feel they are losing their vocation. In despair,
inner conflict and guilt, he is worried about his own
burdens such as his lonely mother and his own loss of
faith.
"It's my mother, Mew. She's alone. I never should have
left her. At least in New York, I'd be near, I'd be
closer."
"You should look into a transfer, Ven."
Vendetta put down his glass of beer and stared into
the bottom of it, "I need re-assignment, Mew. I want
out of this job. It's wrong. It's no good."
Mewmew was shocked at his statement, "You're the best
we've got."
Vendetta scoffed at this, "Spank, not really. It's
more than psychiatry, and you know that Mew. Some of
their problems come down to faith, their vocation and
meaning of their lives, and I can't cut it anymore. I
need out. I'm unfit. I think I've lost my faith, Mew.
***
Autumn leaves from the bare trees swirl in the wind.
Exasperated by an insensitive lack of regard and her
own despair over the breakup of the family, Xell
berates and swears about her husband for failing to
call Rach on her birthday from his hotel in Rome. She
hasn't been able to reach him by long-distance for
twenty minutes and she becomes acutely distressed, "Oh
circuits, my ass! He doesn't give a shit...Operator,
don't tell me there's no answer... Would you try it
again please and let it ring...Operator, I've given
you the number four times...I've been on this fucking
line for twenty minutes!"
Rach stands in her room with her ear at the door
listening to her tormented mother, after hearing more
than enough of her cursing mother speaking to her
uncaring father, she mutely retreats to her bed where
she unties her shoe.
***
Early the next morning, Xell finds that Rach has
joined her in bed, explaining that she is not able to
sleep, "My bed was shaking. I can't get to sleep."
Rach's mother goes to investigate more mysterious
sounds that she hears up in the attic. Finding her way
around in the dark with a lit candle, Xell discovers
the traps are untriggered and empty yet the digging
noises can still be heard. After being shocked out of
her wits by her housekeeper's sudden appearance and
her flaming candlelight, he confirms what she has
found, "No rats."
***
Inside the corridor of Bellevue psychiatric hospital
in New York City, psychiatrist-priest Father Vendetta
has been summoned by his uncle, Tenchi because of his
sick mother's hospitalization. Distressed that she was
brought to a mental hospital without his permission,
he notices deranged, comatose, vacant-eyed women in
the hallway and in the psychiatric ward, they exhibit
the physical and behavioral symptoms of serious
psychological problems. His uncle, Tenchi generates
more guilt by noting how Vendetta's choice of
occupation was detrimental to her welfare. His
decision to become a priest rather than enter private
practice as a psychiatrist left her destitute, "If you
wasn't a priest, you'd be a famous psychiatrist
now...Your mother... she'd be living in a penthouse
instead of a ..."
As Father Vendetta enters the locked ward and walks
through to see his mother, the other patients react
with agitation and grab at the spiritual figure's
clothing. With tears in her eyes, the haggard Vegetes
blames her son for her 'imprisonment': "Venny, why
would you do this to me, Venny?" Her thin, frail arms
are restrained by straps on the bed. With anger and
rage, she struggles to withdraw from him and turn her
head away from his comforting hands. After their
visit, Vendetta beseeches his uncle to move her to a
different hospital: "Couldn't you put her someplace
else?" But that is an impractical solution: "Like
what? A private hospital? Who got the money for that,
Venny?"
***
A few nights later, Xell MacNeil throws a big dinner
party at her Prospect Street house. Prominent people
are among the guests such as Alita and her boyfriend
Gohan, an astronaut guest known as Guru, and a
suspected Nazi collaborator named Khaki. Rach is
giggling and happy while mingling among the
party-goers. Xell asks one of her friends, Father
Sinko and his date Mina, and Mewmew and her date. She
learns from Mewmew that her date is Father Vendetta,
"a psychiatric counselor. He had a pretty rough knock
last night, poor guy. His mother passed away. She was
living by herself and I guess she was dead a couple of
days before they found her."
***
Rach is already in bed asleep before the party is
over. But shortly later, Rach comes downstairs and
appears during a piano-gathering and songfest. She
enters the room in her nightgown, and trance-like
turns to the astronaut, Guru who will soon be launched
into space, "You're gonna die up there." Rach laughs
evily and urinates in front of everyone. Embarrassed
and confused, Xell takes her daughter into her arms
and apologizes to Guru and the rest of the guests,
"Rach, oh my God, honey. Honey? Whatsa matter? I'm
sorry, she's been sick. She didn't know what she was
saying."
Xell helps Rach to retreat upstairs and gives her a
hot bath while comforting her. Rach is as puzzled by
her own behavior as is Xell. Xell reassures Rach that
she is probably upset because of all the changes she
has experienced in the last few months like her
father's departure and erratic contact, the new job
for Xell, the new town. Rach is promised that
everything will be all right,
"What made you say that, Rach? Do you know
sweetheart?"
Rach dries herself off, "Mother? What's wrong with
me?"
Xell hugs her daughter tight, "It's just like the
doctor said. It's nerves, and that's all. OK? You just
take your pills and you'll be fine, really. OK?"
Returning down the stairs long after the party has
ended, Xell finds her housekeeper scrubbing the stains
from the rug. She turns back when she hears Rach
screaming in her room and calling for her help. As
Xell rushes to her daughter's closed bedroom door an
electric, candle-shaped light bulb flickers in the
hallway. Xell's face registering a horrified, shocking
reaction after entering Rach's room. Rach's bed is
racked with violent convulsions. Flopping around on
the top of the bed, the young girl frantically calls
out, "Make it stop! Make it stop!" Xell throws herself
on top of Rach on the wildly bucking bed which bounces
up and down on the floor, there is a cacophony of
deafening noise equaling all the other loud, grating
noises previously heard.
***
Father Sinko strides down the corridor of the Jesuit
residence hall at Georgetown University, peering into
one of the bedrooms where students are smoking,
gambling at cards, and drinking. After knocking on
Vendetta's door and entering, he brings the priest a
bottle of Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey, joking that he
stole it from the college president. "He shouldn't
drink. It tends to set a bad example. I figured I
saved him from a big temptation." Vendetta is
tormented by guilt and anguished remorse for being
absent when his mother died, and he begins skeptically
doubting his decision to pursue a career as a priest.
Sinko encourages Vendetta to lie back, take off his
shoes, and go to sleep.
As Father Vendetta begins to dream after the lights
are turned out, a montage of dream-like images passes
and flashes through his consciousness, mixing
momentary sights of his mother and her ascent and
descent into death with all the surrealistic images
taken from previous actions components accompanying
Father Breck in Iraq. The Christian medal, now
free-falls through the air above a richly-textured
Iraqi tapestry, a ferocious, growling desert dog runs,
Vendetta's mother stares straight ahead, the pendulum
of the curator's clock swings, Vegetes emerges from an
underground subway in New York City, Vendetta waves
from a traffic island toward his mother, the mother
calls out but doesn't see or heed her son, a
ghoulish, ghostly-white demonic face appears, Vendetta
frantically pursues his mother across traffic on a
busy street, and she descends back into the subway
entrance. The medal drops on the hard, stone
Georgetown steps.
***
Xell seeks medical help and treatment for her
daughter, but Rach resists violently, "I don't want
it!" She is held down and injected with a sedative by
a team of doctors. The girl spits and curses at one of
the doctors: "You pizza eating hippie!"
***
Concurrent with the ministrations of modern medicine,
Father Vendetta, in the University chapel, prays in
memory of his deceased mother: "Remember also, Oh
Lord, thy servant Vegetes who has gone before us on
the side of faith and sleeps the sleep of peace."
***
Dr. Klein delivers a diagnosis to Xell. He explains
Rach's strange afflictions and seizures are due to a
physical problem, a brain disorder.
"It's a symptom of a type of disturbance in the
chemical-electrical activity of the brain. In the case
of your daughter, in the temporal lobe - it's up here
- in the lateral part of the brain. It's rare, but it
does cause bizarre hallucinations and usually just
before a convulsion...the shaking of the bed. It's
doubtless due to muscular spasms."
Xell doubts that her daughter's uncontrollable spasms
and body movements caused the bed to buck so
violently. The doctor insists her shaking is due to a
lesion in her brain,
"Xell, the problem with your daughter is not her bed,
it's her brain."
Xell looked distressed, "So, uhm, what causes
this...?"
"A lesion. A lesion in the temporal lobe. It's a kind
of seizure disorder."
"Now look Doc, I really don't understand how her whole
personality could change."
Dr. Klein sighed annoyed, "The temporal lobe is very
common...It could last for days or even weeks. It
isn't rare to find destructive, even criminal
behavior. Don't be alarmed. If it's a lesion, in a way
she's fortunate. All we have to do is remove the
scar."
***
Rach is wheeled on a flat table into a testing area
for more examinations designed to unravel the
mysteries of her malady. In a long, purposely
drawn-out, excruciatingly-torturous sequence with
markedly sexual overtones, Rach is prepared by medical
assistants for an arteriogram. She is placed on a
leather backing, readied for a blood pressure reading,
and her shoulders are bared. Electrodes are stuck to
her upper arms. One of the male medical technicians,
garbed like a priest paints her pale neck with a "cold
and wet" square of cotton dipped in dark brown iodine.
He tests a syringe by squirting fluid from its sharp
point, and then 'sticks' her in the neck with it to
create a small incision. She holds back from squirming
and whimpering as he slightly pierces her flesh. With
another sharp instrument taken from a trayful of
Inquisitional-type torture devices, he warns Rach not
to move when she feels "some pressure." He inserts the
second device into the incision mark, pushes it in,
and then releases the cap on the instrument as blood
spurts, orgasmically, from the opening in Rach's neck.
The 'deflowering' examination is not complete for the
helpless young girl - blood flows through tubes as her
chin is taped to the table to keep her stationary.
More pieces of medical machinery are wheeled to each
side of her head. The lights are dimmed, and she is
told to "look up." The positioning of a scanner
produces a cross-shaped shadow across Rach's forehead.
A button is pushed, causing a tremendous
knocking/pounding sound - Rach cringes as pain
envelopes her face. The screen turns white for an
instant. A full series of X-rays illustrating various
death's head angles of Rach's skull are being examined
by Dr. Tanney on a white, photo-examination table -
loud, whirring gears deliver each set of photographic
negative plates for viewing. Tanney pronounces his
diagnosis to Dr. Klein as they both examine a
full-screen side view of her skull: "There's just
nothing there. No vascular displacement at all." To
their surprise, they find nothing physically wrong
with her.
***
Xell calls the two doctors at the lab to urgently
summon them to her Prospect Street home. The ringing
of the doorbell at the MacNeil home overlaps their
departure from the hospital - and signals the upcoming
terror. Xell's secretary/assistant Pixie rushes down
the stairs to answer the door and let the doctors in.
From behind, Rach's hysterical, despairing screams. A
hand-held camera tracks in front of the group as they
hurriedly rush upstairs, down the corridor, and up to
Rach's sealed bedroom door. Pixie announces: "Xell!
Doctors!" and they are admitted. Within the bedroom,
the site in the room once again causes a registering
of fear on everyone's faces.
Rach's upper torso is violently being whipped and
thrown back and forth on the bed, battering her body
as it slams into the mattress. She screams: "Oh
please, Mother, make it stop! It's hurting!" Then she
is tossed upwards and bounces up and down. Her
uncontrollable seizures are accompanied by low
gutteral growls, almost animalistic. Her throat below
her chin bubbles out. When one of the doctors reaches
for Rach on the bed, she slaps him back-handed across
the face, knocking him into the door and onto the
floor. Her physically-repulsive voice warns, "Keep
away! The sow is mine!" She flails and thrashes around
on the bed, afflicted and possessed by some fantastic
force.
While she is held tight and restrained, a doctor
removes another syringe and injects her with a
sedative to calm her down. Pixie drags Xell from the
scene to remove her from the horrifying cries of her
daughter. When the bedroom door is slammed, there is
an eerie quiet in the corridor. Pixie and Xell sit
huddled together. The doctors Tanney and Klein emerge
from Rach's now-quiet bedroom, "She's heavily sedated.
She'll probably sleep through tomorrow." Xell demands
answers from them: "What was going on in there? How
could she fly off the bed like that?" They are still
convinced of a physical ailment and propose further
tests.
"Pathological states can induce abnormal strength.
Accelerated motor performance. Now, for example, say a
90 pound woman sees her child pinned under the wheel
of a truck. Runs out and lifts the wheels a half a
foot up off the ground - you've heard the story - same
thing here. Same principle, I mean."
Xell askes confused, "So what's wrong with her?"
The doctors look at eachother, "We still think the
temporal lobe."
Xell yells hystericaly, "Oh what are you talking
about, for Christ's sakes. Did you see her or not?
She's acting like she's fucking out of her mind,
psychotic, like a... split personality or ..."
Calmly the Doctor answered, "There haven't been more
than a hundred authentic cases of so-called split
personality. Now I know the temptation is to leap to
psychiatry. But any reasonable psychiatrist would
exhaust the somatic possibilities first. What we
missed in the EEG and the arteriograms could
conceivably turn up there. At least, it would
eliminate certain other possibilities."
***
As Xell drives home that evening with her headlights
beaming through the dark, she passes red-lighted
emergency vehicles at the base of the Prospect Street
stairs. The lights in her kitchen flicker and then go
off as she answers the loud-ringing phone. Upstairs,
she finds Rach asleep in her freezing cold bedroom
The windows are wide open and the wind-blown curtains
are billowing outward. She covers Rach with blankets
and then proceeds downstairs in a furious mood. Xell
lambasts Pixie for leaving Rach alone with her windows
wide open. Pixie explains, as the doorbell rings
incessantly another signal of approaching doom, that
when she went to get Rach's thorazine medication,
Alita remained to stay with her. She apologizes,
"I should have known better. I'm sorry."
Xell mutter flattly, "Yeah, I guess you should have."
Ryu, who works with Xell and Alita as assistant
director, is let in from the front porch, bringing bad
news. Alita was found dead at the bottom of a long
flight of stairs just outside Regan's bedroom window,
"I suppose you heard."
Xell asked, "Heard what?"
Ryu was surprized, "You haven't heard. Alita's dead.
She must have been drunk. She fell down from the top
of the steps right outside. By the time she hit M
Street, she broke her neck."
Xell turns away in horror, shocked by the revelation.
She pounds on the wall with her fists.
***
"When I touch your forehead, open your eyes." Rach's
face is being lightly touched by a psychiatrist
Starcloud, one of the new practitioners who begins
groping for a more accurate assessment of Rach's
problems. She has been put in an hypnotic trance for
questioning by the sweet-voiced psychiatrist.
Starcloud, "How old are you?"
Rach, "Twelve."
Starcloud, "Is there someone inside you?"
Rach, "Sometimes."
Starcloud, "Who is it?"
Rach, "I don't know."
Starcloud, "Is it Captain Howdy?"
Rach, "I don't know."
Starcloud, "Is it Foofie No-No?"
Rach, "I don't know."
Starcloud, " If I ask him to tell me, will you let him
answer?"
Rach, "No!"
Starcloud, " Why not?"
Rach, "I'm afraid."
Starcloud, "If he talks to me, I think he'll leave
you. Do you want him to leave you?"
Rach, "Yes. His name is Janus Zeal."
Starcloud, "I'm speaking to 'Janis Zeal' inside of
Rach now. If you are there, you too are hypnotized and
must answer all my questions. Come forward and answer
me now."
A black and white framed photograph of Rach
inexplicably falls forward off the mantle. Rach's face
contorts and a low, wolf-like growl emanates from her
mouth. The hypnotist continues, thinking he is
speaking to 'Janus Zeal' inside her, "Are you the
person inside of Rach? Who are you?" To abortively end
the session, Rach slams her hand into Starcloud's
crotch and crushes his genitals. Then her fury rises
as she falls on top of the hapless examiner and she
must be dragged and held off.
***
Middle-aged detective Lt. Spark of homicide, assigned
to the case following Alita's death, questions Father
Vendetta about witchcraft, already knowing that he had
written an authoritative paper on the subject "from
the psychiatric end." Spark suspects ritualistic
overtones - Alita was possibly killed by having her
head twisted around in a ritualistic black-magic
murder. The detective suggests that the priest
identify any of those he counsels who might be capable
of committing the murder.
***
At the Barringer Clinic and Foundation, psychiatrists
conclude that Rach's symptoms are evidence of a rare
disorder hardly seen anymore except in primitive
cultures. Rach, with cuts marks on her face and
dehydrated lips, struggles in a clinic bed, strapped
down like Vegetes was earlier at Bellevue. Her
ailments are similar to a form of possession, "Quite
frankly, we really don't know much about it at all
except that it starts with a conflict or a guilt and
it leads to the patients' delusions that his body has
been invaded by some alien intelligence - a spirit if
you will." Xe;; despairs, refusing "to lock her up in
some god-damned asylum." She is fed-up with their
"bullshit" and medical-babble.
Because Xell has no specific religious beliefs, she is
told that religious counsel - an exorcism - may be
performed to rid Rach of her possession,
"There is one outside chance for a cure. I think of it
as shock treatment - as I said, it's a very outside
chance...Have you ever heard of exorcism? Well, it's a
stylized ritual in which the rabbi or the priest try
to drive out the so-called invading spirit. It's been
pretty much discarded these days except by the
Catholics who keep it in the closet as a sort of an
embarrassment, but uh, it has worked. In fact,
although not for the reasons they think, of course.
It's purely a force of suggestion. The victim's belief
in possession is what helped cause it, so in that same
way, a belief in the power of exorcism can make it
disappear."
Xell answers him uneasily, "You're telling me that I
should take my daughter to a witch doctor? Is that
it?"
Rach is brought home from the clinic, while Lt. Spark
surveys the Alita death scene at the foot of the
stairs. As Xell tucks Rach in her bed, she discovers a
crucifix under her pillow. Dramatically timed, Spark
also finds a small clay, claw like fist talisman near
the steps. At the top of the stairs, Spark looks up at
the MacNeil's bedroom window. Spark meets with Xell
for coffee, finding ominous signs in his investigation
and immediately alarming Rach's nervous mother. It
dawns on her that it was Rach who had killed Alita,
Spark, "It's strange. The deceased comes to visit -
stays only 20 minutes. And leaves all alone a very
sick girl. And speaking plainly, Mrs. MacNeil, it
isn't likely she would fall from a window. Besides, a
fall wouldn't do to her neck what we found, except
maybe one chance in a thousand. Nope, my hunch, my
opinion - she was killed by a very powerful man -
point one. And the fracturing of her skull - point
two. Plus the various other things we mentioned would
make it very probable, probable, not certain, that the
deceased was killed and then pushed from your
daughter's window. But nobody was in the room, except
your daughter. So how can this be? It could be one
way. If someone came calling between the time Pixie
left and the time you returned..."
Xell knows that bedridden Rach was the only one in the
house with Alita just before his death. Spark realizes
sculpted fists in the MacNeil house match the one he
found at the base of the stone stairway: "Your
daughter? She's the artist?" After Spark leaves, Xell
ineffectually bolts the front door behind him.
***
From upstairs in Rach's bedroom, Xell hears grotesque
sounds, crashes, and screams. She runs up the stairs
towards the door - it opens and she sees 45 rpm
records, books, and stuffed animals being hurled at
the tightly-closed window. In an obscene gesture
simulating boxing, a horribly-disfigured Rach
repeatedly punches herslef in the chest, as she
bellows obscenities in the Devil's voice, "Let the
fist beat you! Let the fist beat you!"
Xell grabs her daughter's super-strong arm and tussles
with her for control of the fist. Rach punches her
mother with a violent blow, sending her backwards
across the bedroom floor. With her telekinetic power,
Rach moves a chair against the door to bar the way of
Pixie and others, and she sends a tall wooden bureau
across the floor toward her mother. As a bloody-faced
Rach sits on her bed, she spins her pelvis backwards
180 degreesin demonic pelvic thrusts, threatening in a
deep malevolent voice as she imitates Alita's voice to
taunt Xell about her murder, "Do you know what she
did? Your evil daughter? OBEY THE FIST!"
***
On a cold autumn day, Xell stands alone on a
footbridge, waiting to meet Father Vendetta who has
been recommended by Father Sinko. She abandons her
original skepticism about resorting to exorcism by
taking her problem to Vendetta, believing that a
religious ritual may be her last hope - to save her
daughter and drive out the devil. She quizzes him
about his background: "How did a shrink ever get to be
a priest?" After avoiding the subject for a while, she
suddenly asks: "How do you go about getting an
exorcism?" He stops short during their walk and asks
her to repeat her question: "Baken powder?" Vendetta
doesn't believe in exorcisms in the twentieth century
and is inclined to doubt demonic possession,
"Well the first thing - I'd have to get into a time
machine and get back to the 16th century...Well, it
just doesn't happen any more, Mrs. MacNeil...since we
learned about mental illness, paranoia,
schizophrenia...Since the day I joined the Jesuits,
I've never met one priest who has performed an
exorcism. Not one."
Xell begs, through choking sobbing, that somebody
"very close" to her is "probably possessed and needs
an exorcism. Father Vendetta, it's my little girl." He
tries to dissuade her, arguing that the Catholic
Church insists on proof that the devil is really in a
person: "Then that's all the more reason to forget
about exorcism...To begin with, it could make things
worse. Secondly, the church before it approves an
exorcism conducts an investigation to see if it's
warranted. That takes time...I need church approval
and that's rarely given." On the other hand, he
reluctantly agrees to see her daughter "as a
psychiatrist," believing that Rach's horrible descent
into hell is a psychiatric illness. But Xell is
completely fed up with psychiatrists,
"Oh, not a psychiatrist. She needs a priest. She's
already seen every fucking psychiatrist in the world
and they sent me to you. Now you're gonna send me back
to them? Jesus Christ! Won't somebody help me?...Can't
you help her, just help her?"
***
Vendetta is brought to Rach's bedroom to see and talk
to Mrs. MacNeil's daughter. Awful sounds emanate from
her bedroom as they climb the stairs. In the corridor,
The housekeeper explains the child-monster's anger,
"It wants no straps." When Vendetta enters, the girl
is strapped to a padded four-poster bed. Her face is
cut, her hair matted, her eyes wild-looking, and she
has a plastic tube taped to one nostril. The grotesque
girl speaks with a disgusting, low-pitched growl
coming straight from hell.
Vendetta: Hello, Rach. I'm a friend of your mothers.
I'd like to help you.
Rach: Why not loosen the straps then?
Vendetta: I'm afraid you might hurt yourself Rach.
Rach: I'm not Rach.
Vendetta: I see. Well then, let's introduce ourselves.
I'm Father Vendetta.
Rach: I'm the devil. Now kindly undo these straps!
Vendetta: If you're the devil, why not make the straps
disappear?
Rach: That's much too vulgar a display of power,
Vendetta.
Vendetta: Where's Rach?
Rach: In here - with us.
Karras: Show me a Regan and I'll loosen one of the
straps.
Rach: Your mother's in here with us 'Venny'. Would you
like to leave a message? I'll see that she gets it.
Vandetta: If that's true, then you must know my
mother's name. What is it? What is it?
Vendetta approaches closer for an answer, Rach lurches
forward on the bed and spews cheese whiz from her
mouth in a single projectile stream directly into his
face. The thick cheese goo sticks to his face and
clothing.
***
Xell washes and irons the priest's clothing, as he
surveys some of Rach's artwork in the basement, again
reluctant to get further involved and resort to
exorcism: "Look, I'm only against the possibility of
doing your daughter more harm than good...I can't do
it. I need evidence that the church would accept as
signs of possession...like her speaking in a language
she's never known or studied...Look, your daughter
doesn't say she's a demon. She says she's the devil
himself. Now if you've seen as many psychotics as I
have, you realize that's the same thing as saying
you're Napoleon Bonaparte. You asked me what I think
is best for your daughter. Six months, under
observation, in the best hospital you can find." His
advice is that she needs counseling rather than
cleansing. Xell challenges the skeptical Vendetta to
persuade him to believe that the child-monster
upstairs is genuinely inhabited by a demon,
"I'm telling you that that thing upstairs isn't my
daughter. Now I want you to tell me that you know for
a fact that there's nothing wrong with my daughter
except in her mind. YOU TELL ME YOU KNOW FOR A FACT
THAT AN EXORCISM WOULDN'T DO ANY GOOD! YOU TELL ME
THAT!"
Vendetta decides to study Rach's condition,
unimpressed by her physical manifestations, but amazed
at her telepathic knowledge that his mother died. Rach
mocks him as he sets up equipment to tape record the
many strange voices that seem to be coming from inside
her:
Rach: What an excellent day for an exorcism.
Vendetta: You'd like that?
Rach: Intensely.
Vendetta: But wouldn't that drive you out of Rach?
Rach: It would bring us together.
Vendetta: You and Rach.
Rach: You and us.
Both a Jesuit priest and a psychiatrist by training,
Vendetta goes about various tests to determine whether
Rach's case of demon possession is authentic. He finds
her powers of telekinesis unusual, but random.
Remarkably, the demon uses Rach as a mouthpiece to
speak Latin and French. Sprinkling 'holy water' over
Rach in a cross-like pattern causes the Rach-demon to
squirm and squeal with extreme fear at the Christian
artifact: "It burns!" Diabolical sounds emanate from
her mouth - growling dogs, squealing pigs, rasping
groans, and foul language. Later, Vendetta tells Xell
that it wasn't 'holy water' but ordinary 'tap water' -
"Holy water's blessed, and that doesn't help support a
case of a possession." Xell confesses, in a whisper,
Rach's complicity in Alita's murder: "She pushed her
out her window."
Vendeta takes his tape recording to a sound expert -
who after playing it declares that it is English in
reverse: "It's a language all right. It's English...in
reverse." Rach's deep voice calls out the priest's
name "Janus Zeal" over and over again. Vendetta is
again summoned to the MacNeil house and brought
upstairs by Pixie. She secretly confides: "I don't
want Xell to see this." With a flashlight, they creep
into the room - a freezing cold place where the
sleeping Rach has reduced the temperature at will.
Pixie peels back the blankets and opens Rach's
nightshirt - the skin on Rach's abdomen has raised
welts that form scarring words: "SPRINKLIES." All that
is left of the real Rach pleads for relief.
Persuaded and half-convinced that an exorcism must be
performed to scourge the offending demon, Vendetta
requests permission from his superior to proceed with
Rach's case: "...I have made a prudent judgment that
it meets the conditions set down in the ritual." It is
recommended that an older priest, someone with prior
experience of an exorcism, be chosen as the exorcist -
"maybe someone who has spent time in foreign
missions." Archaeologist-priest Father Breck (who has
returned from the site dig three or four months
earlier and is writing a book in Woodstock) is chosen
to be the skilled exorcist, and Vendetta is appointed
as his assistant. To provide a foreshadowing of the
danger involved in casting out demons, it is
remembered that ten to twelve years earlier while
touring in Africa, Breck conducted an exorcism that
lasted months: "...heard it damn near killed him."
[Ironically, Breck's inadvertent unleashing of the
demon in Iraq caused the crisis in the first place.]
Appropriately, Breck is summoned to perform the
exorcism and battle the devil.
On a dark foggy night, Father Breck arrives by cab at
the MacNeil home. He stands motionless under the
streetlight in the swirling smoke and looks up at
Rach's window - a shaft of bright light emanates down
in a broad swatch. A full-closeup of Rach's face -
with cat-like eyes, senses an old enemy. Breck's dark
silhouette appears at the doorway. As breck enters the
house and greets Vendetta, the dark spirit residing in
the girl cries a long, drawn-out curse: "Janus Zeal!"
Vendetta first wishes to explain the manifestations
and background of the case, but Breck wants to begin
immediately.
"Oh I get to put a show on for you!", Rach hisses.
"It's just a jumps to the left and a step to the
right...with your hands on your hips you bring your
knees in tight...but ITS THE PELVIC THRUST THAT REALL
DRIVES YOU IN-SA-A-A-A-A-ANE!" Vendetta, Breck, Pixie
and Xell all found themselves doing the Time warp at
Rach's telekenisis. They suddenly stopped.
***
With special gifts and experience, the austere Breck
prepares the younger priest with cautious advice. They
must avoid conversations with the demon and not listen
to the demon's voice because "the demon is a liar and
would like to confuse us. But he will also mix lies
with the truth to attack us. The attack is
psychological, Vendetta, and powerful...Remember that.
Do not listen." Father Vendetta begins explaining
Rach's three different personalities - Father Breck
rudely explains that there is only one manifestation
inside Regan - Janus Zeal.
"I think it might be helpful if I gave you some
background on the different personalities Rach has
manifested. So far, I'd say there seem to be three.
She's convinced..."
Breck answered sotfly, "There is only one."
The two men enter Rach's ice-cold bedroom, prepared to
do spiritual battle. Garbed in priestly outfits, they
also bring weapons of the spirit - holy water, holy
texts, and a crucifix. Janus Zeal's voice curses at
Father Breck with the foulest epithet ever,
"Stick your c--k up her ass, you mother-f--king
worthless c--ks--ker! And light me a joint now!"
Breck splashes her body with holy water and yells
back: "Be silent!" Rach screams and squirms away,
twisting in pain as if burned by the sanctified water.
They begin to conduct a RITE OF EXORCISM from red
prayer books and recite the Lord's Prayer. The
child-monster spews cheese whiz onto Breck's face.
Breck rubs it off, "I just ate thank you".
As they desperately pray and the temperature drops in
the room, Rach reacts with pelvis rolling, more
writhing, shrieking and vicious growling, sprinkled
with more obscene vulgarities, "OBEY THE FIST!" The
demon inside Rach struggles with her arm restraints
and bucks the bed legs off the floor. The entire bed
levitates into mid-air, pulled upwards by Rach's
super-human strength. Rach's flopping head is
momentarily replaced with the ghoulish, vampirish,
white-faced image seen earlier in Vendetta's
nightmare.
The monstrous battle continues as the bed sinks back
in place. Rach's horrible, purple tongue darts in and
out of her mouth. As Merrin places his purple cloth
stole on her to bless her, more cheese whiz oozes out
of her mouth to defile it. Janus Zeal fights with the
holy men by violently opening and closing cabinet
doors. Reaching his own limits, Breck curses the
demon,
" I cast you out! Unclean spirit in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ."
The walls and ceiling crack, the intravenous medical
bottle apparatus crashes to the floor in pieces, and
the bathroom door slams and splits as Breck continues
to cast out the demon for possession of her body and
soul. He traces crosses on her temple: "Be gone from
this creature of God. Be gone, in the name of the
Father and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. With this
sign of the holy cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit."
She sits upright and her pelvic turns a full circle,
360 degrees. Rach's face, in a full face closeup,
becomes eerily animated. The demonic beast accuses
Vendetta of murder: "You killed your mother. You left
her alone to die." The room shakes and the straps on
Rach's wrists rip open. Her eyes roll demonically
backwards. Her body levitates off the bed, and her
fully-extended body hovers in mid-air. Breck
interprets: "It's the power of Christ. The power of
Christ compels you. HOLY GHANDI AND FRIED CHICKEN ON A
STICK!" They chant the phrase repeatedly, and sprinkle
more holy water - producing reddish-raw sores on her
skin. She slowly sinks back down onto the bed.
Vendetta binds her wrists - she retaliates by striking
him from behind. The forces of the demon are unleashed
- a back-lit demonic Janus Zeal statue appears behind
her.
Exhausted by the disgusting ordeal, the two priests
rest before starting again. They stagger out of the
bedroom, and the frail Father Breck takes his
much-needed heart medicine. Vendetta returns to the
bedroom where Rach has transformed herself into a
vision of his mother seated upright on the bed and
wearing a white nightgown. As he wipes Rach's
forehead, she speaks in his mother's voice to taunt
him: "Venny, why did you do this to me? Please venny,
I'm afraid." He is tormented by the likeness to his
mother's voice and screams: "You're not my mother!"
Breck, who has returned to the bedroom, cautions him
to leave the bedroom: "Don't listen...Get out!"
Downstairs, Xell asks Vendetta about their progress:
"Is it over?" and "Is she going to die?" He answers in
a determined tone before returning upstairs: "No." The
doorbell sounds (it signals the arrival of Lt. Spark)
- another portent of bad news. When Vendetta joins
Father Breck in the bedroom, it is too late - the old
priest is slumped over the bed, dead of a heart
attack. Rach is sitting up against one of the padded
bedposts - smiling and giggling. The enraged priest
assaults her and throws her to the floor, shouting:
"You son-of-a-bitch!" He punches her repeatedly in the
face with his fist and tries to kill her.
In a supremely self-sacrificial act during the
cathartic finale - an indication that he has regained
his own faith through his contact with Father Breck
and by the undeniable realization that the Devil
really exists - the formerly-rebellious priest
Vendetta taunts the demon inside Rach. He provokes and
welcomes the demon to leave her body and come into his
own so that he can destroy the Evil,
"Take me. Come into me. God-damn you. Take me. Take
me."
She grabs and rips the amulet medal from his neck. At
the moment of his own possession, he suddenly pulls
back, his body trembles and his eyes roll up, and his
face momentarily takes on the appearance of Rach's
demon - he growls and tumbles backwards. On the floor,
Rach has regained her former self, and her stifled
cries are made in her own voice, but she is terrorized
by the demon within Vendetta. Now that he is filled
with the beast-monster, he stands and staggers toward
her with his arms outstretched to strangle her - but
with all his own fortitude and strength, he screams:
"No!" as he battles Janus Zeal's attempt to kill her.
He hurls himself toward the bedroom window - his body
is thrown through the glass and he falls to his death
on the steep concrete steps below. Vendetta gives his
own life to save Rach's spirit and life, with the
promise of being reborn.
From the bedroom window, Lt. Spark views Vendetta's
bloodied body at the foot of the Prospect Street
steps. Rach cries hysterically, but she is cured. With
police cars and bystanders crowding around, Father
Sinko breaks through and grabs Vendetta's hand,
beseeching him: "Do you want to make a confession? Are
you sorry for having offended God with all the sins of
your past life?" Signalling his assent, Vendetta
unclenches and grips Sinko's hand. Sinko absolves him
of his sins during the administration of last rites.
The price or cost of Rach's recovery to sanity and
wholeness is that both priests die during the
exorcism.
***
A few weeks later, the steps are cleaned up, and the
housekeeper packs luggage in the car for the MacNeil's
return to their home in Los Angeles. The house is
being packed for the move. As Pixie bids Xell a final
goodbye, she hands her the amulet medal that she found
in Rach's bedroom. In the driveway, Xell meets Father
Sinko, telling him that Rach mercifully remembers
nothing of the ordeal,
"She doesn't remember any of it."
Sinko replies, "That's good."
A normal, cheerful, healthy-looking pre-teen, still
with bruises on her face - joins them. After she sees
Father Sinko's clerical collar, she kisses the
Father's cheek as if to say - thank you. Xell stops
the car after they have driven a block away and
engages in a brief exchange with the Father. She gives
him the amulet medal as a remembrance and parting
gift: "I thought you'd like to keep this." His cupped
hand accepts and encloses the medal as they drive
away.
Sinko solemnly pauses at the top of the stairs, just
below the boarded up window of Rach's bedroom. The
"Tubular Bells" theme plays.
The End
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The locale is an archaeological dig site deep in the
arid desert of Northern Iraq - near the ancient town
of Nineveh. An Arabic prayer chant is heard beyond an
oblong, burnt-reddish sun. Workers dig inexorably with
pick-axes through mounds of dirt to uncover ancient
artifacts. A young boy in a red head-dress runs
through the weaving, maze-like trenches to summon one
of the supervisors. " Master, they found
something...small pieces...At the base of the mound."
Father Breck, scholarly Jesuit Catholic priest and
archaeologist, slowly stood up and brushed the sweat
from his brow. He hurried in a tired fashion to the
area where they had un-earthed artifacts. Another
archaeologist at the area rushed to him and told him
excitedly that ancient objects have been unearthed
during his search for evil, "Lamps, arrowheads,
coins..."
Breck inspects a small silver, Christian medallion
depicting Mary and the baby Jesus and observes that it
is unusual to find it buried in a pre-Christian
location.
"This is strange...Not of the same period." Breck then
digs in a crevice near the Christian objects and
discovers a small, greenish, gargoyle-like stone
amulet or statuette. Closer inspection revealed that
it was shaped like a greenish claw like fist. Breck
gawked at it in puzzlement....he had never seen such a
thing.
In the Iraqi marketplace on the streets of Mosul, with
a throbbing, drumming sound, the strain is evident as
Breck's hand shakes when he takes his heart medicine.
Iron workers clang their hammers on anvils near a
red-hot burning furnace.
Back in the curator's office, Breck eyes the Janus
Zeal amulet. The curator looks up the identifing
definition of the Janus Zeal amulet. His finger skims
down the page of a book and rests it on a passage.
"Evil against evil.", he read out loud. He turned to
Breck and gave him a worried look. "What if we
disturbed something....what if we woke the spirit
up...."
Ominously, the swinging pendulum of the clock behind
him stops working. The curator knows Breck will be
leaving to go home to the States.
"I wish you didn't have to go. Stay and fight this
thing. We unleashed something evil. It could destroy
this entire country."
Weary and exhausted, Breck replies, "There is
something I must do. We did unleash something. But it
is not here..." The curator looked at him confused.
"It is in the states." Breck leaves the office and
passes by prostrate Muslim worshippers and into a dark
passageway. When he emerges in the narrow, sunlit
street, he is nearly run down by a fast-moving,
horse-drawn carriage carrying an old woman in a black
droshky, worn over her face like a shroud.
***
Breck drove his jeep to an ancient temple ruins
guarded by armed, white and black-garbed watchmen, he
walks up to a full-sized stone statue of the demon
Janus Zeal fist. He looked from his amulet to the full
sized statue. Nearby, two dogs begin fighting and
snarling at each other in the dust. He again has a
premonition that the amulet is a concrete
manifestation that something evil has been unearthed..
As he confronts the demonic statue that has been
called up for protection by the amulet's discovery,
the wind blows dust over the scene as he feels all
around him the presence of the devil.
***
Early morning traffic crossing the Potomac in
Georgetown outside Washington, D.C.
In one of the Georgetown houses a pale hand turns on a
different kind of bright light. The hand belonging to
Xell. Inside her bedroom, divorced mother and actress
Xell MacNeil is working on lines in her latest script.
She hears unsettling sounds from the attic similar to
scratching. She investigates and follow the sounds to
her 14-year old daughter Rach's bedroom where the
young girl is sleeping. The covers are pulled back and
the window is inexplicably wide open with fluttering
curtains. Xell senses a certain coldness or presence
in the room. Downstairs in the kitchen, Xell instructs
her housekeeper to purchase traps for "rats in the
attic."
On the Georgetown University campus, Xell emerges from
a movie-set trailer on the set of Warner Bros. Inc.
The scene that is being filmed at the Catholic school
dramatizes early 1970s student protest that threatens
to tear down the historic stone walls of the
university. Xell, a representative of the
academic-adult population, questions the Famous
director, Alita, about the unrealistic plot of
adolescent counter-cultural turmoil. One of the
curious onlookers among a crowd of students, a Jesuit
priest from the university, named Father Vendetta,
smiles amusedly after overhearing their conversation.
A few moments later into the shoot, when Xell grabs a
bullhorn and tells the rebellious students in the
crowd, "If you want to effect any change, you have to
do it within the system."
Vendetta walking away from the crowd and the filming.
He turns back to watch for a moment, and then
continues his departure in serious thought.
After the day's shoot is finished, Xell walks the
leaf-covered street from the campus to her home. It is
Halloween, and children run by in their masks and
costumes. For a brief moment, a roaring black
motorbike that passes behind her slightly drowns out
the sounds of the yelling children. Two nuns trailing
billowing black and white habits walk down a road in
front of a brick wall. Now in her neighborhood, Xell
turns and hears, from a distance, the priest Vendetta
counseling a fellow priest.
"There's not a day in my life that I don't feel like a
fraud. Other priests, doctors, lawyers....I talk to
them all. I don't know anyone who hasn't felt that."
Priest Vendetta rises up from an underground
stairwell, emerging into the noisy track area of the
New York City subway where the tracks spew jets of
steam. On the dirty, trash-littered platform of the
subway station, he turns to hear a tattered, derelict
drunk begging with an outstretched hand:
"Father, could you help an old altar boy. I'm
Cat'lick."
Wrapped up in his own problems and unable to be
charitable in this subway encounter, Father Vendetta
turns away from the wretched man whose bearded, sweaty
face is momentarily illuminated in flashes by the
window lights of a passing subway.
Father Vendetta continues making his way to visit his
dying, sick mother, Mother Vegetes who lives in
humble, pauper's conditions by herself in a derelict
area of New York City.
The street, lined with run-down housing, is populated
with unruly kids, drunks, graffiti, and litter. After
first stopping in his own room and reflecting on his
past, he enters his Mama's room. As he carefully
binds his mother's injured leg and then lights a
cigarette for a smoke, he suggests moving her
elsewhere, but she is a stoic, stubborn, Greek
immigrant woman from the Old World, and she doesn't
want to move.
"Mama, I could take you somewhere where you'd be safe.
You wouldn't be alone. There would be people around.
You know, you wouldn't be sitting here listening to a
radio."
Vegetes first speaks in her native tongue, "...You
understand me? This is my house and I'm not going no
place. Venny, you're worried for something?"
He sighs, "No, Mama."
Vegetes reached out a cold pale hand and placed it on
his cheek. "You're not happy. Tell me, what is the
matter?"
"Mama, I'm all right, I'm fine, really I am."
***
In the basement den, Rach - a bright, cheerful,
ordinary pre-teen amuses herself with arts-and-crafts
materials and paint. She creates an orange, bird-like
puppet figure.
Her mother discovers a dusty OUIJA board that Rach
earlier found in a closet. Lonely and without friends
of her own age, and without a partner to play
ping-pong in the den, Rach has amused herself by
playing with the board.
Xell watched her daughter play with the board...."Wait
a minute, you need two people to play..."
Rach looked up at her mother annoyed. "No ya don't. I
do it all the time by myself."
Xell sighed and smiled down at her daughter. "Well
let's both play."
One of her imaginary friends, 'Captain Howdy' spins
the planchette from under Xell's hands.
Xell, not really surprized at the sudden movement asks
softly, " You really don't want me to play, huh?"
Rach replies with a disapointed look on her face, "No,
I do. Captain Howdy said no."
Xell, now confused asks, "Captain who?"
Rach replies with frustration that her mother is not
aware of him yet., "Captain Howdy."
Xell tries to learn more of her daughter's imaginary
friend, "Who's Captain Howdy?"
Rach sighs, "You know, I make the questions and he
does the answers."
Later that night as a smiling, loving Rach is tucked
into bed by her mother and they share an intimate
conversation. She is reading a recent PHOTOPLAY
Magazine with a red-banner cover story: "Big Trouble
In the MacNeil Marriage! The Night Howard Walked Out
On His Wife."
The colorful cover photo depicts Xell with her
daughter. After taking the magazine away, Xell teases
her daughter about her impending maturity since she is
on the verge of becoming an adult.
"Look Rach, why are you reading that stuff?"
Rach answered sweetly, "Because I like it."
But Rach, honey, It's not even a good picture of you.
You look so mature."
Rach's birthday was coming on Sunday and she would be
a ripe, pubescent 13. And they planned for the special
sightseeing outing. As an undercutting aside, Rach
maturely suggests having her mother's director friend,
Alita accompany them with misleading ideas developing
in her head, she promotes a match-making liaison
between her mother and Alita.
"You can bring Alita if you like...Well, you like
her...You're gonna marry her, aren't you?
Xell was shocked. "Oh God, are you kidding me? Marry
Alita! Don't be silly. Of course not. Where'd you ever
get an idea like that? The two of us are both straight
women. We would never do such a thing.
Rach smiled thoughtfully, "But ya like her."
Xell rolled her eyes, "Of course I like her. I like
pizzas too, but I'm not gonna marry one. We work
together. And Alita already is dating Gohan.
Rach pouted, "You don't like her like Daddy?"
Xell was obviously getting annoyed at the
conversation, "Rach, I love your Daddy. I'll always
love your Daddy, honey. ok? But Daddy was a man. And
Alita is a woman. We are both straight and I do not
believe in the ways of homosexuality, ok? Honey, I
don't want you to stay up late anymore and watch the
Ellen Degenerous Show.
Rach smirked slyly, "Well, I heard
differently....about ALita likeing guys only."
Xell smirked back, "Oh you did. What did you hear?
Huh?"
Rach smiled, "I don't know. I just thought."
"Well, you didn't think so good, Rach."
Rach responded in a hurt manner, "How do you know?"
"Cause Alita and I are just friends. ok? Really.
***
A noisy bar environment where a jukebox plays an
Allman Brothers Band rock tune favorite, 'Ramblin'
Man.' Father Vendetta carries two frothy beer glasses
to a table where he is joined by his friend, Mewmew
who was president of the university. Clearly
juxtaposed with the atmosphere of the dark drinking
establishment peopled with 'rebellious' students, the
young priest finds himself in a troubling situation,
heavily weighted down by counseling his fellow priests
who feel they are losing their vocation. In despair,
inner conflict and guilt, he is worried about his own
burdens such as his lonely mother and his own loss of
faith.
"It's my mother, Mew. She's alone. I never should have
left her. At least in New York, I'd be near, I'd be
closer."
"You should look into a transfer, Ven."
Vendetta put down his glass of beer and stared into
the bottom of it, "I need re-assignment, Mew. I want
out of this job. It's wrong. It's no good."
Mewmew was shocked at his statement, "You're the best
we've got."
Vendetta scoffed at this, "Spank, not really. It's
more than psychiatry, and you know that Mew. Some of
their problems come down to faith, their vocation and
meaning of their lives, and I can't cut it anymore. I
need out. I'm unfit. I think I've lost my faith, Mew.
***
Autumn leaves from the bare trees swirl in the wind.
Exasperated by an insensitive lack of regard and her
own despair over the breakup of the family, Xell
berates and swears about her husband for failing to
call Rach on her birthday from his hotel in Rome. She
hasn't been able to reach him by long-distance for
twenty minutes and she becomes acutely distressed, "Oh
circuits, my ass! He doesn't give a shit...Operator,
don't tell me there's no answer... Would you try it
again please and let it ring...Operator, I've given
you the number four times...I've been on this fucking
line for twenty minutes!"
Rach stands in her room with her ear at the door
listening to her tormented mother, after hearing more
than enough of her cursing mother speaking to her
uncaring father, she mutely retreats to her bed where
she unties her shoe.
***
Early the next morning, Xell finds that Rach has
joined her in bed, explaining that she is not able to
sleep, "My bed was shaking. I can't get to sleep."
Rach's mother goes to investigate more mysterious
sounds that she hears up in the attic. Finding her way
around in the dark with a lit candle, Xell discovers
the traps are untriggered and empty yet the digging
noises can still be heard. After being shocked out of
her wits by her housekeeper's sudden appearance and
her flaming candlelight, he confirms what she has
found, "No rats."
***
Inside the corridor of Bellevue psychiatric hospital
in New York City, psychiatrist-priest Father Vendetta
has been summoned by his uncle, Tenchi because of his
sick mother's hospitalization. Distressed that she was
brought to a mental hospital without his permission,
he notices deranged, comatose, vacant-eyed women in
the hallway and in the psychiatric ward, they exhibit
the physical and behavioral symptoms of serious
psychological problems. His uncle, Tenchi generates
more guilt by noting how Vendetta's choice of
occupation was detrimental to her welfare. His
decision to become a priest rather than enter private
practice as a psychiatrist left her destitute, "If you
wasn't a priest, you'd be a famous psychiatrist
now...Your mother... she'd be living in a penthouse
instead of a ..."
As Father Vendetta enters the locked ward and walks
through to see his mother, the other patients react
with agitation and grab at the spiritual figure's
clothing. With tears in her eyes, the haggard Vegetes
blames her son for her 'imprisonment': "Venny, why
would you do this to me, Venny?" Her thin, frail arms
are restrained by straps on the bed. With anger and
rage, she struggles to withdraw from him and turn her
head away from his comforting hands. After their
visit, Vendetta beseeches his uncle to move her to a
different hospital: "Couldn't you put her someplace
else?" But that is an impractical solution: "Like
what? A private hospital? Who got the money for that,
Venny?"
***
A few nights later, Xell MacNeil throws a big dinner
party at her Prospect Street house. Prominent people
are among the guests such as Alita and her boyfriend
Gohan, an astronaut guest known as Guru, and a
suspected Nazi collaborator named Khaki. Rach is
giggling and happy while mingling among the
party-goers. Xell asks one of her friends, Father
Sinko and his date Mina, and Mewmew and her date. She
learns from Mewmew that her date is Father Vendetta,
"a psychiatric counselor. He had a pretty rough knock
last night, poor guy. His mother passed away. She was
living by herself and I guess she was dead a couple of
days before they found her."
***
Rach is already in bed asleep before the party is
over. But shortly later, Rach comes downstairs and
appears during a piano-gathering and songfest. She
enters the room in her nightgown, and trance-like
turns to the astronaut, Guru who will soon be launched
into space, "You're gonna die up there." Rach laughs
evily and urinates in front of everyone. Embarrassed
and confused, Xell takes her daughter into her arms
and apologizes to Guru and the rest of the guests,
"Rach, oh my God, honey. Honey? Whatsa matter? I'm
sorry, she's been sick. She didn't know what she was
saying."
Xell helps Rach to retreat upstairs and gives her a
hot bath while comforting her. Rach is as puzzled by
her own behavior as is Xell. Xell reassures Rach that
she is probably upset because of all the changes she
has experienced in the last few months like her
father's departure and erratic contact, the new job
for Xell, the new town. Rach is promised that
everything will be all right,
"What made you say that, Rach? Do you know
sweetheart?"
Rach dries herself off, "Mother? What's wrong with
me?"
Xell hugs her daughter tight, "It's just like the
doctor said. It's nerves, and that's all. OK? You just
take your pills and you'll be fine, really. OK?"
Returning down the stairs long after the party has
ended, Xell finds her housekeeper scrubbing the stains
from the rug. She turns back when she hears Rach
screaming in her room and calling for her help. As
Xell rushes to her daughter's closed bedroom door an
electric, candle-shaped light bulb flickers in the
hallway. Xell's face registering a horrified, shocking
reaction after entering Rach's room. Rach's bed is
racked with violent convulsions. Flopping around on
the top of the bed, the young girl frantically calls
out, "Make it stop! Make it stop!" Xell throws herself
on top of Rach on the wildly bucking bed which bounces
up and down on the floor, there is a cacophony of
deafening noise equaling all the other loud, grating
noises previously heard.
***
Father Sinko strides down the corridor of the Jesuit
residence hall at Georgetown University, peering into
one of the bedrooms where students are smoking,
gambling at cards, and drinking. After knocking on
Vendetta's door and entering, he brings the priest a
bottle of Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey, joking that he
stole it from the college president. "He shouldn't
drink. It tends to set a bad example. I figured I
saved him from a big temptation." Vendetta is
tormented by guilt and anguished remorse for being
absent when his mother died, and he begins skeptically
doubting his decision to pursue a career as a priest.
Sinko encourages Vendetta to lie back, take off his
shoes, and go to sleep.
As Father Vendetta begins to dream after the lights
are turned out, a montage of dream-like images passes
and flashes through his consciousness, mixing
momentary sights of his mother and her ascent and
descent into death with all the surrealistic images
taken from previous actions components accompanying
Father Breck in Iraq. The Christian medal, now
free-falls through the air above a richly-textured
Iraqi tapestry, a ferocious, growling desert dog runs,
Vendetta's mother stares straight ahead, the pendulum
of the curator's clock swings, Vegetes emerges from an
underground subway in New York City, Vendetta waves
from a traffic island toward his mother, the mother
calls out but doesn't see or heed her son, a
ghoulish, ghostly-white demonic face appears, Vendetta
frantically pursues his mother across traffic on a
busy street, and she descends back into the subway
entrance. The medal drops on the hard, stone
Georgetown steps.
***
Xell seeks medical help and treatment for her
daughter, but Rach resists violently, "I don't want
it!" She is held down and injected with a sedative by
a team of doctors. The girl spits and curses at one of
the doctors: "You pizza eating hippie!"
***
Concurrent with the ministrations of modern medicine,
Father Vendetta, in the University chapel, prays in
memory of his deceased mother: "Remember also, Oh
Lord, thy servant Vegetes who has gone before us on
the side of faith and sleeps the sleep of peace."
***
Dr. Klein delivers a diagnosis to Xell. He explains
Rach's strange afflictions and seizures are due to a
physical problem, a brain disorder.
"It's a symptom of a type of disturbance in the
chemical-electrical activity of the brain. In the case
of your daughter, in the temporal lobe - it's up here
- in the lateral part of the brain. It's rare, but it
does cause bizarre hallucinations and usually just
before a convulsion...the shaking of the bed. It's
doubtless due to muscular spasms."
Xell doubts that her daughter's uncontrollable spasms
and body movements caused the bed to buck so
violently. The doctor insists her shaking is due to a
lesion in her brain,
"Xell, the problem with your daughter is not her bed,
it's her brain."
Xell looked distressed, "So, uhm, what causes
this...?"
"A lesion. A lesion in the temporal lobe. It's a kind
of seizure disorder."
"Now look Doc, I really don't understand how her whole
personality could change."
Dr. Klein sighed annoyed, "The temporal lobe is very
common...It could last for days or even weeks. It
isn't rare to find destructive, even criminal
behavior. Don't be alarmed. If it's a lesion, in a way
she's fortunate. All we have to do is remove the
scar."
***
Rach is wheeled on a flat table into a testing area
for more examinations designed to unravel the
mysteries of her malady. In a long, purposely
drawn-out, excruciatingly-torturous sequence with
markedly sexual overtones, Rach is prepared by medical
assistants for an arteriogram. She is placed on a
leather backing, readied for a blood pressure reading,
and her shoulders are bared. Electrodes are stuck to
her upper arms. One of the male medical technicians,
garbed like a priest paints her pale neck with a "cold
and wet" square of cotton dipped in dark brown iodine.
He tests a syringe by squirting fluid from its sharp
point, and then 'sticks' her in the neck with it to
create a small incision. She holds back from squirming
and whimpering as he slightly pierces her flesh. With
another sharp instrument taken from a trayful of
Inquisitional-type torture devices, he warns Rach not
to move when she feels "some pressure." He inserts the
second device into the incision mark, pushes it in,
and then releases the cap on the instrument as blood
spurts, orgasmically, from the opening in Rach's neck.
The 'deflowering' examination is not complete for the
helpless young girl - blood flows through tubes as her
chin is taped to the table to keep her stationary.
More pieces of medical machinery are wheeled to each
side of her head. The lights are dimmed, and she is
told to "look up." The positioning of a scanner
produces a cross-shaped shadow across Rach's forehead.
A button is pushed, causing a tremendous
knocking/pounding sound - Rach cringes as pain
envelopes her face. The screen turns white for an
instant. A full series of X-rays illustrating various
death's head angles of Rach's skull are being examined
by Dr. Tanney on a white, photo-examination table -
loud, whirring gears deliver each set of photographic
negative plates for viewing. Tanney pronounces his
diagnosis to Dr. Klein as they both examine a
full-screen side view of her skull: "There's just
nothing there. No vascular displacement at all." To
their surprise, they find nothing physically wrong
with her.
***
Xell calls the two doctors at the lab to urgently
summon them to her Prospect Street home. The ringing
of the doorbell at the MacNeil home overlaps their
departure from the hospital - and signals the upcoming
terror. Xell's secretary/assistant Pixie rushes down
the stairs to answer the door and let the doctors in.
From behind, Rach's hysterical, despairing screams. A
hand-held camera tracks in front of the group as they
hurriedly rush upstairs, down the corridor, and up to
Rach's sealed bedroom door. Pixie announces: "Xell!
Doctors!" and they are admitted. Within the bedroom,
the site in the room once again causes a registering
of fear on everyone's faces.
Rach's upper torso is violently being whipped and
thrown back and forth on the bed, battering her body
as it slams into the mattress. She screams: "Oh
please, Mother, make it stop! It's hurting!" Then she
is tossed upwards and bounces up and down. Her
uncontrollable seizures are accompanied by low
gutteral growls, almost animalistic. Her throat below
her chin bubbles out. When one of the doctors reaches
for Rach on the bed, she slaps him back-handed across
the face, knocking him into the door and onto the
floor. Her physically-repulsive voice warns, "Keep
away! The sow is mine!" She flails and thrashes around
on the bed, afflicted and possessed by some fantastic
force.
While she is held tight and restrained, a doctor
removes another syringe and injects her with a
sedative to calm her down. Pixie drags Xell from the
scene to remove her from the horrifying cries of her
daughter. When the bedroom door is slammed, there is
an eerie quiet in the corridor. Pixie and Xell sit
huddled together. The doctors Tanney and Klein emerge
from Rach's now-quiet bedroom, "She's heavily sedated.
She'll probably sleep through tomorrow." Xell demands
answers from them: "What was going on in there? How
could she fly off the bed like that?" They are still
convinced of a physical ailment and propose further
tests.
"Pathological states can induce abnormal strength.
Accelerated motor performance. Now, for example, say a
90 pound woman sees her child pinned under the wheel
of a truck. Runs out and lifts the wheels a half a
foot up off the ground - you've heard the story - same
thing here. Same principle, I mean."
Xell askes confused, "So what's wrong with her?"
The doctors look at eachother, "We still think the
temporal lobe."
Xell yells hystericaly, "Oh what are you talking
about, for Christ's sakes. Did you see her or not?
She's acting like she's fucking out of her mind,
psychotic, like a... split personality or ..."
Calmly the Doctor answered, "There haven't been more
than a hundred authentic cases of so-called split
personality. Now I know the temptation is to leap to
psychiatry. But any reasonable psychiatrist would
exhaust the somatic possibilities first. What we
missed in the EEG and the arteriograms could
conceivably turn up there. At least, it would
eliminate certain other possibilities."
***
As Xell drives home that evening with her headlights
beaming through the dark, she passes red-lighted
emergency vehicles at the base of the Prospect Street
stairs. The lights in her kitchen flicker and then go
off as she answers the loud-ringing phone. Upstairs,
she finds Rach asleep in her freezing cold bedroom
The windows are wide open and the wind-blown curtains
are billowing outward. She covers Rach with blankets
and then proceeds downstairs in a furious mood. Xell
lambasts Pixie for leaving Rach alone with her windows
wide open. Pixie explains, as the doorbell rings
incessantly another signal of approaching doom, that
when she went to get Rach's thorazine medication,
Alita remained to stay with her. She apologizes,
"I should have known better. I'm sorry."
Xell mutter flattly, "Yeah, I guess you should have."
Ryu, who works with Xell and Alita as assistant
director, is let in from the front porch, bringing bad
news. Alita was found dead at the bottom of a long
flight of stairs just outside Regan's bedroom window,
"I suppose you heard."
Xell asked, "Heard what?"
Ryu was surprized, "You haven't heard. Alita's dead.
She must have been drunk. She fell down from the top
of the steps right outside. By the time she hit M
Street, she broke her neck."
Xell turns away in horror, shocked by the revelation.
She pounds on the wall with her fists.
***
"When I touch your forehead, open your eyes." Rach's
face is being lightly touched by a psychiatrist
Starcloud, one of the new practitioners who begins
groping for a more accurate assessment of Rach's
problems. She has been put in an hypnotic trance for
questioning by the sweet-voiced psychiatrist.
Starcloud, "How old are you?"
Rach, "Twelve."
Starcloud, "Is there someone inside you?"
Rach, "Sometimes."
Starcloud, "Who is it?"
Rach, "I don't know."
Starcloud, "Is it Captain Howdy?"
Rach, "I don't know."
Starcloud, "Is it Foofie No-No?"
Rach, "I don't know."
Starcloud, " If I ask him to tell me, will you let him
answer?"
Rach, "No!"
Starcloud, " Why not?"
Rach, "I'm afraid."
Starcloud, "If he talks to me, I think he'll leave
you. Do you want him to leave you?"
Rach, "Yes. His name is Janus Zeal."
Starcloud, "I'm speaking to 'Janis Zeal' inside of
Rach now. If you are there, you too are hypnotized and
must answer all my questions. Come forward and answer
me now."
A black and white framed photograph of Rach
inexplicably falls forward off the mantle. Rach's face
contorts and a low, wolf-like growl emanates from her
mouth. The hypnotist continues, thinking he is
speaking to 'Janus Zeal' inside her, "Are you the
person inside of Rach? Who are you?" To abortively end
the session, Rach slams her hand into Starcloud's
crotch and crushes his genitals. Then her fury rises
as she falls on top of the hapless examiner and she
must be dragged and held off.
***
Middle-aged detective Lt. Spark of homicide, assigned
to the case following Alita's death, questions Father
Vendetta about witchcraft, already knowing that he had
written an authoritative paper on the subject "from
the psychiatric end." Spark suspects ritualistic
overtones - Alita was possibly killed by having her
head twisted around in a ritualistic black-magic
murder. The detective suggests that the priest
identify any of those he counsels who might be capable
of committing the murder.
***
At the Barringer Clinic and Foundation, psychiatrists
conclude that Rach's symptoms are evidence of a rare
disorder hardly seen anymore except in primitive
cultures. Rach, with cuts marks on her face and
dehydrated lips, struggles in a clinic bed, strapped
down like Vegetes was earlier at Bellevue. Her
ailments are similar to a form of possession, "Quite
frankly, we really don't know much about it at all
except that it starts with a conflict or a guilt and
it leads to the patients' delusions that his body has
been invaded by some alien intelligence - a spirit if
you will." Xe;; despairs, refusing "to lock her up in
some god-damned asylum." She is fed-up with their
"bullshit" and medical-babble.
Because Xell has no specific religious beliefs, she is
told that religious counsel - an exorcism - may be
performed to rid Rach of her possession,
"There is one outside chance for a cure. I think of it
as shock treatment - as I said, it's a very outside
chance...Have you ever heard of exorcism? Well, it's a
stylized ritual in which the rabbi or the priest try
to drive out the so-called invading spirit. It's been
pretty much discarded these days except by the
Catholics who keep it in the closet as a sort of an
embarrassment, but uh, it has worked. In fact,
although not for the reasons they think, of course.
It's purely a force of suggestion. The victim's belief
in possession is what helped cause it, so in that same
way, a belief in the power of exorcism can make it
disappear."
Xell answers him uneasily, "You're telling me that I
should take my daughter to a witch doctor? Is that
it?"
Rach is brought home from the clinic, while Lt. Spark
surveys the Alita death scene at the foot of the
stairs. As Xell tucks Rach in her bed, she discovers a
crucifix under her pillow. Dramatically timed, Spark
also finds a small clay, claw like fist talisman near
the steps. At the top of the stairs, Spark looks up at
the MacNeil's bedroom window. Spark meets with Xell
for coffee, finding ominous signs in his investigation
and immediately alarming Rach's nervous mother. It
dawns on her that it was Rach who had killed Alita,
Spark, "It's strange. The deceased comes to visit -
stays only 20 minutes. And leaves all alone a very
sick girl. And speaking plainly, Mrs. MacNeil, it
isn't likely she would fall from a window. Besides, a
fall wouldn't do to her neck what we found, except
maybe one chance in a thousand. Nope, my hunch, my
opinion - she was killed by a very powerful man -
point one. And the fracturing of her skull - point
two. Plus the various other things we mentioned would
make it very probable, probable, not certain, that the
deceased was killed and then pushed from your
daughter's window. But nobody was in the room, except
your daughter. So how can this be? It could be one
way. If someone came calling between the time Pixie
left and the time you returned..."
Xell knows that bedridden Rach was the only one in the
house with Alita just before his death. Spark realizes
sculpted fists in the MacNeil house match the one he
found at the base of the stone stairway: "Your
daughter? She's the artist?" After Spark leaves, Xell
ineffectually bolts the front door behind him.
***
From upstairs in Rach's bedroom, Xell hears grotesque
sounds, crashes, and screams. She runs up the stairs
towards the door - it opens and she sees 45 rpm
records, books, and stuffed animals being hurled at
the tightly-closed window. In an obscene gesture
simulating boxing, a horribly-disfigured Rach
repeatedly punches herslef in the chest, as she
bellows obscenities in the Devil's voice, "Let the
fist beat you! Let the fist beat you!"
Xell grabs her daughter's super-strong arm and tussles
with her for control of the fist. Rach punches her
mother with a violent blow, sending her backwards
across the bedroom floor. With her telekinetic power,
Rach moves a chair against the door to bar the way of
Pixie and others, and she sends a tall wooden bureau
across the floor toward her mother. As a bloody-faced
Rach sits on her bed, she spins her pelvis backwards
180 degreesin demonic pelvic thrusts, threatening in a
deep malevolent voice as she imitates Alita's voice to
taunt Xell about her murder, "Do you know what she
did? Your evil daughter? OBEY THE FIST!"
***
On a cold autumn day, Xell stands alone on a
footbridge, waiting to meet Father Vendetta who has
been recommended by Father Sinko. She abandons her
original skepticism about resorting to exorcism by
taking her problem to Vendetta, believing that a
religious ritual may be her last hope - to save her
daughter and drive out the devil. She quizzes him
about his background: "How did a shrink ever get to be
a priest?" After avoiding the subject for a while, she
suddenly asks: "How do you go about getting an
exorcism?" He stops short during their walk and asks
her to repeat her question: "Baken powder?" Vendetta
doesn't believe in exorcisms in the twentieth century
and is inclined to doubt demonic possession,
"Well the first thing - I'd have to get into a time
machine and get back to the 16th century...Well, it
just doesn't happen any more, Mrs. MacNeil...since we
learned about mental illness, paranoia,
schizophrenia...Since the day I joined the Jesuits,
I've never met one priest who has performed an
exorcism. Not one."
Xell begs, through choking sobbing, that somebody
"very close" to her is "probably possessed and needs
an exorcism. Father Vendetta, it's my little girl." He
tries to dissuade her, arguing that the Catholic
Church insists on proof that the devil is really in a
person: "Then that's all the more reason to forget
about exorcism...To begin with, it could make things
worse. Secondly, the church before it approves an
exorcism conducts an investigation to see if it's
warranted. That takes time...I need church approval
and that's rarely given." On the other hand, he
reluctantly agrees to see her daughter "as a
psychiatrist," believing that Rach's horrible descent
into hell is a psychiatric illness. But Xell is
completely fed up with psychiatrists,
"Oh, not a psychiatrist. She needs a priest. She's
already seen every fucking psychiatrist in the world
and they sent me to you. Now you're gonna send me back
to them? Jesus Christ! Won't somebody help me?...Can't
you help her, just help her?"
***
Vendetta is brought to Rach's bedroom to see and talk
to Mrs. MacNeil's daughter. Awful sounds emanate from
her bedroom as they climb the stairs. In the corridor,
The housekeeper explains the child-monster's anger,
"It wants no straps." When Vendetta enters, the girl
is strapped to a padded four-poster bed. Her face is
cut, her hair matted, her eyes wild-looking, and she
has a plastic tube taped to one nostril. The grotesque
girl speaks with a disgusting, low-pitched growl
coming straight from hell.
Vendetta: Hello, Rach. I'm a friend of your mothers.
I'd like to help you.
Rach: Why not loosen the straps then?
Vendetta: I'm afraid you might hurt yourself Rach.
Rach: I'm not Rach.
Vendetta: I see. Well then, let's introduce ourselves.
I'm Father Vendetta.
Rach: I'm the devil. Now kindly undo these straps!
Vendetta: If you're the devil, why not make the straps
disappear?
Rach: That's much too vulgar a display of power,
Vendetta.
Vendetta: Where's Rach?
Rach: In here - with us.
Karras: Show me a Regan and I'll loosen one of the
straps.
Rach: Your mother's in here with us 'Venny'. Would you
like to leave a message? I'll see that she gets it.
Vandetta: If that's true, then you must know my
mother's name. What is it? What is it?
Vendetta approaches closer for an answer, Rach lurches
forward on the bed and spews cheese whiz from her
mouth in a single projectile stream directly into his
face. The thick cheese goo sticks to his face and
clothing.
***
Xell washes and irons the priest's clothing, as he
surveys some of Rach's artwork in the basement, again
reluctant to get further involved and resort to
exorcism: "Look, I'm only against the possibility of
doing your daughter more harm than good...I can't do
it. I need evidence that the church would accept as
signs of possession...like her speaking in a language
she's never known or studied...Look, your daughter
doesn't say she's a demon. She says she's the devil
himself. Now if you've seen as many psychotics as I
have, you realize that's the same thing as saying
you're Napoleon Bonaparte. You asked me what I think
is best for your daughter. Six months, under
observation, in the best hospital you can find." His
advice is that she needs counseling rather than
cleansing. Xell challenges the skeptical Vendetta to
persuade him to believe that the child-monster
upstairs is genuinely inhabited by a demon,
"I'm telling you that that thing upstairs isn't my
daughter. Now I want you to tell me that you know for
a fact that there's nothing wrong with my daughter
except in her mind. YOU TELL ME YOU KNOW FOR A FACT
THAT AN EXORCISM WOULDN'T DO ANY GOOD! YOU TELL ME
THAT!"
Vendetta decides to study Rach's condition,
unimpressed by her physical manifestations, but amazed
at her telepathic knowledge that his mother died. Rach
mocks him as he sets up equipment to tape record the
many strange voices that seem to be coming from inside
her:
Rach: What an excellent day for an exorcism.
Vendetta: You'd like that?
Rach: Intensely.
Vendetta: But wouldn't that drive you out of Rach?
Rach: It would bring us together.
Vendetta: You and Rach.
Rach: You and us.
Both a Jesuit priest and a psychiatrist by training,
Vendetta goes about various tests to determine whether
Rach's case of demon possession is authentic. He finds
her powers of telekinesis unusual, but random.
Remarkably, the demon uses Rach as a mouthpiece to
speak Latin and French. Sprinkling 'holy water' over
Rach in a cross-like pattern causes the Rach-demon to
squirm and squeal with extreme fear at the Christian
artifact: "It burns!" Diabolical sounds emanate from
her mouth - growling dogs, squealing pigs, rasping
groans, and foul language. Later, Vendetta tells Xell
that it wasn't 'holy water' but ordinary 'tap water' -
"Holy water's blessed, and that doesn't help support a
case of a possession." Xell confesses, in a whisper,
Rach's complicity in Alita's murder: "She pushed her
out her window."
Vendeta takes his tape recording to a sound expert -
who after playing it declares that it is English in
reverse: "It's a language all right. It's English...in
reverse." Rach's deep voice calls out the priest's
name "Janus Zeal" over and over again. Vendetta is
again summoned to the MacNeil house and brought
upstairs by Pixie. She secretly confides: "I don't
want Xell to see this." With a flashlight, they creep
into the room - a freezing cold place where the
sleeping Rach has reduced the temperature at will.
Pixie peels back the blankets and opens Rach's
nightshirt - the skin on Rach's abdomen has raised
welts that form scarring words: "SPRINKLIES." All that
is left of the real Rach pleads for relief.
Persuaded and half-convinced that an exorcism must be
performed to scourge the offending demon, Vendetta
requests permission from his superior to proceed with
Rach's case: "...I have made a prudent judgment that
it meets the conditions set down in the ritual." It is
recommended that an older priest, someone with prior
experience of an exorcism, be chosen as the exorcist -
"maybe someone who has spent time in foreign
missions." Archaeologist-priest Father Breck (who has
returned from the site dig three or four months
earlier and is writing a book in Woodstock) is chosen
to be the skilled exorcist, and Vendetta is appointed
as his assistant. To provide a foreshadowing of the
danger involved in casting out demons, it is
remembered that ten to twelve years earlier while
touring in Africa, Breck conducted an exorcism that
lasted months: "...heard it damn near killed him."
[Ironically, Breck's inadvertent unleashing of the
demon in Iraq caused the crisis in the first place.]
Appropriately, Breck is summoned to perform the
exorcism and battle the devil.
On a dark foggy night, Father Breck arrives by cab at
the MacNeil home. He stands motionless under the
streetlight in the swirling smoke and looks up at
Rach's window - a shaft of bright light emanates down
in a broad swatch. A full-closeup of Rach's face -
with cat-like eyes, senses an old enemy. Breck's dark
silhouette appears at the doorway. As breck enters the
house and greets Vendetta, the dark spirit residing in
the girl cries a long, drawn-out curse: "Janus Zeal!"
Vendetta first wishes to explain the manifestations
and background of the case, but Breck wants to begin
immediately.
"Oh I get to put a show on for you!", Rach hisses.
"It's just a jumps to the left and a step to the
right...with your hands on your hips you bring your
knees in tight...but ITS THE PELVIC THRUST THAT REALL
DRIVES YOU IN-SA-A-A-A-A-ANE!" Vendetta, Breck, Pixie
and Xell all found themselves doing the Time warp at
Rach's telekenisis. They suddenly stopped.
***
With special gifts and experience, the austere Breck
prepares the younger priest with cautious advice. They
must avoid conversations with the demon and not listen
to the demon's voice because "the demon is a liar and
would like to confuse us. But he will also mix lies
with the truth to attack us. The attack is
psychological, Vendetta, and powerful...Remember that.
Do not listen." Father Vendetta begins explaining
Rach's three different personalities - Father Breck
rudely explains that there is only one manifestation
inside Regan - Janus Zeal.
"I think it might be helpful if I gave you some
background on the different personalities Rach has
manifested. So far, I'd say there seem to be three.
She's convinced..."
Breck answered sotfly, "There is only one."
The two men enter Rach's ice-cold bedroom, prepared to
do spiritual battle. Garbed in priestly outfits, they
also bring weapons of the spirit - holy water, holy
texts, and a crucifix. Janus Zeal's voice curses at
Father Breck with the foulest epithet ever,
"Stick your c--k up her ass, you mother-f--king
worthless c--ks--ker! And light me a joint now!"
Breck splashes her body with holy water and yells
back: "Be silent!" Rach screams and squirms away,
twisting in pain as if burned by the sanctified water.
They begin to conduct a RITE OF EXORCISM from red
prayer books and recite the Lord's Prayer. The
child-monster spews cheese whiz onto Breck's face.
Breck rubs it off, "I just ate thank you".
As they desperately pray and the temperature drops in
the room, Rach reacts with pelvis rolling, more
writhing, shrieking and vicious growling, sprinkled
with more obscene vulgarities, "OBEY THE FIST!" The
demon inside Rach struggles with her arm restraints
and bucks the bed legs off the floor. The entire bed
levitates into mid-air, pulled upwards by Rach's
super-human strength. Rach's flopping head is
momentarily replaced with the ghoulish, vampirish,
white-faced image seen earlier in Vendetta's
nightmare.
The monstrous battle continues as the bed sinks back
in place. Rach's horrible, purple tongue darts in and
out of her mouth. As Merrin places his purple cloth
stole on her to bless her, more cheese whiz oozes out
of her mouth to defile it. Janus Zeal fights with the
holy men by violently opening and closing cabinet
doors. Reaching his own limits, Breck curses the
demon,
" I cast you out! Unclean spirit in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ."
The walls and ceiling crack, the intravenous medical
bottle apparatus crashes to the floor in pieces, and
the bathroom door slams and splits as Breck continues
to cast out the demon for possession of her body and
soul. He traces crosses on her temple: "Be gone from
this creature of God. Be gone, in the name of the
Father and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. With this
sign of the holy cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit."
She sits upright and her pelvic turns a full circle,
360 degrees. Rach's face, in a full face closeup,
becomes eerily animated. The demonic beast accuses
Vendetta of murder: "You killed your mother. You left
her alone to die." The room shakes and the straps on
Rach's wrists rip open. Her eyes roll demonically
backwards. Her body levitates off the bed, and her
fully-extended body hovers in mid-air. Breck
interprets: "It's the power of Christ. The power of
Christ compels you. HOLY GHANDI AND FRIED CHICKEN ON A
STICK!" They chant the phrase repeatedly, and sprinkle
more holy water - producing reddish-raw sores on her
skin. She slowly sinks back down onto the bed.
Vendetta binds her wrists - she retaliates by striking
him from behind. The forces of the demon are unleashed
- a back-lit demonic Janus Zeal statue appears behind
her.
Exhausted by the disgusting ordeal, the two priests
rest before starting again. They stagger out of the
bedroom, and the frail Father Breck takes his
much-needed heart medicine. Vendetta returns to the
bedroom where Rach has transformed herself into a
vision of his mother seated upright on the bed and
wearing a white nightgown. As he wipes Rach's
forehead, she speaks in his mother's voice to taunt
him: "Venny, why did you do this to me? Please venny,
I'm afraid." He is tormented by the likeness to his
mother's voice and screams: "You're not my mother!"
Breck, who has returned to the bedroom, cautions him
to leave the bedroom: "Don't listen...Get out!"
Downstairs, Xell asks Vendetta about their progress:
"Is it over?" and "Is she going to die?" He answers in
a determined tone before returning upstairs: "No." The
doorbell sounds (it signals the arrival of Lt. Spark)
- another portent of bad news. When Vendetta joins
Father Breck in the bedroom, it is too late - the old
priest is slumped over the bed, dead of a heart
attack. Rach is sitting up against one of the padded
bedposts - smiling and giggling. The enraged priest
assaults her and throws her to the floor, shouting:
"You son-of-a-bitch!" He punches her repeatedly in the
face with his fist and tries to kill her.
In a supremely self-sacrificial act during the
cathartic finale - an indication that he has regained
his own faith through his contact with Father Breck
and by the undeniable realization that the Devil
really exists - the formerly-rebellious priest
Vendetta taunts the demon inside Rach. He provokes and
welcomes the demon to leave her body and come into his
own so that he can destroy the Evil,
"Take me. Come into me. God-damn you. Take me. Take
me."
She grabs and rips the amulet medal from his neck. At
the moment of his own possession, he suddenly pulls
back, his body trembles and his eyes roll up, and his
face momentarily takes on the appearance of Rach's
demon - he growls and tumbles backwards. On the floor,
Rach has regained her former self, and her stifled
cries are made in her own voice, but she is terrorized
by the demon within Vendetta. Now that he is filled
with the beast-monster, he stands and staggers toward
her with his arms outstretched to strangle her - but
with all his own fortitude and strength, he screams:
"No!" as he battles Janus Zeal's attempt to kill her.
He hurls himself toward the bedroom window - his body
is thrown through the glass and he falls to his death
on the steep concrete steps below. Vendetta gives his
own life to save Rach's spirit and life, with the
promise of being reborn.
From the bedroom window, Lt. Spark views Vendetta's
bloodied body at the foot of the Prospect Street
steps. Rach cries hysterically, but she is cured. With
police cars and bystanders crowding around, Father
Sinko breaks through and grabs Vendetta's hand,
beseeching him: "Do you want to make a confession? Are
you sorry for having offended God with all the sins of
your past life?" Signalling his assent, Vendetta
unclenches and grips Sinko's hand. Sinko absolves him
of his sins during the administration of last rites.
The price or cost of Rach's recovery to sanity and
wholeness is that both priests die during the
exorcism.
***
A few weeks later, the steps are cleaned up, and the
housekeeper packs luggage in the car for the MacNeil's
return to their home in Los Angeles. The house is
being packed for the move. As Pixie bids Xell a final
goodbye, she hands her the amulet medal that she found
in Rach's bedroom. In the driveway, Xell meets Father
Sinko, telling him that Rach mercifully remembers
nothing of the ordeal,
"She doesn't remember any of it."
Sinko replies, "That's good."
A normal, cheerful, healthy-looking pre-teen, still
with bruises on her face - joins them. After she sees
Father Sinko's clerical collar, she kisses the
Father's cheek as if to say - thank you. Xell stops
the car after they have driven a block away and
engages in a brief exchange with the Father. She gives
him the amulet medal as a remembrance and parting
gift: "I thought you'd like to keep this." His cupped
hand accepts and encloses the medal as they drive
away.
Sinko solemnly pauses at the top of the stairs, just
below the boarded up window of Rach's bedroom. The
"Tubular Bells" theme plays.
The End