Today’s horror scene that I love features Linda Blair in 1977’s The Exorcist II: The Heretic, the sequel to the film for which she received an Oscar nomination.

Linda Blair was only 13 when she was cast a Regan McNeil, the girl who is possessed by a demon in The Exorcist.  She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, only losing the award after it was revealed that Mercedes McCambridge had dubbed Blair for the scenes in which she was possessed.  Blair has gone on to have a long career, appearing in movies that may not have been as honored by the Academy as The Exorcist was but which are still often very entertaining when taken on their own terms.

In The Exorcist II, Blair returned to the role of Regan.  Now in her late teens, Regan says that she can’t remember anything about being possessed.  Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) and Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher) think that Regan is repressing her memories and, in this scene …. well, I don’t really know how to describe this scene.  Seriously, The Exorcist II is such a strange movie!  Basically, Dr. Tuskin has a hypnosis machine while allows people to link minds.  Dr. Tuskin links with Regan’s mind and then Lamont links with Tuskin’s mind.  It’s all incredibly silly but it does allow for this scene in which “good Regan” shares the screen with “possessed Regan.”

Here is a weird scene from a weird movie, featuring a total of four Oscar-nominated performers.  (For the record, Burton was nominated multiple times and, the same year he appeared in this film, he also appeared in Equus, for which he received his final nomination.  Louise Fletcher won for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.  Max von Sydow would later be nominated for Pelle the Conqueror and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  And, of course, Linda Blair was nominated for The Exorcist.)