Pauline Kael, like a lot of critics, was horrified and appalled by "The Exorcist". In her column in New Yorker following the film's release she wrote:"(The Exorcist is about) The demonic possession of a child, treated with shallow seriousness. The picture is designed to scare people, and it does so by mechanical means: levitations, swivelling heads, vomit being spewed in people's faces. A viewer can become glumly anesthetized by the brackish color and the senseless ugliness of the conception. Neither the producer- writer, William Peter Blatty, nor the director, William Friedkin, shows any feeling for the little girl's helplessness and suffering, or for her mother's." Kael goes on to slam the movie even further in her column: ""Somewhere in the publicity for the film is an item about William Friedkin's having looked at five hundred little girls before he chose his Regan, and indeed, Linda Blair is a sparkling, snub-nosed, happy-looking little girl, who matches up perfectly with Ellen Burstyn. I wonder about those four hundred and ninety-nine mothers of the rejected little girls, or about the hundred and ninety-nine, if that's a more reasonable figure. They must have read the novel; they must have known what they were having their beautiful little daughters tested for. When they see The Exorcist and watch Linda Blair urinating on the fancy carpet and screaming and jabbing at herself with a crucifix, are they envious? Do they feel, 'That might have been my little Susie-famous forever?"

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