I recently wrote and recorded an analysis of Karras’s dream sequence from The Exorcist. As always, I’m going to copy and paste my original script below. Keep in mind, the original script is barely ever what I end up actually recording, so it’s more of a “marker” for what I had in mind. It’s a neat historic record of what I was thinking, though, as it sometimes includes marginal notes, so here it is:

Ungodly Dreams

Intro

For those of you living under a horror film rock, The Exorcist is the story of Chris McNeil working through every rational solution to cure her daughter, Reagan, of a mysterious ailment. We eventually learn that no ordinary medicine will work: She is possessed by a demon, and two priests, Father Merrin and Father Karras, are summoned by the Church to the McNeil home to cast the beast out.

The Exorcist has been the focus of several subtextual film analyses. It’s depth seems unreachable. I’ve read analyses on whether or not Burke Dennings was the cause of Reagan’s possession given the fact he may have abused her (something I’ve also written about), who left the crucifix under Reagan’s pillow, who desecrated the church, and even whether or not the film is about the dangers of raising children as a single parent.

Father Karras’s story in particular has been the subject of significant conversation, but, I feel I don’t often see analysis of his dream sequence – a significant moment in the film for his story. The dream of a faithless man.

The Dream

We start by seeing a pendant falling to the ground. Then the pendulum of a clock. A dog. Karras’s mother alone followed by her going up and down some subway steps. The “demon” face which is seen multiple times throughout the Director’s cut of the film, and finally, the pendant hits the ground.

The pendulum shows enough detail for us to determine that it’s the same from the earlier Iraq scenes. Well, maybe not the exact same one. This is just a token of Saint Joseph, which is fairly common. The writing in English reads, “Saint Joseph, pray for us.” This is, as I understand it given I’m not a scholar of Catholicism, a token of protection meant to invoke strength in times of need. The Joseph referenced here is Jesus Christ’s earthly father. There are several references to parenthood in The Exorcist, which isn’t surprising given the central characters are a mother and daughter, but the silent reference to Saint Joseph being a fatherly protector called upon in times of great need paired with one of the doctors telling Chris that mothers, completely naturally without God, can summon internal power in moments of desperation is a cute addition to the motif of the natural versus the supernatural that we see throughout the film.

The pendant falling tells us Karras is losing both his faith and his protection from a higher power. This foreshadows his own possession, the culmination of which is Karras, in a moment of need, summoning great strength to subdue the demon. Interestingly enough, Karras is only possessed after Reagan rips his Saint Joseph pendant away, which means his overcoming of the demon came from within – something natural like what the doctor described earlier.

The clock in the dream comes from the same shot we saw, again, in the Iraq scenes. What we see of the clock is less interesting than what we don’t. In the Iraq scenes, the clock suddenly stops. This is another subtle reference to Karras losing his faith.

The dog, also a reference to Iraq, is interesting in several ways. At the beginning of the film, we see both a dark colored and a grayish, light colored dog fighting viciously as Father Merrin stands opposed to the statue of what must be the demon that possesses Reagan – a metaphor for light versus darkness and a foreshadowing of the confrontation at the end of the film. In the dream, the dark colored dog charges us, the audience, which from Karras’s dream’s perspective would be him. Another metaphor to heap on the pile: We are being told Karras will lose his fight against evil at the cost of his faith. He is attacked by the darkness, and he will succumb.

In fact, light and dark are used heavily in the dream sequence, as well as in other places throughout the film – I believe this motif was chosen because it pairs well with the priest’s uniforms in the movie being entirely black accented by a white collar – a light in the darkness – but, that may be over thinking it to a degree. Certainly, though, in the dream, it’s deliberate. We see Karras wearing dark pants and a light shirt as he watches his mother, who is wearing light underclothes but is swathed in a dark jacket walk up and then down the stairs. We’ll talk about the stairs in a moment, but note the clothing – it’s intentional. Karras, continues to drown in his loss of faith, showed by his lower half covered in dark clothing. His mother, he is being told by his dream, perhaps lost her faith too – or Karras didn’t save her – as shown by her descending the stairs while Karras runs to check on her and by her being wrapped in dark clothing covering the light clothing she’s wearing.

We see a portrait shot of Karras’s mother followed by a similar framing of the demon face, more evidence Karras fears his mother is in hell. In the exorcism scene, since the demon knows Karras’s mind, given his faith no longer protects him, it gains knowledge of this dream and exploits Karras’s fear his mother wasn’t saved. The demon knows and correctly assumes Karras fears for his mother’s soul which we can predict entirely in this early dream sequence.

Now, let’s talk about the stairs.

There are two characterization elements in the film that I find absolutely fantastic. The first, while it isn’t relevant to the topic of this video, I just have to mention because it would be a sin to miss it the next time you watch the film.

This moment is Reagan untying her shoes. Two scenes earlier, Reagan and her mother were talking about what to do for Reagan’s birthday, and they agreed that going into DC was the right call. Stepping forward, Chris is on the phone with an operator trying to get a hold of Reagan’s father. We learn through dialogue that the day this is happening is Reagan’s birthday, and we can infer from Chris’s tone that this isn’t the first time Reagan’s father hasn’t been there for Reagan when she needed him, unlike her mother, despite Chris’s demanding career.

At this moment, Reagan returns to her room, sits down, and starts to untie her shoes. This is beautiful characterization. Her shoes were on because she was ready and excited to go into DC. She sits down and calmly but disappointedly takes off her shoes because, whatever type of fight is happening between her parents, she’s seen it before, and she knows it will last for hours. She knows that, when it’s over, her mother won’t want to go into the city. She likely won’t want to go anywhere at all even though it’s Reagan’s birthday. Reagan is more emotionally attuned to her parents’ friction than any 12 year old deserves to be and she’s accepted it for what it is, likely without her mother’s knowledge.

Back to something more relevant, the second characterization moment, rather moments, I love in the film is the motif of Karras walking up and down stairs. While Karras is faithful, before he’s completely abandoned his religion, he is only seen ascending stairs, except in one instance which we’ll discuss shortly. When he goes to visit his mother, we see him walk up stairs in the subway against a light background. In his dream, his mother ascends steps out of the subway against a dark background. If we assume the ascension of stairs represents faith, Karras’s mother turning around and descending into the darkness represents Karras’s fear that her soul is lost, something referenced in almost every frame of the dream sequence.

Like I said before, I view the stair scenes as characterization moments. We only see Karras descend steps once. Karras walks down the steps in Georgetown University right before the exorcism occurs, telling us he isn’t ready – his faith is gone. He only ascends stairs twice more after this moment, but, the next time it’s when he’s led by Father Merrin – we see on Karras’s face and we know from his trying to exorcism-splain to Father Merrin that Reagan’s problem is psychological, that this ascent is different. It’s false. The demon itself confirms this for us.

As a side note some may find interesting, there’s another ascension scene where Karras is led up the stairs. It’s by one of Chris’s assistants and, before entering the room, she puts on a dark jacket. This is interesting because, with the jacket on, she’s dressed almost exactly like Karras (they both have khaki pants and dark jackets). This echoes the scene where Father Merrin leads Karras up the stairs as they are both dressed in the same outfit. I have no clue what this may mean, but it would be strange for a movie that so heavily focuses on subtext to do this by accident. Feel free to send me any ideas.

Moving on.

After Merrin leads Karras, there’s only more descent and one more ascent. The descent is left off camera, I believe deliberately. After Merrin sees Karras’s faith has been shattered, he commands him to abandon the exorcism. The next time we see him, he’s at the bottom of the stairs leading to Reagan’s room. The descent was skipped. His hands are clasped in what is commonly thought of as a sign of prayer – a sign of faith. Father Karras talks with Mother McNeil and his faith is found, yet again. One final time, Karras ascends the stairs, this time, Chris sits at the bottom of the stairs with her hands also resembling being clasped in prayer, a potential characterization moment for her, as well, since we learn earlier on she isn’t religious and thinks of all of this as “witch doctor” magic.

Karras faces the demon, takes the burden of possession on himself after losing his token of protection, and, in ironic fashion, sacrifices himself by jumping down the largest set of stairs in all of Washington D.C. – the famous Georgetown steps.

This last moment is significant because, Karras doesn’t know what God is going to give him. He jumps down the stairs, which as we’ve seen is a sign of faithlessness, after he’s taken on a literal demon. Can a demon possessed man get into heaven? Can a man who only found his faith moments before his death? Or is he going to hell, like he fears was his mother’s fate. We see in the end as the Georgetown University priest holds Karras’s hand and asks if he would like to make a final confession that, not only does he have complete control of his faculties, in spite of the demon, but he does, indeed, wish his soul saved. He’s still faithful. He survived his descent, not in body, but in spirit.

Conclusion

The Exorcist has been the subject of significant analysis, but I find that every time I watch it (usually once every October) I see something I hadn’t noticed before. In fact, Reagan’s shoe untying moment only clicked for me this year. Karras’s dream, however, is a significant moment that answers several questions about his character, given that he’s rather quickly introduced into the story. When Karras’s mother was alive, he felt protected. When she died, rather, when she was placed in the mental hospital, things started to collapse. Without these facts, you may fall for the trick of thinking the titular Exorcist is Father Merrin. However, as we see in the end, despite the death of his mother and his lack of faith, the only character to extract the demon from Reagan is… Damien Karras.

Despite his faithless dreams, Karras finds his salvation in the end.