Sound Design: The Exorcist Re-Release

Horror as a genre has always been seen as a genre that’s nothing but cheap, contrived and done-to-death just for the cheap buck. This is quite far from that, especially this film, Friedkin’s The Exorcist. For a horror film to have a real impact upon its audience, it needs to have brilliant sound design which helps in creating a proper eerie atmosphere.

In this article, sound designer Steve Boeddekker and Mike Minkler discuss the different things that they changed in the re-release and what they kept unchanged. The duo wanted to adhere to the author’s original vision of what The Exorcist should be like, sound-wise. They wanted to- “to make the big things bigger and let the small things be smaller, while keeping the documentary-type elements as they were.”

This meant at times some scenes had wide stereo sound on the music, whereas the demon vocals remained mono with the production dialogue.  They didn’t want to “mess with”, the original signature-type stuff from the film, such as the demon vocals, so they remained untouched by Steve and Mike.  Interestingly enough, some sound effects had to remain unaltered. This was because, for example, the sound of a door closing would clash with the production audio. It’s a pristine sound clashing with old mono production dialogue- “You can't have a beautiful, pristine sound effect that goes with a 27-year-old dialogue recording that's been processed.”

Another weird but interesting aspect of the sound design of the re-release is the vomiting sounds used in the final product.  Despite actress Mercedes McCambridge giving a fine performance, the two thought new elements needed to be added into the sound for the modern re-mastered re-release.  Boedekker almost made himself hoarse making guttural vomiting sounds for the surround sound of the sound edit- “The original vomit sounds are now on the front, while the new ones are coming out of the sides and a little bit into the surrounds.”