Regan MacNeil

Regan MacNeil
Regan MacNeil
Aliases:	Rags Regan Teresa MacNeil Angela Rance
Franchise:	The Exorcist
Notability:	Main character
Type:	Child
Gender:	Female
Location:	Georgetown, Washington, D.C. New York City, New York
Relations:	Chris MacNeil
Status:	Alive
Born:	November, 1961
Introduction:	Exorcist, The
Final:	Exorcist II: The Heretic
Actor:	Linda Blair Mercedes McCambridge Eileen Dietz Geena Davis

Regan MacNeil is a fictional child, later a young adult, and the main character from the 1973 horror film The Exorcist by director William Friedkin. She was played by actress Linda Blair. Blair reprised the role of Regan MacNeil for the film's sequel, The Exorcist II: The Heretic. Actress Mercedes McCambridge provided the voice of the demon-possessed Regan in the first film. Actress Eileen Dietz also did some work as a stand-in for Regan in The Exorcist.

Biography

Regan enjoys crafts.

Regan MacNeil was born in 1961 to film actress Chris MacNeil and an unidentified father. By the time she was 12-years-old, her parents were going through a divorce. At this time, Regan and Chris were living in a spacious home in Georgetown while Chris was filming a movie. Chris was angered by the fact that her father couldn't even be bothered to send his daughter a birthday card. Regan expressed interest in getting a horse, but Chris was not about to consider such a thing; not in Georgetown anyway.

Regan MacNeil began playing around with a Ouija board that she had found. It was either through this action, or through the simple purity of innocent youth, that she found herself susceptible to demonic possession. A demon, later identified as Pazuzu, began insinuating itself into Regan's consciousness. In short order, it took complete possession of her, causing drastic physical alterations in her body, and forcing her to commit obscene deeds, such as shoving a crucifix into her vagina while shouting profanities, and forcing her mother's head onto her bloody crotch.

Possessed by Pazuzu.

It is believed that the possessed Regan was responsible for the death of film director Burke Dennings, who fell out of the upper floor window down onto the street below.

Chris MacNeil exhausted all conventional sources in finding help for her daughter, but to no avail. Though she was not by any means a religious woman, Chris desperately implored the aid of a Jesuit priest named Father Damien Karras.

Father Karras did not have the skill or authority to conduct an exorcism on his own, so he sought assistance from an older priest, who had engaged in this sort of activity before - Father Lankester Merrin. Merrin and Karras worked together to exorcise the demon from Regan's body. They bore witness to even more demonic phenomena, such as when Regan turned her head around a full 360 degrees, and when she began projectile vomiting a geyser of sickly green bile. The exorcism was long and ardous, and ultimately took a fatal toll on Father Merrin. Damian Karras, desperate to put an end to this evil once and for all, invited Pazuzu into his own body. Before Pazuzu could take full possession of Karras however, he threw himself from the window to (what was believed at the time) his death. Karras' noble sacrifice, saved Regan's soul.

Regan grew older, and it seemed as if she had no memory of the harrowing experience in Georgetown, though she still bore psychological scars from the event. By the time she was sixteen-years-old, she was living with her guardian, Sharon Spencer in New York City, New York. She began seeing a therapist named Doctor Gene Tuskin, who believed that Regan was repressing her memories of the event, and used experimental new age techniques to help her along psychologically.

Regan in the Synchronizer.

A priest named Father Philip Lamont took an interest in Regan's progress due to his desire to learn the truth about Lankester Merrin's death. After consulting with Doctor Tuskin, Lamont assisted her in using a biofeedback device that she called a synchronizer, to place Regan under hypnosis.

They discovered that Regan had an innate psychic ability to telepathically reach out into the minds of others, such as helping an autistic girl develop the ability to speak. They determined that it was gifts such as these that first drew Pazuzu to her.

Regan, Father Lamont, Gene Tuskin and Sharon Spencer returned to the Georgetown home, where Lamont found himself embroiled with a succubus who patterned its appearance after Regan. Working together, Regan succeeded in banishing the evil essence, using a ritual that she telepathically learned about from a previous exorcism victim, Kokumo, though Sharon Spencer lost her life at this time. Father Lamont decided to become Regan's new guardian after that event.

Notes & Trivia

• The character of Regan MacNeil was created by author William Peter Blatty and expanded upon by director William Friedkin. The character first appeared in the 1971 novel The Exorcist, which was published by Harper & Row in 1971.

• Regan Teresa MacNeil redirects to this page.

• Actress Denise Nickerson was once considered for the role of Regan MacNeil. She played Amy Jennings in the 1960s daytime Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.

• Actress Eileen Dietz was the face of the ever-flashing Pazuzu seen in the first film. She also doubled for Regan MacNeil in some scenes, including one where Pazuzu's face is superimposed over top of Regan's. Dietz claimed that it was she who was standing in for Linda Blair during the vomiting scene.

• In The Exorcist, the character is credited only as Regan.

• As everyone knows, the green pile that Regan projectile vomits all over Father Karras was actually pea soup.

Appearances

• Exorcist, The (novel)
• Exorcist, The
• Exorcist II: The Heretic, The

See also

The Exorcist The Exorcist films The Exorcist images

The Exorcist characters The Exorcist cast & crew The Exorcist miscellaneous

External Links

• Regan MacNeil at IMDB
• Regan MacNeil at Wikipedia
• Regan MacNeil at the Exorcist Wiki
• Regan MacNeil at the Horror Film Wiki