These twenty-five interviews, reminiscences, and articles explore how and why The Exorcist (premiering 26 December 1973) haunts imaginations and nightly dreams, along with influencing a new generation of directors, including Guillermo del Toro, M. Night Shyamalan, and James Wan. In-depth conversations with its makers, from the present to nearly four decades ago, ask about its inspirations and ambitions. New evaluative treatments from leading scholars of film and fiction track what this original film and its prequels and sequels indicate about sexuality and gender roles, morality and the monstrous, character and conflict, politics and theology, adaptation and artistic ambiguity, fateful decisions in casting/writing/directing, and conversations The Exorcist has with other films.