The Insider.com

Director William Friedkin's frightening and controversial The Exorcist from 1973 remains the horror standard that all other possession films are compared to, especially with the extended director's cut released in 2000 that restored that spooky "spider-walk" scene.

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Related: 'The Exorcist' to Levitate to TV

For those getting into the Halloween mood, I've stumbled across some never-before-seen, 16mm special effects test footage from the 1973 set. It'll make your head spin!

You can see Linda Blair's levitation tests, plus watch how a manipulation device throws her body violently back and forth, with Blair trying to keep a straight face as she flops around on the bed. Funny while testing, I'm sure. Frightening in the final cut, most definitely. The man standing alongside the bed supervising the levitation tests is said to be The Exorcist author William Peter Blatty.

Related: 'Devil Inside' - Fact or Fiction?

In The Exorcist, Blair plays Regan McNeil, the daughter of an actress (Ellen Burstyn) whose strange behavior soon reveals itself to be a full-fledged demonic possession. Father Karris (Jason Miller) and Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) are recruited to perform an exorcism on the girl, resulting in a lot of levitation, a lot of cursing, a lot of mind games and a lot of pea-soup puke.