William Friedkin's legendary film "The Exorcist" underwent numerous cuts for its
theatrical release, which were later restored in the 2000 Director's Cut,
including one specific scene that was originally longer and more faithful to the
sequence described in the novel on which the film is based.
The spider walk scene.
Known as the “spider walk”, the scene shows Regan in a state of partial
possession, crawling down the stairs on her back in a contorted position,
startling and frightening her mother, Chris, and her mother's assistant,
Sharon.
Deleted.
That sequence was cut from the theatrical release of the film by Friedkin
himself due to issues with the cables supporting contortionist and stunt
double Linda R. Hager; they were highly visible, and at that time (1976), it
was quite difficult to remove them using CGI while still making it look
realistic.
Original sequence.
Although it was partially included in the Director's Cut version, the scene
was originally twice as long and more faithful to the original material.
In this version, Regan still races down the stairs, but instead of stopping,
opening her mouth, and spitting blood, the girl turns around and flashes a
reptilian tongue, then crawls aggressively toward Sharon and her mother,
trying to bite them.
Although this scene was much more faithful to the description in William Peter
Blatty’s book, Friedkin decided to cut it because the tongue effect wasn’t
very convincing or scary, and because it prolonged the “monster’s” presence
too much at a time when the film was still focusing on Regan’s psychological
breakdown.
