The first half of the film is more tedious than terrifying. Regan is a sweet young child with a model mother. They kiss each other night-night and talk of ponies and Captain Howdy. Then, as her first irrational symptoms emerge, there’s a sequence of Dr. Welbyish hospital scenes and consultations with various shrinks and specialists. The thrills begin in the second half when the exorcists, two Catholic priests, are called in to scare the devil out of her. But Friedkin’s dramatization is often more laughable than scary: such as scabby-faced, wild-eyed Regan rolling her head and roaring, an unwitting parody of the MGM lion. Or the scene where Satan invades her box-springs, causing her bed to shake and rattle like a tambourine. Her new voice (dubbed in by Mercedes McCambridge) makes her sound more like a terminal emphysemic than a vessel of the devil. Not that she doesn’t pull a few shockers: gripping a psychiatrist by his tenderest part, or pulling up her gown and making sexual overtures to her mother. There’s no cop-out on the language, either. The obscenities she spits out make Molly’s