10 Horror Movies Audiences Couldn't Handle

Heralded as the scariest film of all time upon release - given it was 1973, this was almost definitely true - William Friedkin’s The Exorcist didn’t hold back, making both its antagonist and victim a young girl, and committing scenes to screen that audiences couldn’t even have imagined beforehand - bloody crucifix, anyone?

The film stars Linda Blair as Regan, a 12-year-old sweetie pie who suddenly acquires the ability to levitate, speak in tongues, and walk down the stairs backward. When things turn sinister and Regan seems undeniably possessed by an otherworldly spirit, her mother Chris (Ellen Burstyn) does what must have seemed the sensible thing at the time, and calls in a Catholic exorcist, Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow).

While the 1970s were the time of The Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave, bringing the first major wave of shocking horror films untethered from the social mores of the first half of the century, mainstream cinemagoers were not used to anything too extreme. And the audience reaction was extreme: people fled the cinema, running up the aisles, screaming for Jesus, and vomiting in the streets outside. And there were a few even stranger occurrences, including when several men had heart attacks and one woman allegedly suffered a miscarriage!