 In late 1972, Dr. Barton Lane was performing an angiogram at the Tisch Hospital (then called University Hospital) in the New York University radiology lab in Manhattan, when he got an unexpected visitor. In the days before HIPAA the doors were wide open for pretty much anyone to observe doctors at work, and this particular visitor was scouting a location and potential extras for a movie.
At that time, an angiogram, a diagnostic test that takes x-ray pictures of blood vessels, was performed with a needle stuck into the patient's artery. When the needle would hit the artery, a jet of blood would shoot out. The visitor, director William Friedkin, saw the impressive spray of blood and knew he wanted this exact procedure in his horror film—an adaptation of the book, The Exorcist.
The making of The Exorcist—known as one of the greatest horror movies of all time—has long been considered cursed. During production, a series of tragedies befell the cast and crew. Nine people connected to the film died during or shortly after the production, including actors Jack MacGowran and Vasiliki Maliaros, Linda Blair's grandfather, a security guard on set, and a special effects expert. Actress Ellen Burstyn suffered a permanent spinal injury while getting thrown from the bouncing bed (her real scream is heard in the film). The set for the MacNeil home burned down, mysteriously leaving Regan's bedroom untouched. In fact, the production had been surrounded by so much misfortune, a Jesuit priest, Thomas M. King, was brought in to bless the set.
These are fairly well-known tales, and are passed around to add to the film's lore. But there's another story connected to The Exorcist that has remained largely overlooked. It's about the radiology technician in the film, Paul Bateson, who is often referred to among true crime and horror fans—and even Friedkin himself—as a serial killer. We spent months digging into archived articles, court documents, and speaking with the NYPD and those involved with the film trying to find the truth about Bateson and the crimes he did and did not commit. What we found was a very different story. In honor of Halloween, the holiday, and Halloween Kills, the latest installment of the franchise released earlier this year, Esquire spoke with nine of the men who have portrayed Michael Myers over the years. Most of them were stuntmen handed the role by happenstance. Some studied the lives of infamous serial killers for inspiration for the role, while others went in a decidedly different direction, studying the philosophies of Eastern Asia to inhabit the role fully and without judgement. The one thing all of the Michael Myers actors have in common is a deep appreciation for Halloween's rabid fanbase. Size is everything to Denis Villeneuve, who's spent the past decade making movies that seek to dwarf, devastate, and inspire awe. After breaking onto the international scene in 2010 with Incendies, the Canadian-born filmmaker has carved out a preeminent spot in Hollywood via genre efforts of oppressive menace, from the harrowing real-world thrillers Prisoners, Enemy and Sicario, to the monumental science-fiction dramas Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. Particularly in those last three efforts, Villeneuve has developed an aesthetic—marked by dark, imposing visual schemas and blaring audioscapes—that imparts a gnawing sense of existential dread and despair. Arguably the least humorous auteur in contemporary cinema, his work hits like a crushing nightmare of anxiety, regret and doom. Does it suddenly feel as if everyone is asking you to subscribe to their newsletter lately? That's because they are. Email editorials are experiencing a remarkable boom as of late, much in thanks to services like Substack, which serves as platform host and allows writers to send digital missives directly to their own readers. But not every single one belongs in your inbox. Instead, these are the ten, as chosen by the editors of Esquire, to be worthy of your time, attention, and almighty contact information. No one has ever accused Wes Anderson of verisimilitude. His is a brightly colored symmetrical view of the world in which voices are rarely raised, all sentences are complete, every emotion suppressed and every room punctiliously designed. In his latest effort The French Dispatch, which is loosely based on a New Yorker-ish magazine, this Andersonian lens is so thick it's nearly opaque. Maybe, if you took the time to decipher who among the ensemble cast is based on whom in real life; maybe, if you, like him, mistake the gesture of emotion for the thing itself; maybe, if you're a denatured, exsanguinated, and dissociative corduroy-wearing psychopath, there's a kernel of something real there. Otherwise it's just like twee technicolor Edward Gorey fanfic. There is one exception, though, the food writer, Roebuck Wright, played by Jeffrey Wright. No relation, I presume. That guy is onto something. As a food writer myself, I know.  Psychological thrillers offer one of the most absorbing reading experiences available. These novels are the predator, and the helpless readers are the prey, caught in their palm-sweating, mind-bending spell. We've rounded up ten of our favorites, which exemplify the best of what this depraved genre can offer, as well as the wide variety of stories writers can tell within this familiar framework. Though psychological thrillers often lend themselves to stories of crime and the criminally insane, that's not always the case. (Take Rebecca, for example, a psychological thriller where the derangement is perfectly garden variety. Watching a character spin out, whatever the cause, is where the fun is.) These novels can also be a vector for the ails of our society, illuminating how landmark issues of our time, like the opioid crisis and the racist criminal justice system, can cause a mind to disintegrate. Read on for ten of our favorite psychological thrillers—and if you need a palate cleanser afterward, don't worry. We've got you covered there, too. |
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