A cura di @NedCuttle21(Ulm).

Un articolo pubblicato su Esquire ripercorre la storia alla base della tesi, diffusasi sul finire degli anni ’70, e oggi nota in particolare tra i fans del cinema horror, secondo la quale Paul Bateson, il tecnico radiologo nel celebre film di William Friedkin L’esorcista (1973), arrestato nel 1977 per l’omicidio del giornalista di Variety Addison Verrill, sarebbe stato a suo tempo un serial killer di omosessuali.

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. When the visitor, director William Friedkin, saw the impressive spray of blood, he knew he wanted this exact procedure to be in his horror film—an adaptation of the book, The Exorcist.

Immagine di apertura via Wikipedia.