Q:Build a movie plot around this: Why specifically did Dr. Tuskin hypnotize Regan? In an attempt to plumb her memories of the excorcsim
A:
Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton), is a priest struggling with his faith who attempts to exorcise a possessed South American girl living in a urban slum of Rio, Brazil, who claims to "heal the sick." The young woman then burns herself to death.Afterwards, Lamont returns to Vatican City where he is assigned by the Cardinal to investigate the death of Father Lankester Merrin, who had been killed four years prior in the course of exorcising the Assyrian demon Pazuzu from Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair). The Cardinal informs Lamont (who has had some experience at exorcism, and has been exposed to Merrin's teachings) that Merrin is up on posthumous heresy charges due to his controversial writings. Apparently, Vatican authorities are trying to modernize and do not want to acknowledge that Satan as an actual evil entity exists.Meanwhile, the teenage Regan, although now seemingly normal and staying with her guardian Sharon Spencer in New York while her mother is away on location filming a movie, continues to be monitored at a psychiatric institute by Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher). Regan claims she remembers nothing about her plight in Washington, D.C., but Tuskin believes her memories are only buried or repressed. Father Lamont visits the institute but his attempts to question Regan about the circumstances of Father Merrin's death are rebuffed by Dr. Tuskin, believing that Lamont's approach would do Regan more harm than good. In an attempt to plumb her memories of the exorcism, specifically the circumstances in which Merrin died, Dr. Tuskin hypnotizes the girl, to whom she is linked by a "synchronizer" (a biofeedback device used by two people to synchronize their brainwaves).After a guided tour by Sharon of the Georgetown house where the exorcism took place, Lamont returns to be coupled with Regan by synchronizer. The priest is spirited to the past by the demon Pazuzu to observe the young Father Merrin exorcising a young boy, named Kokumo, in Africa back in the 1930s. Learning that the boy developed special...