This still remains one of the most horrifying sights from any film, and most people would not include such a scene but I have to simply because it again shows how truly powerful the moving image can be. Even still to this day, more than 20 years since the film's initial release, it has not lost its ability to shock. The film itself still ranks as one of the greatest of all horror films, but it also ranks as one of those rare kind of films that you watch because it's so expertly crafted and superbly acted, but you also have a certain hesitation about watching, because the film's images are so horrifying and the film's ideas so shocking. I can't think of many films that have the ability to do that. THE EXORCIST was filled with so many moments of pure horror, like Linda Blair's head spinning around, the dark ending in that room of the actual exorcism, and others, but this scene still remains one of the most horrifying sights just to see, and of course it is very controversial. Earlier on in the film, they open the door to Megan's room to find her stabbing herself, or some have even called it masterbating, with the crucifix she was given. And the brief image of her, the young girl possessed by the devil himself, so violently using a symbol of God and goodness, and for that matter in a sexual way, remains the one image among many from this terrifying film that stays in your memory for a long time.