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The effects on moviegoers of The Exorcist, which deals with the demonic possession of a twelve-year-old girl, Regan MacNeil, and which established new attendance records throughout the country, ranged widely from simple amusement to derision to momentary anxiety and fear accompanied by somatic responses such as fainting, anorexia, and vomiting to acute panic and severe regression (Klemesrud, 1974; Woodward, 1974). Bozzuto (1975) has described a series of four patients who became involved in brief psychotherapy lasting from 3-7 visits, as a means of coping with conflicts aroused by their having viewed this particular film, and has suggested “cinematic neurosis” as a general term for such phenomena.* Bozzuto found, however, that it was difficult to delineate precisely what it was about the experience that had been so disturbing for each of his patients. The following case history is that of a young woman who decompensated and became symptomatic immediately after seeing The Exorcist, and is presented in an effort to obtain a more specific clinical understanding of such reactions and to add to the sparse literature on the subject. Though having functioned reasonably well prior to this event, she quickly sought psychotherapy due to acute unremitting anxiety and a pervasive fear of being alone, especially at night, insisting that her husband be with her at all times and refusing to go to work. Her perception of the movie was that “the Devil was in a young girl,” which signified to her that a man was inside a woman and that, once so possessed, she was all-powerful and hence capable of doing countless “terrible things.” Her symptoms were intensified several days after onset when she dreamt of the Devil with a penis in his mouth.