Exorcist Stairs

Stand at the bottom and look up. A narrow flight of stone steps climbs steeply between a high brick wall and an old streetcar barn. The passage is dim even at noon. Ivy hangs over the edges. Cars rush past on the road behind you. Joggers pound up and down, breathing hard. Film fans stand quietly, photographing a staircase that once frightened the whole world.

These are the Exorcist Steps. In 1973, the horror film The Exorcist made this narrow stairway one of the most famous movie locations in America. The film tells the story of a girl possessed by a demon in a Georgetown house, and of the two priests who try to save her.

The steps are much older than the film. They were built in 1895, together with the large brick building beside them. That building is the Car Barn. Streetcars once rolled in and out of it, and the steps gave workers a shortcut between Prospect Street above and the waterfront below. Today the Car Barn holds university classrooms and offices.

The story behind the film began at the university up the street. William Peter Blatty studied at Georgetown and graduated in 1950. As a student, he heard about a reported exorcism case from 1949. Years later, he turned that memory into a novel. The Exorcist was published in 1971, stayed on best-seller lists for months, and sold millions of copies.

Hollywood came to Georgetown in 1972 to film the movie version. Director William Friedkin wanted real locations. The house at the top of the steps, on Prospect Street, played the home of the possessed girl. The crew even added a false extension to the house, so a bedroom window would hang close to the stairway.

The climax of the film happens right here. Father Karras, the tormented young priest, throws himself out of that window and falls down the full length of the steps. A stuntman performed the fall. The crew padded the stone steps with thick rubber, and he tumbled down them twice. Even padded, the fall looked brutal on screen.

Georgetown students saw a chance. During the filming, they charged onlookers a few dollars to watch the stunt from nearby rooftops. It became a favorite local story: even in 1972, the steps were already selling tickets.

The film opened in December 1973 and shocked audiences. People fainted in theaters. Lines wrapped around city blocks in the winter cold. The Exorcist earned ten Academy Award nominations, the first horror film ever nominated for Best Picture. It won two Oscars, including one for Blatty's screenplay, and it has returned to theaters again and again in the decades since.

In October 2015, the city made the connection official. Officials unveiled a plaque at the bottom of the steps. Both director William Friedkin and writer William Peter Blatty attended the ceremony, standing beside their staircase more than forty years after the film.

Today the steps live a double life. By day, they are exercise equipment. Runners from the university sprint up the long flight, touch the top, and jog back down. By night, especially near Halloween, film fans arrive. Ghost-tour groups stop here after dark. Some visitors recite lines. Others just stand at the bottom, where the shadows gather, and enjoy a small, safe chill.

Climb the steps yourself, if your legs agree. Count them as you go; visitors rarely agree on the same number. At the top, catch your breath on Prospect Street and look for the film house on your left. At the bottom, a gas station sits beside the steps today; the contrast with the film's dark mood amuses many visitors.

Horror stories work because ordinary places hold them. This is just a city staircase: stone, iron, moss, and shadow. Yet a writer's memory, a director's eye, and one terrible fall turned it into a landmark of fear. Stand here at dusk, when the street lamps come on, and the steps seem to climb a little higher than they did in daylight. Then the light warms the brick, and it is only Georgetown again.