Amulets and other iconography of Pazuzu have been found in locations ranging from the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Iran to the Greek island of Sámos, while written sources describing Pazuzu began to appear around 670 B.C.E.

The Exorcist III takes place 15 years after the original film. The film was adapted by Blatty from his own novel. Lieutenant Kinderman, who was also in the original film, has been on a murder case about mysterious deaths committed by an anonymous person. It is later found out that Pazuzu convinced the Gemini Killer, who died at the same time as Father Karras, to inhabit his body as punishment for saving Regan. However, as result of his suicide, his brain was severely damaged, which demons/spirits need when they possess a body. The Gemini Killer spent years stimulating his brain so he would be of use, and then began committing murders by possessing the bodies of the other inhabitants of the hospital where Karras had been staying. In the end of the movie after a turbulent exorcism is done, Karras regains control of the body and asks Kinderman to kill him, which he does by shooting him in the head, keeping him from being possessed again. Most ancient Near Eastern demons have fallen into obscurity—mighty creatures like Humbaba, for instance, no longer provoke the fearful response they did in Mesopotamia during the early first millennium B.C. In fact, visitors to our galleries of ancient Near Eastern art tend to find Humbaba friendly and unassuming, a far cry from the terrifying adversary in the Epic of Gilgamesh who guards the Cedar Forest. Pazuzu was the )….protector of the vulnerable and the innocent…. that he is possessing Regan only after another entity or entities had gotten there first……. what if he was actually in there to drive out the other demons and protect someone who wasn’t strong enough to protect herself……)” Ken Nordine was considered for the demon's voice, but William Friedkin thought it would be best not to use a man's voice. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

Definition

Perhaps the most famous modern Pazuzu is the demon who possesses a twelve-year-old girl in the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist. Of the two priests charged with exorcising the demon, one has encountered the same malevolent spirit before, while participating in an archaeological dig. Like Pazuzu, Humbaba was used as a protector deity, with depictions of his frightening head being used to ward off evil. [23] It could therefore be speculated that the Pazuzu heads replaced those of Humbaba. [23] Humbaba fell from favour in the Late Bronze Age, [12] shortly before Pazuzu emerged, although the two do not share any great iconographic connection, [17] making it unlikely that Pazuzu could have evolved from the earlier deity. As Christianity swept across the world, the devout no longer had a need for protective demons, and Christians naturally wanted belief in the old ways to disappear in favor of their new monotheistic religion. Demons of the old faith were relegated to Hell — after all, anything from the underworld had no place in the holy world of Heaven. This might be evidence of a flub in filmmaking or an issue with continuity, but before the infamous crucifix scene involving Regan, it's easy to see the crucifix located elsewhere in the house.

With the demons cast, from a Christian perspective, as Satan's henchmen, any one of them could have possessed her. Perhaps Pazuzu, with his reputation for scaring away evil, was simply the most dominant when the right channel of communication was opened up. This is where the ouija board comes in, offering a cautionary tale against the dangers of using occult items for a bit of a lark. As Christianity.com warns:We care about our planet! We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere. In the Canadian television series, SCTV, Catherine O'Hara features in a skit, as Pazuzu/Regan, titled "Exorcising with Reagan Blair". I did find this YouTube video explaining the gross misrepresentation of Pazuzu’s purpose on this earth. The video’s presenter “Jony” maybe a tad over animated, however I feel his content is spot-on. The presenter offers an alternative theory as to why Pazuzu was seen as the possessing demon in the child Regan:

While there are those who think that the legends might be paranormal or supernatural in nature, some members of Hodgson’s expedition knew that these were aliens. It’s why they’ve been planning on digging deeper to find their lair. One journal even cites how alien technology can help the human race. In the film, Pazuzu is a demon who possesses the body of a young girl named Regan, transforming her from an innocent little girl into a foul-mouthed, blistered nightmare who expels green slime from her throat and twists her head a full 180 degrees. Although Pazuzu itself is only seen briefly, the few fleeting moments of its on-screen appearance leave a lingering impression.

Pazuzu is an Assyrian/Babylonian demonic god who was most popular in the first millenium BCE. He was the son of Hanbi (also Hanba), king of the demons of the underworld, and brother to Humbaba, the demon-god protector of the Cedar Forest in The Epic of Gilgamesh who is killed by the heroes. Pazuzu is known to us today largely due to The Exorcist, but the widespread prevalence of his iconography throughout the ancient world shows that even in his time, he was a well known and fairly popular demon. Pazuzu is also the only prominent Mesopotamian demon or deity to make its way into Hollywood films — and there may be several reasons for this. And while full-body statuettes of the demon certainly exist, it is far more common to see his likeness portrayed only as a head, usually as an amulet or an adornment on other pieces of jewelry. One of the mysteries of The Exorcist is about who killed Burke Dennings. He helped direct a student film and was a babysitter for Regan one night. Unfortunately for poor Burke, he winds up dead by being tossed out a window.