William Friedkin's 'terrifying' experience on shooting a real exorcism

'The Exorcist' director William Friedkin said that filming a real exorcism was a "terrifying" experience for him. The 82-year-old filmmaker said he felt a range of emotions from being afraid to feeling apathy for the woman on whom the exorcism was being performed for his documentary, 'The Devil and Father Amorth'.
"It was terrifying. I went from being afraid of what could happen to feeling a great deal of empathy with this woman's pain and suffering, which is obvious in the film," Friedkin said on the sidelines of the movie's screening at the Venice Film Festival.
The director also revealed he shot the sequence alone with no lights. "I had to shoot it alone, obviously. The conditions were that I come along with no crew and no lights. So I used a Sony still camera that shot high-definition video. I had only that camera running and I was about two feet away from them, probably even closer," he said.