Couple unknowingly buys cheap ‘haunted’ house that inspired The Exorcist

A couple who thought they'd found a bargain dream home realised that the cheap deal was due to it being the house that inspired an infamous horror film.

Chillingly, it was where a Catholic priest performed an exorcism on a teenage boy.

The infamous spiritual events inspired the hit 1971 novel and 1973 movie The Exorcist.

Danielle Witt and Ben Rockey-Harris discovered the three-bedroom house last year, which they claim was going for $377,000 (£276,623), over $500,000 (£366,875) lower than its estimated value.

The excited couple thought they had bagged a bargain when they secured the home in August, but later found out about the house's terrifying history online, MailOnline reports.

A 14-year-old boy had been possessed by a demon at the home in 1949, Washington Post reported at the time.

The Catholic priest then performed the rare exorcism ceremony.

Ministers allegedly saw furniture sliding around the floor as the teenager screamed Latin phrases.

On August 20, 1949, it's believed the priest freed the teenager after he broke into a violent tantrum of screaming.

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The boy was heard cursing and speaking Latin phrases, although it was a language he had never studied.

Whenever the priest reached the climactic point of the ritual, the boy would then began violently reacting.

The rumours made their way to the nearby Georgetown University William Peter Blatty had spoken to a Jesuit priest.

Blatty then published a novel based on the story and two years later he penned the screenplay, with The Exorcist film becoming a major blockbuster in 1973.

Miraculously, the couple said they weren't scared of the home's history.

Rockey-Harris told NPR: "I thinking I'm going to get a Catholic priest Halloween costume this year and get an amplified speaker and have The Exorcist soundtrack just playing on a loop on our front porch for trick-or-treaters."

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But the owners did have some sense of seriousness regarding the spiritual nature of their house.

Witt claimed that a friend offered to bring an Ouija board to recreate one of the scenes from the film for fun, but she declined.

"The last time someone did that, they made a movie about my house," she joked to NPR.

The movie's director, William Friedkin, once visited the house himself in 2018 when he went back to Georgetown to film a documentary about the movie.

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