Feb. 3, 2004, 9:59AM
'Exorcist' lets U.S. soldiers put new spin on time in Iraq By DENIS HAMMILL New York Daily News Last month, Capt. Nik Guran of the 2-320 Field Artillery Regiment, a "major unit" of the 101st Airborne Division stationed in the small Iraqi town of Hatra, inserted a copy of The Exorcist in a portable DVD player. As the film began, Guran had the weird realization he was sitting at the location where director William Friedkin shot the opening sequence of his 1973 horror classic. Father Merrin (Max Van Sydow) begins the Catholic rites of exorcism on Regan (Linda Blair) in The Exorcist. "He recognized the sun temples," Friedkin recently said by phone from Hollywood. "And then the Army hatched this idea," Friedkin continued, "to turn the whole area into a tourist attraction and call it 'The Exorcist Experience.'" Friedkin was sent a copy of the story about Guran's experience in the Gulf Times, a newspaper published in Qatar. In the article, Guran says, "Once it's up and running again as a visitors' spot, this place will be a real money pot. You should see it at night -- we've put in floodlights and it looks really beautiful." Breathing new fire into the old cliches that war is hell and love of money is the root of all evil, American soldiers have found a way to wrest Western capitalism out of the Iraqi sands where part of Hollywood's most popular devil movie was filmed. Granted $5,000 by the Army's Commanders Emergency Response Program, the soldiers hired unemployed Mosul University students as guides, created a parking lot, opened a police station and revamped a nearby hotel. The theme park, which is officially backed by the Pentagon, will be turned over to the Iraqis once it is operating. Admission will be $2 or $5 with a kabob lunch.
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