and New York. Susan Swift was eventually cast in the role after auditioning in Austin, Texas. The film marked her feature debut. Filming Principal photography of Audrey Rose began on July 26, 1976, on sound stages in Los Angeles and Culver City, California. Filming continued through November, when the production moved to New York City, where exterior sequences were shot on location. The film had a production budget of approximately $4 million. Release Critical response , the film has a score of 55% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 20 reviews. Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote: "The soul of the movie is that of The Exorcist instantly recycled." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three stars out of four and called the first hour "excellent" but the second half "pretty bad ... The picture falls apart as it turns into a dumb legal melodrama replete with cross-examination and a hypnotized key witness." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times praised the "first-rate acting" but added "In a way, 'Audrey Rose' may go too far in denying the mystery and proclaiming the certainty of reincarnation. The handling denies the story of some of the spookiness of an exercise in style like Don't Look Now, and the literalness has a way of putting off those who might be willing to go along for the ride." For Newsweek, Janet Maslin wrote that Audrey Rose lacked "not only any sign of intelligence, but also that other prerequisite of a good horror movie - fast pacing"; and Judith Crist in the Saturday Review wrote that the film "starts out as a titillating little thriller, but after 20 minutes, it bogs down in a series of minilectures on reincarnation that wipe out whatever dramatic potential the story might have had." More mixed was Richard Combs writing for The Monthly Film Bulletin: "Before the film collapses into [...] bathetic nonsense [...] it displays a dramatic rationale and figurative substance that makes it at least as diverting as Rosemary's Baby, and a cut above the special effects hocus-pocus of its nearer predecessors in the demonology genre." Paul Petlewski for Cinefantastique was measured in his assessment: "Although Audrey Rose is an honourable film, it isn't particularly memorable or even an important one [...] Its interest is partly historical the [Val] Lewton connection and partly aesthetic - the pleasure derived from watching a talented director