Ozzy Osbourne and his Black Sabbath bandmates were "s*******" themselves watching 1973's 'The Exorcist'.

The Prince of Darkness - who once unknowingly ate a real bat onstage - has revealed his "favourite" horror movie "freaked" him and his fellow bandmembers "out" so much that they had to go and see another film to get over it, which made him feel like a fool with his nickname.

The 74-year-old heavy metal icon recalled to Metal Hammer magazine: "Our manager came to us one day when we were on tour and says, 'You have to go and see this film called The Exorcist. We said, 'The Exorcist? What the f*** does that mean?' He said, 'Just go and see it.'

"We were in Philadelphia in this f****** movie theater and we were s******* ourselves! That one was just so real. We were freaked out! Here we were, Black Sabbath and I'm the Prince Of Darkness and all this, and we had to go see another movie — [1936 Paul Newman caper film] The Sting —just to stop thinking about it. It was so amazing."

Meanwhile, Ozzy previously shared how he swore off acid after a horse he spoke to for an hour told him to “f*** off” during a drugs trip.

The 'War Pigs' rocker kicked the class A substance after swallowing them like sweets during his rock heyday while conquering America.

He was quoted in the Daily Star last year as saying: “At that time in America, people were very fond of lacing your drinks with acid. I didn’t care.

“I used to swallow handfuls of tabs at a time. The end of it came when we got back to England. I took 10 tabs of acid then went for a walk in a field. I ended up standing there talking to this horse for about an hour.

“In the end the horse turned round and told me to f*** off. That was it for me.”

The 'Paranoid' hitmaker - who has Parkinson's and has a longstanding spinal injury - recently announced he is retiring from touring the world due to poor health.