The set of 97 steps between M Street NW and Prospect Street in Georgetown—better known as the Exorcist Steps—is now a historical landmark. But don’t queue up the 1973 movie in celebration yet: We don’t exactly have The Exorcist to thank.

The Historical Preservation Review Board on Thursday granted historical landmark status to the steps, the retaining wall on one side of them, and the old Capitol Traction Station building on the other side, and also recommended that the site be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. The board voted to adopt a report written by the Historic Preservation Office, which broke down the reasons for the site’s significance. The steps’ history as the site of a pivotal death scene in The Exorcist received some of the harshest words in the report.

“[The Exorcist] has stood the test of time (even if its special effects now look a bit cruder to our eyes),” the report reads. “But this does not necessarily rub off on the 36th Street stairway as a participant in the ‘artistry’ of ‘creative masters’ of cinema.”

The report lists several reasons why filming a horror movie alone isn’t enough of a reason to declare a place a historic landmark. For one, the application doesn’t include the house where most of the movie takes place, 3600 Prospect Street NW, and splitting up the sites “diminishes the significance of the parts.” (The HPO apparently ain’t afraid of no ghosts either, pointing out that because the house and the steps are separated by a lot, filmmakers actually added a false wing to make the house appear closer, for the scene in which a priest is thrown out the window and down the stairs to his death. “It was deemed implausible for even a supernatural force to hurl a body clear over an intervening lot,” the report quips.)

Additionally, the timing is off for The Exorcist to be a reason for historical significance. The National Register of Historic Places doesn’t consider sites that have become significant within the past 50 years, unless the site is of “exceptional importance.” (The Exorcist is only 46 years old.) “Even if the movie is of exceptional importance in its field, the stairs alone cannot be called an exceptionally significant historic site,” the HPO sniffs in its report.

Despite all that, the Exorcist Steps are now part of a historical landmark. So what else is significant about the site? Plenty, the report argues. The Capitol Traction Station was built at the end of the 19th century as a three-story transit hub for four streetcar companies, making it “unique,” the HPO claims. In addition to the building’s historical significance, its soaring clock tower and arched windows make it an example of Romanesque Revival architecture popular at the time of its construction. The steps and retaining wall, meanwhile, contribute to “the historical and architectural significance of the site,” the report reads.

The site was originally proposed for historical landmark status in September by a group called the Prospect Street Citizens Association, in partnership with the D.C. Preservation League. At that time, the group told DCist in a statement that the site was at risk of being “rubber stamped by another development-friendly bureaucracy without weighing all the facts.” They’re almost certainly referring to a five-story condo building going up this year at the site of a former Exxon station right next door to the site.

“This designation will ensure that any proposed use of the nearby properties will consider the impact on these important landmarked elements,” said Prospect Street Citizens Association member Betty Parrella last week in an email to DCist.

But historical status is a somewhat moot point to protect the steps, says state historic preservation officer David Maloney. While historical status does protect sites from alteration or destruction without the mayor’s approval, the Exorcist steps happen to be located in a historic district, the Old Georgetown Historic District, which means that any new buildings—including a certain five-story condo—must be approved by the National Commission of Fine Arts.

“In practical terms, this doesn’t have that much implication for the property,” Maloney says. Still, he says his office felt that the site deserved special attention, including landmark status. “We felt in this case that it is appropriate to draw attention to the unusual qualities of the property that make it stand out as a separate historic landmark within a historic district. The qualities of the historical importance of this building is something that makes it stand out from the average building in Georgetown.”