Horror ABCs: The Exorcist
Written by Emmapanada: 1/28/2025
Hello and welcome back to the horror novel review series, Horror ABCs! In this series I go to the horror section of various bookstores near me and use a random number generator to find a random horror novel to read and review! Today’s entry is The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty’s impactful novel from 1971.
For those unaware, The Exorcist is the inspiration for the movie of the same name that came out in 1973, and won the Oscar that year for Best Screenplay and Best Sound. The Exorcist movie has become such a pillar of the horror genre that I feel the book is often overshadowed by its weight and influence. Both the film and the book were incredibly successful at the time of release. The book became such a sensation that it spawned the release of a movie adaptation within 2 years of release, with the author of the novel given the power to write the screenplay. William Peter Blatty was originally inspired to write The Exorcist because he had seen Rosemary’s Baby in theaters and, while disappointed by its ending, he loved the ambiguity of the narrative’s conflict. He decided to write a similar story but with what he believed to be a better ending.
Growing up I lived in fear of The Exorcist. I only knew it from various pop culture references, but the imagery of the demon child scared me to the point that even the comedic depiction of the child in Scary Movie 2 was too much for me. To this day I’ve still never completely watched Scary Movie 2. I was only ever familiar with the movie, and it wasn’t until much later in my life that I learned the movie was based on a book. I first heard about the book through an internet horror story about how someone thought their copy of The Exorcist was evil because they couldn’t get rid of it. Whenever they threw it away, burned it, or whatever else, it would simply come back the next day. I was extremely religious when I was younger, so I avoided the novel and the movie like the plague.
It was only in 2020 that I started to more actively watch horror content after becoming a host of Casual Obsession. Since then I’ve realized that horror is not as scary as my mind made it out to be, and I’ve greatly enjoyed the various movies, TV shows, and books that I’ve gotten to experience in the last 5 years. Though I’m no longer religious, I’ve still been nervous to watch The Exorcist due to my childhood fears. I decided to read the novel when I rolled B on my random number generator at the bookstore in an attempt to prepare myself to watch the movie. While I expected a terrifying tale about demonic possession, instead I got an enticing narrative about the relationship between faith and doubt, psychology and possession, and the Catholic Church and science.
The Exorcist follows an accomplished actress named Chris MacNeil as she lives in Washington, D.C. while filming a movie on Georgetown University’s campus. While there, her daughter Regan begins behaving strangely. After numerous psychological tests Chris believes Regan to be possessed by a demon and seeks help from the Jesuit Priests on Georgetown’s campus. From there, Father Karras, a priest and psychologist who has been struggling with his faith, attempts to help Chris find the root cause of Regan’s strange behaviors. This eventually leads him to attempt to collect evidence on Regan’s potential possession in an effort to convince the Catholic Church that an exorcism is needed.
I’ve long believed The Exorcist to be an incredibly scary story, so I was surprised by the lack of horrifying elements within the book. There is a lot of shit, piss, and vomit, along side some wild things done with a crucifix, but none of it really leapt off the page to me as scary. At first I was disappointed by how slow the narrative progressed, I was constantly eager to get to the “scary parts.” But while I was anticipating an imaginary horror that was just on the next page, I began to become fascinated by the surprising story it was telling. A story about the need of the modern day Catholic Church to not instantly believe any mental illness is demonic possession. Father Karras spends a great deal of the novel not believing Regan is truly possessed. Instead, he believes her to be disturbed, or troubled, and must fight against his internal narrative to dissuade all his doubts before he approaches the Church and recommends an exorcism. The number of medical tests and (weird) medical reasoning for what Regan could be experiencing is fascinating, slowly whittling all options away until the characters truly have no other explanation for Regan’s behavior than possession. As someone in the year 2025, I obviously know the reputation of The Exorcist and knew that Regan was possessed, but it was incredibly interesting seeing the room for doubt that the narrative leaves with you. The way it causes you to wonder if Regan was truly possessed or if it was something else.
There’s so much I could say about this book. About my own personal experience with demonic possession and the frustrating questions its left me with throughout my life. About my love of Detective Kinderman and how I imagined him played by Willem Dafoe. About how cool Father Merrin is portrayed at the end of the book and how the movie completely fails to capture the same presence of the character. I could even speak on my slight frustrations with how bloated and slow the narrative can be at times. However, I loved this book. It was enthralling, fascinating, and almost made me want to believe in God again. For all those reasons and more, I’m giving The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty 5 out of 5 stars! For those who enjoy the film, I highly recommend you read this novel. Trust me when I say the book is so much better in every way (except maybe sound design).
The Emmapanada Rating Scale:
5 Stars means that I thought this book was excellent, and it had a profound emotional impact on me.
4 Stars means that this was a really, really good book. The characters and narrative were well established and explored, and I had an amazing time reading it.
3 Stars means that this was a solid book. I had my problems with it, but overall I would still recommend it to certain people and I think it’s worthwhile.
2 Stars means I was disappointed by the book for a number of reasons. However, there were still one or two things about the book that I enjoyed and I can understand that even though I didn’t enjoy it fully, I could see others liking it.
1 Star means that I really just did not connect with this book in any way.