The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (1971)
First published in 1971, The Exorcist received the accolade “the most terrifying novel every written.” Rereading it in 2018, it is less terrifying than it was back in the 1970’s. Still, it holds up as a truly scary work of horror fiction.
It’s the story of a demon that Catholic priests cannot exorcise. In order to explain that statement I’ll need to discuss the ending. So spoiler alert for anyone who has not read the book or seen the movie.
We tend to think that the story is about a young girl possessed by a demon. It is that, but the story, in its deepest essence, is about the efforts of two priests to exorcise the demon. The first priest is Father Merrin who we meet in the prologue when he is in Iraq on an architectural dig. A statue of the demon Pazuzu fills him with foreboding. Father Karras, the second priest, is a psychiatrist. A young girl’s mother asks him to treat her daughter who has been experiencing bizarre systems including frenetic behavior and increasingly violent aggression. Although Father Merrin is the older, experienced priest who leads the exorcism, I’d say that Father Karras is the Exorcist of the title.
Chris MacNeil is an actress making a film in Washington D.C. Her twelve year old daughter, Regan, is with her. Chris has recently separated from the child’s father. When Regan begins to exhibit strange behavior, Chris takes her to doctors to find out what is wrong. They attribute her behavior to the recent breakup of her parents’ marriage. However, Chris believes this to be wrong and as the behavior becomes increasingly disturbing, she turns to the Father Karras for help.
Father Karras is experiencing a crises of faith brought on by the death of his mother. He suffers terrible guilt that he hadn’t done enough for her. His psychiatric training makes him skeptical that a demon is possessing Regan. Rather, he thinks she is having some sort of psychotic break. Through Father Karras, Blatty examines every other possible diagnosis of Regan. Father Karras eventually rules out everything but demonic possession, and we, the readers, agree.
SPOILER ALERT: Now here’s the SPOILER: both priests die. Father Merrin dies of heart failure. Father Karras is thrown out of the window by the demon, falls several stories, and is killed. Upon Father Karras’s death, the demon leaves Regan. But where does the demon go? Is it inside Father Karras and dies with him? Blatty gives us a hint of the answer in the Epilogue wherein he states: “…exorcists themselves had at times become possessed….strong feelings of guilt…” make them susceptible to possession. Another hint is a reference to the look in Father Karras’s eyes as he dies on the pavement far below the window. But does the demon die with Karras? The only way for Karras to rid Regan of the demon is to transfer the demon from the girl to himself. That isn’t an exorcism. That’s just transference, which is why I say that the priests were unsuccessful in exorcising the demon.
If I were rating this in the 1970’s, it would get a 5 on the terror scale, but now, in 2018, it gets a 3. I promise you that back in 1973 I did not go to see the movie because I knew it was scare me too much. Back then, I was young and impressionable. Perhaps the current rating isn’t a 5 because I am so familiar with the story now and it doesn’t keep me up at night. Also, demonic possession was a shocking thing in the 1970’s and today it has become a stock horror plot. Nonetheless, The Exorcist treats evil as real and for this reason it will remain a horror classic.