NRO Weekend, September 16-17, 2000
The Exorcist, Unplugged
An interview with author William Peter Blatty.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez-----------------lopezk@ix.netcom.com

Lopez: The 1949 exorcism case upon which The Exorcist was loosely based — there here have been stories claiming that it's not true, that it was not an exorcism. What is that all about?

Blatty: I didn't read the Brill's Content article though I was interviewed for it. I started to read the article that started it all in Strange magazine, and I got as far as the charge that the bed was on rollers and it would have been easy for the boy to manipulate the bed. I doubt the validity of that; are we to believe that this writer went to that home, presuming that the same bed is there 50 years later, and examined the bed? Give me a break! I took the magazine and flipped it in the garbage. The explanations are more absurd than simply the supernatural fact.

When I was a student at Georgetown, we would read in class the miracle of the loaves and fishes in the New Testament Studies course. Our resident atheist raised his hand and said, "Well, I've heard that everybody came there with a little bread tucked under their cloaks and a couple of fish each. And as soon as he said 'Let's eat,' out it all came." Why do people selectively trust stories in the Bible?

The invincibly ignorant materialist mind. The mechanistic clockwork universe of the 19th and part of the 20th century was clearly the biggest superstition of both those centuries. It's mad. They're telling us now that there are no such things as things. That there are only processes and that matter is only an illusion. That electrons can move from point a to point y without traversing the space in between. That a positron is an electron travelling backward in time. I mean, in a universe like this can you really have a word or concept like surprise?

Lopez: But aren't they teaching things like that at your alma mater, Georgetown, now? What's your relationship with Georgetown been since graduating?

Blatty: Oh, we do not speak. I started sending scathing faxes to Father O'Donovan about a year ago, which he never responded to. How can you criticize former basketball coach John Thompson because he wants to own a few slot machines in a Las Vegas airport, and keep your mouth shut about your pal Bill Clinton refusing to allow the passage of an anti-partial-birth-abortion bill. We know now that infants in the womb experience pain. And the infant — and he is an infant — is being horribly tortured and mutilated and killed. It boggles my mind. It makes me absolutely crazy. He is the president of the oldest Catholic university in America. He is a disgrace.

Lopez: Have you been paying attention to Georgetown since you graduated?

Blatty: It all started when they dropped Shakespeare and Chaucer in favor of lesbian literature and studies. That was the beginning of my awakening about Georgetown. It is so embarrassing to tell people I am a Georgetown graduate. It's just a sickening atmosphere there — where students can yell, Keep your rosaries off my ovaries.

Lopez: It's not the school you graduated from.

Blatty: It's not the world I graduated from.

Lopez: Many people have commented on the horrifying crucifix scene in the movie. Those who have read your book realize that there is an even worse scene — the description of the Black Mass. Why wasn't that in the movie?

Blatty: I never attempted to put that in. That would have been seen as pure titillation. There was some conversation at the party scene about the number of Black Masses were occurring in Paris. At that time, about 50,000 a year in the city of Paris alone. But I never attempted to put in details about what happens at a Black Mass. People could not take that on the screen. Not even today. But it was definitely the most horrifying part of the novel.

Lopez: Were you surprised that the crucifix scene made it into the final cut?

Blatty: Well, we did try to sanitize it as much as we could. We didn't show the crucifix penetrating. We kept it all at a discreet camera aperture. And that wasn't Linda Blair. And it was really just a box filled with sand. But nevertheless, it made us nervous. Linda Blair had no idea what was going on. She had not a clue. She would giggle after every take. We were nervous wrecks.

Lopez: Was there any conversation about making it an older teenager or an adult even?

Blatty: I have an admission to make. My idea — this is part of my road to absolute abasement if not humility — I wanted to use a midget. I couldn't imagine any child carrying out this performance. Neither could Mike Nichols when he turned it down. He was one of our list of seven top directors who turned it down.

Lopez: Could you have used an adult?

Blatty: The Exorcist would never have worked with an adult. I remember there was a novel with a young woman of 17 or 18 being possessed. It didn't work. It's the helplessness of the child that's essential in grabbing your emotions.

Lopez: How did your novel become a movie?

Blatty: Well, I didn't think that there was a movie in it. I signed the contract and I said I'll do my best to write one — I had to make a living. But I didn't think we would get a movie out of it to show in public theaters. I gave a producer named Paul Monash — Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — the option, he bought the six-month option to produce the movie.

Lopez: Were you involved in the sequels?

Blatty: III — I directed The Exorcist III.

Lopez: Why weren't the sequels as successful?

Blatty: Well, II was an execrable movie. I read the script, it was smuggled out to me. At first I thought it was an elaborate joke. I read it once, I thought, this is insane, this is not going to be a movie. I called the producer. I said, you are not going to produce this. I read from the script I had in my hands to make sure that it was the script and he said "Yes, it was." I said, "You're mad. You are not going to produce this." He said, "Everybody here thinks it's a masterpiece."

Lopez: Did they need your permission?

Blatty: They had my permission, but I had no screenplay approval. They asked me at first to write it, but I said No, because I couldn't think of a story. It's over. Down the steps, that's it. I remember one executive saying, well, even if it is a disaster, it has got to make $60 million. Well, it didn't. It closed, as they say, about three nights after it opened. I don't know how you could look at it and not know that it was an absolute disaster. Richard Burton intoning lines like, "I've flown this route before on the back of a giant locust." Be still my heart.

Lopez: What happened to Exorcist III?

Blatty: Well, who came to see III? The mature audience had been turned off by Exorcist II. Who turned out for II? The universal acned brain. But there was not one drop of blood in the film. Not one moment of violence was ever shown on screen. All the murders, which were all decapitations and exsanguinations, were shown off screen. It made them crazy.

Lopez: What do you make of the genre The Exorcist spawned?

Blatty: There were direct rip-offs at the time. Most of them were quite dreadful. The only really good film in the genre was The Omen.

Lopez: Some have suggested that there is blasphemy in The Exorcist, in the movie. Or that it opened the door for blasphemy in future films. Do you agree at all?

Blatty: No, it's the opposite with The Exorcist. And I cannot be responsible for rip-offs. But I would be happy to see a continuation of a trend that suggests there is a transcendent force in the universe and that spirits exist — that we are something more than molecular structures. I embrace that.