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Rest in peace, 'Exorcist' author William Peter Blatty

A 1949 Washington Post article about an exorcism inspired the book that became one of the most terrifying films ever.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
2 min read

Perhaps it's fitting that the death of William Peter Blatty was announced on Friday the 13th, a date forever associated with bad luck and superstition. After all, Blatty wrote the book and then the screenplay for the film many moviegoers list as the scariest they've ever seen, 1973's "The Exorcist."

Blatty, 89, died of multiple myeloma on Thursday, his wife, Julie, told The New York Times.

The author was a Hollywood comedy writer when he wrote the horror novel in 1971, basing it on an idea from decades before. According to the Times, Blatty was a student at Georgetown University when he spotted this article in the Washington Post, telling of a supposed exorcism.

The enormous success of "The Exorcist" ended Blatty's comedy career, the Times notes, "making him for all practical purposes the foremost writer in a new hybrid genre: theological horror." He would go on to write "Legion," a 1983 novel which became the 1990s film "The Exorcist III," as well as other novels.

Watching "The Exorcist" today reminds us how much horror movies have changed since 1973, when it became the first horror movie ever nominated for best picture. (It lost to "The Sting," but Blatty won for best adapted screenplay, and the film also won for best sound mixing.) You won't see jump scares, torture porn or unrelenting gore. But there's a chill throughout the film, a realism despite pea-soup vomit and horrible obscenities issuing from the mouth of 12-year-old Regan (Linda Blair).

The late critic Roger Ebert called "The Exorcist" "one of the best movies of its type ever made," but he didn't hand it a ringing endorsement. "I am not sure exactly what reasons people will have for seeing this movie," Ebert wrote. "Surely enjoyment won't be one, because what we get here aren't the delicious chills of a Vincent Price thriller, but raw and painful experience."

Yet whatever their reasons, moviegoers made it one of the highest-grossing films in history, and it's impossible to find a "scariest movies of all time" list without "The Exorcist" ranked high.

William Friedkin, who directed "The Exorcist," tweeted Friday about the loss of his friend, in a message retweeted more than 3,200 times.

Blatty is survived by his wife and six children. His son Peter died at age 19, and Blatty wrote the 2015 book, "Finding Peter," about the family's grief, and his own belief that Peter was sending messages from beyond.

"Death is not a separation," Blatty wrote in the book. "When our loved one dies, they do not leave us. They remain. They do not go to some distant place. They simply begin their eternity."

Got fear? Here's your horror-movie calendar for the rest of 2017

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