William Peter Blatty’s faith and writing held many surprises for readers. He wrote in many genres—from screenwriting a classic comedy to writing one of the twentieth century’s scariest novels. While some Christians found his scary novels too dark, his work featured many ideas we now associate with Christian supernatural thrillers. He wrote about faith from a Catholic perspective but explored ideas that any Christian will find surprising and well worth exploring.
What Happened in William Peter Blatty’s Life?
William Peter Blatty was born on January 7, 1928, in Brooklyn, New York City. His parents were Lebanese immigrants, and he described his upbringing as “comfortable destitution.” His parents separated when he was a child, and his mother supported him and his four siblings by selling quince jelly on the streets.
His mother was a strong Catholic with eccentric habits—like rarely paying rent. Blatty reported he lived in nearly 30 apartments due to eviction (or his mother moving the family just before eviction).
Thanks to scholarships, Blatty attended Brooklyn Preparatory and Georgetown University. While he was studying at Georgetown in 1949, The Washington Post released a story about a rare instance where American Catholic priests publically confirmed they had performed an exorcism. The exorcism reportedly happened in Washington’s Mount Rainer area and successfully removed a demon from a teenage boy labeled “Roland Doe.”
Blatty later recalled that he saw the report as something that could support faith: “. . . if an investigation were to prove that possession is real, what a help it would be to the struggling faith of possibly millions, for if there were demons, I reasoned, then why not angels? Why not God?”
While Blatty experienced racism for being Lebanese-American, he found his multicultural heritage created opportunities. In the mid-1950s, he joined the United States Information Agency, which stationed him in Lebanon for two years to see how second-generation immigrants performed in their parents’ birth country. His first book discussed his culture clash experiences—being too Middle Eastern for his American colleagues, too American for Lebanese people.
When Blatty returned to America, he performed a prank to expose stereotypes: convincing Hollywood celebrities that he was a Saudi Arabian prince. After winning prize money when he performed the prank on the game show You Bet Your Life, Blatty had enough income to become a full-time writer.
He wrote several well-reviewed comedy novels, with New York Times contributor Marvin Levin saying, “Nobody can write funnier lines than William Peter Blatty.” Blatty also wrote scripts for comedy movies like A Shot in the Dark, widely considered the best Pink Panther movie.
In the late 1960s, Blatty’s career hit a standstill. In a 2010 interview, he observed the problem was his comedy style had a limited market, and he’d built a reputation for writing good jokes without deep characters.
Seeking a new direction, Blatty recalled the exorcism story and tried to write a nonfiction book about it. When the family involved wanted to remain anonymous, he wrote a novel loosely inspired by the case.
“When I was writing the novel, I thought I was writing a supernatural detective story that was filled with suspense with theological overtones,” Blatty later told the Los Angeles Times. “To this day, I have zero recollection of even a moment when I was writing that I was trying to frighten anyone.”
The novel, The Exorcist, appeared in 1971 and became a bestseller. Stephen King called it “the great horror novel of our time.”
While various Christians denounced the novel, Blatty defended it as “an argument for God,” using the devil’s existence to show God must also exist. Fifteen years later, Frank Peretti explored similar ideas in his Christian Fiction novel This Present Darkness.
Blatty reached a new level of fame when he worked with director William Friedkin to adapt The Exorcist into a 1973 film. He won an Academy Award for his screenplay.
Blatty’s friend, film critic Mark Kermode, observed that the movie proved complicated. Among other problems, Blatty wanted to highlight the story’s spiritual questions, while then-agnostic Friedkin favored the scary material.
In later years, Friedkin’s spiritual views moved closer to Christianity. In a commentary for the movie’s 2010 director’s cut, he suggested viewers will take what they already believe from the movie. Still, he and Blatty agree the movie is ultimately about “the mystery of faith.”
Blatty’s post-Exorcist career proved complicated. He returned to comedy with novels like The Ninth Configuration and Demons Five Exorcists Nothing. He adapted The Ninth Configuration into an offbeat comedy that may be technically an Exorcist spinoff. The movie has quietly built a reputation as an intelligent movie about doubt, faith, and sacrifice.
He also worked to reclaim The Exorcist as more than gore. He wrote a less visceral sequel, Legion, and adapted it into a movie. Conflicts with the studio led to a garbled movie with last-minute changes released as The Exorcist III. A new edit following Blatty’s original version was released decades later.
In his last years, Blatty continued to write and speak about faith. After his son, Peter, passed away in 2006, Blatty wrote a book about supernatural experiences that convinced him that his son had gone on to heaven. He called Finding Peter an affirmation that there is more than this life: “For so many people of faith . . . our belief in life after death is often a very intense hope—more than a full knowledge of fact—and this book gives them some tangible evidence.”
William Peter Blatty passed away on January 12, 2017, in Bethesda, Maryland, from a form of blood cancer.
Lessons We Can Learn from William Peter Blatty
1. Christians can write comedy that deals with tough subjects. Christian comedy often refers to family-friendly comedy, which has its place. However, Christianity also has a shocking side—it claims that the worst people can change and that God would use a horrible death to save the world. Like G.K. Chesterton and many other Christian humorists, Blatty’s best humor writing leans into paradox, pushing readers to ask important questions about their faith.
2. Christians can write scary stories. When Blatty published The Exorcist in 1971, American Christians often saw horror as essentially anti-Christian. However, many of Blatty’s themes are similar to those explored in books like This Present Darkness and movies like The Exorcism of Emily Rose—stories by Christians who openly discussed how their faith informed the material.
3. Artists may find their strengths in surprising ways. Blatty routinely said he didn’t realize he could write scary stories. Authors like William Paul have suggested the reason is that comedy and horror follow similar formulas, just pushing different buttons.
4. Apologetics can start with darkness. Blatty’s argument that recognizing the devil exists logically means God must also exist is an example of starting with what is known and considering whether what’s known makes sense without God in the picture. This approach to Christian apologetics may not sound hopeful, but it has a long and well-respected history.
5. Possession discussions should focus on the people. Blatty’s stance on possession stories showed that audiences should pay more attention to the human side—what the people involved believe and what the experience prompts them to discuss. Multiple Christians and organizations have affirmed this point, recognizing evil while avoiding “obsessional preoccupation with Satan.”
6. Some ideas become acceptable with time. At release, many evangelical Christians denounced The Exorcist as blasphemous. Ironically, a TV show embraced by evangelicals played on similar ideas decades later. The TV show The Chosen opens with episodes showing rabbi Nicodemus failing to exorcise demons from Mary Magdalene, then the carpenter Jesus freeing her from demons. The story structure—priests trying to exorcise a demon, an unexpected act of love forcing the demon the leave—mimics what Blatty’s characters experience in a different setting.
10 Great Books by William Peter Blatty
1 Which Way to Mecca, Jack? From Brooklyn to Beirut: The Adventures of an American Sheik. A comedic retelling of Blatty’s experiences growing up Lebanese-American in New York City, followed by his two years working in Lebanon.
2. I’ll Tell Them I Remember You. A deeper look at Blatty’s childhood, particularly his mother’s mix of eccentricity and affection.
3. The Exorcist. The story of Regan McNeil exhibiting signs of possession may be familiar to those who’ve seen the movie, but Blatty goes beyond that. The novel shows Father Damien Karras going through a dark night of the soul experience before the exorcism appears, and police detective William Kinderman wondering if Regan has anything to do with some recent crimes.
4. Legion. A new case reminds Kinderman of the McNeil incident, and he must reconsider what he learned and what he believes about God and the devil.
5 The Ninth Configuration. This novel bridges the two sides of Blatty’s writing. His early comedy novel Twinkle, Twinkle, “Killer” Kane was a Vietnam spoof about a secretive man working in an experimental veteran’s hospital. The Ninth Configuration rewrites that story to emphasize the religious themes—traumatized patients asking questions about God’s existence and the problem of evil.
6. William Peter Blatty on ‘The Exorcist’: From Novel to Screen. Blatty describes the events that led him to write the novel, and includes both his original script for the movie, and the final version.
7. Dimiter. A thriller set in the 1970s, the action begins in Albania with a prisoner who may have paranormal powers, then shifts to Jerusalem, where a man has just been murdered.
8. Elsewhere. This haunted house story starts with a realtor desperate to renovate a house’s reputation by bringing in experts on the paranormal to prove nothing supernatural is going on. Events take unexpected turns when all four must wait out a storm in the house.
9. Crazy: A Novel. Blatty’s final novel describes a young boy growing up in 1940s New York City. His life gains some unexpected excitement when he befriends a girl named Jane, who claims to have magic powers.
10. Finding Peter: A True Story of the Hand of Providence and Evidence of Life after Death. Blatty discusses sections of his life leading up to his son’s passing and the events he became convinced were signs that his son had passed on to something better.
More information about Blatty can be found in Mark Kermode’s BFI Classics study on The Exorcist and American Exorcist: Critical Essays on William Peter Blatty edited by Benjamin Szumskyj.
Great Movies by William Peter Blatty
The Man from the Diner’s Club. A fun caper movie starring Danny Kaye, this movie depicts a flustered credit card company employee with a problem. He accidentally approves a credit card application for a gangster. His attempts to find and destroy the card grows complicated when the gangster needs a body to fake his death.
A Shot in the Dark. This movie about Inspector Clouseau’s attempt to solve a murder isn’t just the funniest Pink Panther movie. It set the formula—the surprise butler attacks, the coworkers who want to kill Clouseau—that everyone imagines when someone mentions the Pink Panther movies.
The Exorcist. A classic 1970s movie, The Exorcist has also proven to be one of the most effective movies about exorcism ever made.
Omega Man. Blatty’s not credited in this movie but stated that he worked as a “script doctor” on it, polishing dialogue for its final draft. Based on Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend, this 1970s thriller helped create the zombie apocalypse genre. . . and has some surprising Christian overtones.
The Ninth Configuration. Somewhere between One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Heart of the Matter, this movie is silly yet thought-provoking.
The Exorcist III: Director’s Cut. This version is assembled from alternate footage and raw material, making it a little unpolished but still a more intelligent movie than the theatrical version.
Further Reading:
10 Horror Novels by Christians for Halloween
10 Spooky Stories in the Bible for Halloween
10 Horror Movies with Christian Themes for Halloween
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Chris Weeks/Staff
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