REVIEW: The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
The Exorcist
by William Peter Blatty
Publisher: HarperTorch
Publish Date: February 1, 1994 (first published 1971)
Mass Market Paperback
40th Anniversary Edition
385 pages
Standalone
Genres: Horror, Classics, Paranormal, Thriller
Four decades after it first shook the nation, then the world, William Peter Blatty's thrilling masterwork of faith and demonic possession returns in an even more powerful form. Raw and profane, shocking and blood-chilling, it remains a modern parable of good and evil and perhaps the most terrifying novel ever written.
My Review:
I'm going to get a lot of feedback from this rating I'm sure. I have to stay honest in my reviews though, otherwise what's the point? So let's talk about why I didn't fall in love with this read where most people have!
The first 50 pages or so really bored me. I read all the dialogue in that black and white up lilted voice - yes, yes, it's a product of my own head I realize, but regardless that's what happened and quite frankly, I was getting on my own nerves because of it. Once the ouija board came into play, luckily those voices went away and I found the book start to get interesting... for a bit anyways. The parts without Regan were still dull for me... until we get to parts three and four and well, HERE'S where the story takes off... FINALLY.
OK OK - look, it's not that I don't realize this is an amazing book and well loved throughout the horror community. I feel how I feel about it and for that I'm not going to apologize. I think this is also one of the reasons I don't read the book if I've already seen the movie. My imagination doesn't get to go wild and I only see what the film/tv adaptation has given me and I feel shorted and stunted. The movie made such an impact on me that I think the book was doomed for me from the beginning. I didn't find this book scary in the slightest. There were some creepy moments, sure. But scared? Not at all.
The book definitely goes into more detail than the film did but I was happy to see that the movie stayed true to the book since a lot of adaptations don't. Personally, I just think books on possession don't do it for me. I felt the same about A Head Full of Ghosts and was an unpopular opinion on that as well. Moving forward I'll keep my possession genre to the big screen and not in my reads.
★★★
The first 50 pages or so really bored me. I read all the dialogue in that black and white up lilted voice - yes, yes, it's a product of my own head I realize, but regardless that's what happened and quite frankly, I was getting on my own nerves because of it. Once the ouija board came into play, luckily those voices went away and I found the book start to get interesting... for a bit anyways. The parts without Regan were still dull for me... until we get to parts three and four and well, HERE'S where the story takes off... FINALLY.
OK OK - look, it's not that I don't realize this is an amazing book and well loved throughout the horror community. I feel how I feel about it and for that I'm not going to apologize. I think this is also one of the reasons I don't read the book if I've already seen the movie. My imagination doesn't get to go wild and I only see what the film/tv adaptation has given me and I feel shorted and stunted. The movie made such an impact on me that I think the book was doomed for me from the beginning. I didn't find this book scary in the slightest. There were some creepy moments, sure. But scared? Not at all.
The book definitely goes into more detail than the film did but I was happy to see that the movie stayed true to the book since a lot of adaptations don't. Personally, I just think books on possession don't do it for me. I felt the same about A Head Full of Ghosts and was an unpopular opinion on that as well. Moving forward I'll keep my possession genre to the big screen and not in my reads.
★★★
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