A Complete History of The Exorcist (and its offshoots)

The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear 

by Nat Segaloff 

The Exorcist Legacy book cover

As soon as I saw that there was a book about the Exorcist I knew that I had to get it. I was so excited to find this book since The Exorcist is one of my all-time favorite movies. I begged my parents to take me to the stairs when we visited Washington DC when I was in 7^th grade. All I wanted to do was see Georgetown and where Father Karas tumbled down the steps. As a huge fan of the book and film, this book was great to read. It touched on all aspects of The Exorcist, including Blatty’s writing of the book, his work on the film, Friedkin’s career, and the various other film and television shows that have sprung up from this movie. Since the book arrived in 2023, there was some brief talk about the film that just arrived last year, but thankfully, this wasn’t much of the book’s focus (I actually didn’t like the movie that much). Regardless, I really liked that Segaloff not only is a fan, but also does considerable reporting about the book, film, and both of their legacies – more so the film. As a huge fan of the film and book, I still feel like I learned a lot about those involved with the film, especially Blatty and Friedkin. I also did not know about the various troubles surrounding the filming of the movie. It was really interesting to read more about The Heretic and how despite being directed by John Boorman, mostly those involved have basically distanced themselves from this film. I saw it like right after I watched the Exorcist, and I was probably 11 or so. I remember lots of weird elements about it—the locusts, the mirrors, but I haven’t revisited it. It sounds like I probably won’t, but this book provided some useful context for better understanding how this movie was made and why it was so bad. I really liked learning more about The Exorcist III as well, since I saw that in the theater and liked it, but struggled to understand it’s connection to the original since it really wasn’t about demonic possession. This book helped to collate all of the films around the Exorcist franchise and explain their relationship to one another, not only in the timelines, characters and stories, but also in how the productions came about. The summer before reading this book, I ended up watching the Paul Schrader version of the prequel, and I was pretty disappointed in that. I can see how it relates to some of Schrader’s characters, but it seems somewhat different from other movies in this franchise. Overall though, I really appreciated Segaloff’s efforts to bring the various stories together and to bring some context to the origins of the novel The Exorcist since both the novel and the film changed the shape of horror (both books and films).