History Literature / TheExorcist

* ItIsDehumanizing: A variation. The demon never refers to Regan as human or a girl, preferring to call her a sow.

* ShownTheirWork: William Blatty dug really deep, finding literature about supposed epidemics of possession in the past as well as writings pro and con PsychicPowers and evidence for and against supernatural occurrence. He based much of the details on the legend of the "Devils of Loudon", where nuns made animal sounds, lifted up their skirts and yelled "Fuck me!", and a priest who did exorcisms was said to have become possessed himself. The exorcisms at Loudon were a public spectacle, held in the town square! The stories told by Mary, the Jeane Dixon {{Expy}} at Chris' party are all real. The medium who faked out the French empress[[note]]She was Eugenie Montijo, the same Empress you see in ''Film/TheSongOfBernadette'' whose sick baby is helped by Lourdes water.[[/note]] was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home D.D. Home]]; the Bavarian family who tried to burn all their worldly goods[[note]]not the baby, however, as Mary tells Chris: it wasn't about that[[/note]] are mentioned in Montague Summers' ''Encyclopedia of Witchcraft & Demonology'' which is probably the book Mary lends Chris. The tale Fr. Karras tells Kinderman about the man who was convinced he was a werewolf is also true. However, that last one was mostly made up by the Church to rationalize the brutal torture and execution of a man and his daughter for becoming Protestants. Loudon had similar political motivations.

* DisappearedDad: Howard [=MacNeil=] is in Europe for the whole book, which the characters surmise is the reasoon of her pick of the name "Captain '''How'''dy."

* HothingIsScarier: A good chunk of the book is Karras thinking about recent cases of devil worship and Black Sabbath defacement, and it generates a genuine chilling slow-burn towards the climax.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Karras continues to find scientific explanations for the various phenomena for most of the book. It's more than a bit of a stretch by the end, but a rational explanation is at least possible, if not quite plausible. Subverted in TheFilmOfTheBook by the floating body of Regan, which is pretty tough to explain away as anything but supernatural. In the novel, she does not float. The demon does some telekinesis, but Karras is aware of scientific research that indicates evidence for TK, so it doesn't count. A lot of the bed lurching around the room, etc., is explained by her superhuman strength as she thrashes around. Speaking foreign languages? Regan herself has only some basic French, but she could have picked up snippets of German, etc. from people around her. The demon answers Karras' questions in Latin, but Karras knows he's been formulating the answers in his mind before the demon speaks, so it could be simple telepathy (which also doesn't count because ''that'' is under scientific investigation, too.) All of this, the demon knows, and is playing Karras like a fish on a line.[[note]]Speaking backwards with ''multiple'' voices at once is what is the evidence she really ''is'' possessed.[[/note]]

''The Exorcist'' is 1971 horror novel which was [[Film/TheExorcist adapted into a 1973 film]].

* EvilVersusEvil: The theme of "evil against evil" is prevalent, starting with Merrin's archeological trip to Northern Iraq where he finds a demon statue that the natives stated was an evil artifact to combat evil. This foreshadows Karras' "evil act" of [[spoiler: accepting Pazuzu into himself, to save Regan: also, suicide's a mortal sin in the Catholic Church]].

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Karras continues to find scientific explanations for the various phenomena for most of the book. It's more than a bit of a stretch by the end, but a rational explanation is at least possible, if not quite plausible. Subverted in TheFilmOfTheBook by the floating body of Regan, which is pretty tough to explain away as anything but supernatural. In the novel, she does not float. The demon does some telekinesis, but Karras is aware of scientific research that indicates evidence for TK, so it doesn't count. A lot of the bed lurching around the room, etc., is explained by her superhuman strength as she thrashes around. Speaking foreign languages? Karras knows she could have picked up snippets from people around her, like "La plume de ma tante" - which the demon repeats to Karras as if reading his mind (which also doesn't count because ''that'' is under scientific investigation, too.) All of this, the demon knows, and is playing Karras like a fish on a line.[[note]]Speaking backwards with ''multiple'' voices at once is what is the evidence she really ''is'' possessed.[[/note]]

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Karras continues to find scientific explanations for the various phenomena for most of the book. It's more than a bit of a stretch by the end, but a rational explanation is at least possible, if not quite plausible. Subverted in TheFilmOfTheBook by the floating body of Regan, which is pretty tough to explain away as anything but supernatural. In the novel, she does not float. The demon does some telekinesis, but Karras is aware of scientific research that indicates evidence for TK, so it doesn't count. A lot of the bed lurching around the room, etc., is explained by her superhuman strength as she thrashes around. Speaking foreign languages? Karras knows she could have picked up snippets from people around her, like "La plume de ma tante" - which the demon repeats to Karras as if reading his mind (which also doesn't count because ''that'' is under scientific investigation. All of this, the demon knows, and is playing Karras like a fish on a line.[[note]]Speaking backwards with ''multiple'' voices at once is what is the evidence she really ''is'' possessed.[[/note]]

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Karras continues to find scientific explanations for the various phenomena for most of the book. It's more than a bit of a stretch by the end, but a rational explanation is at least possible, if not quite plausible. Subverted in TheFilmOfTheBook by the floating body of Regan, which is pretty tough to explain away as anything but supernatural. In the novel, she does not float. The demon does some telekinesis, but Karras is aware of scientific research that indicates evidence for TK, so it doesn't count. A lot of the bed lurching around the room, etc., is explained by her superhuman strength as she thrashes around. The demon knows all this and is playing Karras like a fish on a line.[[note]]Speaking backwards with ''multiple'' voices at once is what is the evidence she really ''is'' possessed.[[/note]]

[[redirect:Film/TheExorcist]]