The Catholic Horror Show: The Exorcist and the Dark Side of the American Catholic Imagination

Doherty, Bernard

doi:10.5840/asrr2024520111

Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review

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published on May 21, 2024

Bernard Doherty

https://doi.org/10.5840/asrr2024520111

The Catholic Horror Show
The Exorcist and the Dark Side of the American Catholic Imagination

Among horror films and books, The Exorcist has attracted a disproportionate amount of commentary from a variety of perspectives, ranging from gender studies and psychoanalysis, through to the histories of medicine and science. This article delves into two aspects of the book and film phenomenon to highlight its cultural significance, especially in the United States, and particularly among Roman Catholics. First, it investigates the background of the book and film and positions it within the type of ethnic melting pot Catholicism from which its author, William Peter Blatty, emerged and its vernacular beliefs about the devil and exorcism, focusing on the type of “Catholic supernaturalism” which Blatty drew on in writing The Exorcist and his own ambivalent relationship with this type of devotional Catholicism. Second, it examines the reaction to the book and the film amongst Catholic audiences, focusing on the extensive commentary provided on the film by several Catholic priests, all of whom found themselves pastorally and professionally challenged by the film’s impact in various contexts. It concludes by discussing how The Exorcist has become an iconic example of the dark side of the American Catholic imagination.

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