Last year I read William Peter Blatty’s novel for the first time. As one might expect, there is more detail in the book than the movie. I liked seeing things through the priest/psychiatrist’s perspective. He’s a much more interesting character in the book. What’s interesting is that even up to the very end, the priest allows for a perspective that maybe, just maybe, Satan has nothing to do with the girl’s psychosis and her condition is triggered by some kind of mental illness. Mind you, it is an illness that grants supernatural powers; super strength, telekinesis, etc., but an illness never the less.
The book is great. And yet, here I go favoring the film. It’s hard to compete with the visual of Regan’s head spinning around. Her monstrous face, her demonic voice! The fact that it freaked-out audiences when this film premiered.
But the book is good. No, It’s great. It’s just, well, I like the movie. And that is all.
The Books of Daniel 