You’re Never Too Old…

William Peter Blatty, best known for his 1971 book THE EXORCIST, is now 82, but that hasn’t slowed him down any.  He just published a new thriller book, DIMITER, set in the Holy Land in the 1970s, just in time for the Easter holiday.

Blatty, originally a comedy writer and screenplay author of such fun fare as A SHOT IN THE DARK, never figured to get famous from THE EXORCIST.  He thought it would be a one-shot wonder, a thriller to explore his own beliefs in good and evil, but after it was published, it seemed he was now known as the eminent horror writer of all time, and couldn’t get work anymore in comedy. Winning an Oscar for his screenplay of THE EXORCIST seemed to put a nail in that coffin. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself…)

So, for the next 40 years, he’s tried to recapture the amazing popularity of that book, but has never had another success of that magnitude. His books THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (a full-length novel of his earlier novella TWINKLE, TWINKLE, KILLER KANE) and LEGION were both made into movies, but the books were only warmly received.

DIMITER had been in the works since 1974, but bouts with prostate cancer, and the loss of his son in 2006, slowed the writing down.  He compiled notes and ideas, with the stack of paper growing and growing, but it was only 2 years ago that the plot finally crystallized in his mind, and he was able to finish the book.  There’s already talk of turning it into a movie, but don’t expect the gore and goo of THE EXORCIST if Blatty has anything to say about it. He’s on record as being against the current trend of chainsaws, blood and guts of today’s movies, saying in an interview in the LA Times that “The studios have so debased the tastes of kids that that’s all the kids want now.”  He prefers the story to be the motivation, not the special effects. (Of course, once you sell the rights to your book, unless Blatty retained the screenplay rights, too, all bets will be off on DIMITER’S adaption not being bloody…)

And who knows? Maybe for his next project, he could combine his two strengths, comedy and horror, and write the next SCARY MOVIE???  (Couldn’t be any worse than what the first 4 were like… BWAHAHAAH)