"I've set off a firestorm back in the studio," he continues, "and I have to check my own judgment: I saw Merrin get out of the cab. He takes a step or two and all of a sudden they're inside. I didn't see the cab pull away and leave him standing still under the streetlight, holding his bag and staring up at the window -- the famous shot. I saw him in motion, there was no pause for him. God, I hope it was just that I didn't notice."

Blatty's attention to detail is stupefying. "And the sound was way down," continues his complaint. "There's another thirty percent of the visceral attack on you in the soundtrack, that was not there last night. I'll tell you some that weren't there at all: when Father Merrin is with the wolves and gets the message (we all know what it is), there is supposed to be a reprise of the blacksmiths; and at the end when Chris [the possessed girl's mother] asks 'Is she going to die?' there's a pendulum clock going. The sound should have been way up, then it really assaults you."

Despite his disappointments, the new version of The Exorcist -- which opened in select theaters (including Athens' Beachwood) on March 17 and has expanded through the Spring and Summer -- is as vibrant and terrific and terrifying as it was when first released in 1973. Unlike so many of today's horror films, The Exorcist conveys an everlasting, almost otherworldly, power. Of course, Blatty says he'll offer "no refunds" to anyone who's been scarred for life.

There are qualities that give the film it's power to impact almost three decades later. "I don't see horror films," confesses Blatty (though he did claim to love The Sixth Sense, The Omen and TV's "The X-Files," which he would place in another genre). "I read the reviews and to me they seem like slasher films where you've got to decapitate someone in the first thirty minutes. I don't classify The Exorcist as a horror film -- it is a psychological thriller. It's not dated in the acting style, the dress," he says before briefly contemplating that perhaps the lack of smoke is the only dated element.

"It has the emotional power," he concludes. "It's the sum of all the parts: the performances, the direction, the theme. It starts slowly, it builds properly, takes a while, but then you're firmly rooted in credibility, in reality, it's got you. It's like a spiritual Rocky. You finally get to the exorcist, but it takes forever."

Like his masterpiece, Blatty still has immense presence. He sits firmly and heavily in a chair with his back to a window whose bright light sometimes leaves his face in ominous shadow. He seems a statue, with eyes and face glazed and glowing.

"The story was of true demonic possession,' he confirms. "It was in The Washington Post -- all my research came out of books and correspondences. Whatever your religious upbringing or education -- I had four years of scholastic philosophy at Georgetown -- still, there's a part of some of us that wants to put their fingers in the wound, to find some palpable reassurance because I am terrified of the grave being the end forever. This story seemed to me to be absolutely authentic and I thought that if this could ever be seriously challenging -- what a wonderful relief it would be! That there might indeed be an afterlife, certainly the possibility of intelligence existing beyond the physical mind."

Blatty confirms he could not have written the book without being a Catholic. "No one could have directed it properly who was not either a Catholic or a Jew." The effect was certainly widespread. "I was once the director of Public Relations at Loyola, the Jesuit university in LA. After the film came out, one of the priests there told me he had never seen such a run on the confessional. I don't know how long these conversions of terror lasted," he laughs.

Contrary to popular belief, the Catholic Church did not oppose the film. Blatty offers proof: "The first review I had from the church was in an unofficial literary publication of the Vatican and the reviewer wrote a rave. The official newspaper of the archdiocese of New York headlined 'A deeply spiritual film.' Cardinal O'Connor of New York, about five years ago at Sunday mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral, read aloud from passages in the novel. It was required reading in the Westchester parish. And yet Billy Graham comes out and says there's a power of evil. I don't know what he's talking about."

Much of the impact and controversy of the film emerges from the use of a young girl as the demon's target. "It's that innocent vulnerability, which is what makes the demonic stuff so outrageous -- but you are meant to know that this is a cry against nature," Blatty explains. "As you see profanity these days it's to titillate."

Blatty continues: "I get cassettes near Academy Award time of every movie that's made that thinks it has some kind of chance for a nomination -- that's when I watch my movies. And I cannot tell you with how many I just go 'click' that's enough ... Chasing Amy? Within five minutes I heard as much profanity in that movie as there is in all of The Exorcist, but used in a way that I find truly obscene. The profanity in The Exorcist is not that kind of obscenity -- you're meant to see it as evil, wrong."

Blatty pauses for a moment, drifting into a memory. "I go to my favorite restaurant in Santa Barbara. And there's a nice family sitting at a table and there's their son, only 12 or 13, wearing a T-shirt saying 'Same Shit' -- that's obscene to me. It's also that the profanity is coming from a little girl. If the possessed person were a 28-year-old engineer and he started shouting that stuff you'd say, 'Ah, another day at the office,'" Blatty laughs loudly.

Yet some prejudice or negligence seems to have kept Blatty from continuing his legacy. After directing Exorcist III, he's been eager to get back into the director's chair. "I've been waiting and waiting. I got one offer to direct -- well, two -- but I don't remember one. I must be blocking it out. I was asked if I could direct Pumpkin Head 4. Then there was another one like that -- Oh! It was a Civil War Ghost story involving teenagers," he laughs heartily. Despite rumors suggesting otherwise, Blatty has had no involvement with the fourth Exorcist -- the prequel. "It's driving me crazy. I send emails to the internet saying I have nothing to do with this; I am not the writer."

Even if some of the imagination conjured up in the novel is lost in its translation to film, Blatty still seems pleased with the effect the film ultimately evoked. You could call this re-released version the author's cut, says Blatty. "Although it's the first cut that [director] Billy [Friedkin] showed me. I was living in Colorado then and when he told me it was ready I flew into New York and -- you won't believe me -- but the office building was 666 Fifth Avenue. And I watched it standing up the whole time. I thought it was just glorious."

Among the new additions in the current version of this film is the infamous 'Spider Walk,' a scene in which young Regan scurries down the steps backwards on hands and feet to spit up a mouthful of blood at the end. There's also a lengthy, slightly comical doctor scene in which the possibility of prescribing Ritalin is discussed as a fix for Regan's odd behavior. "Everybody laughs at the doctors," comments Blatty. "They are mainly there to exhaust every conceivable, rationalistic, materialist explanation. The reason Carras digs so deeply and is so seemingly difficult to convince is because he wants so desperately to believe, but he wants there to be no holes in the argument, he wants it to be an airtight case for himself."

Blatty described some of his favorite additions. "There's Carras listening to Regan's little taped letter to her father -- hearing the authentic voice of the girl is when Carras finally begins to believe that something paranormal has happened. There's little moments, like 'What is your daughter's middle name?'. And the lovely scene when Father Merrin is praying -- a quiet little scene with his brandy: 'Thank God my will is weak.' And then, of course, the subliminals."

There are three major subliminal images added to the film. The first demon image appears when Regan is lying on her back in the doctors office. Two more show up when Chris comes back and finds her daughter in the house alone. "They all came from the original trailer for the theatrical, which was shown once,' Blatty relates. But it was determined that these images were, in fact, too frightening and prompted possibilities of lawsuits or heart attacks, so they were pulled out and the original version was delivered. Which, apparently, was scary enough.

For the past several decades, tourists have visited the famous steps and house in Georgetown, and the University students gather every Halloween on the campus lawn to relive the terror on a big screen. "I lived in Georgetown in the late '70s about four houses down from the steps," shares Blatty. "I would walk past the steps and there'd be a couple of Japanese tourists standing on the steps who'd say 'Oh, you take our picture?' But they'd have no idea who was taking their picture. I hope there wasn't something on the negative!" he laughs.

More grimly, Blatty recounts: "I used to get letters asking if I could look at their child. There was one from a woman who had a succubus, and she gave me names of all the doctors, psychiatrists, even priests that she had been to and she said 'I don't even know why I'm writing to you because nobody has any idea what's going on.' I don't think I replied. But about a year and a half later, a novel came out that sounded just like this story."

Quelling the doubts of Blatty's belief in the afterlife, The Exorcist lives on.

Christina Kline