The Exorcist (film) Siskel placed it in the top five films released that year. BBC film critic Mark Kermode believes the film to be the best film ever made, saying: "There's a theory that great films give back to you whatever it is you bring to them. It's absolutely true with The Exorcist—it reflects the anxieties of the audience. Some people think it's an outright horror-fest, but I don't. It was written by a devout Catholic who hoped it would make people think positively about the existence of God. William Peter Blatty, who wrote the book, thought that if there are demons then
The Exorcist into the legitimacy of Merrin's exorcism of Regan in the first film. In flashback sequences, we see Regan giving Merrin his fatal heart attack, as well as scenes from the exorcism of a young boy named Kokumo in Africa many years earlier. "The Exorcist III" appeared in 1990, written and directed by Blatty himself from his own 1983 novel "Legion". Completely ignoring the events of "Exorcist II", this book and film presented a continuation of Karras' story. Following the precedent set in "The Ninth Configuration," Blatty turned a supporting character from the first film – in this case, Kinderman —