More than 50 years after its release, The Exorcist remains one of the most recognizable horror movies ever made, and the story behind the 1973 film has connections to Montgomery County and the surrounding Maryland area.
The film was adapted from William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel of the same name. Blatty, who wrote the screenplay and produced the film, attended Georgetown University, where he first became interested in a reported exorcism involving a 14-year-old Maryland boy.
The case made headlines in 1949, when The Washington Post reported that a Catholic priest had performed an exorcism on a teenager from the Washington, D.C. suburbs. Later research identified the boy as having lived in Cottage City in Prince George’s County, although contemporary newspaper reports described him as being from Mount Rainier.
Blatty held onto the story for years before using it as inspiration for The Exorcist, which was published in 1971. He changed several major elements for the fictional story, including making the possessed child a 12-year-old girl named Regan MacNeil and setting much of the story in Georgetown.
The novel became a bestseller and was adapted into the 1973 film directed by William Friedkin. Blatty wrote the screenplay, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The movie received 10 Academy Award nominations overall.
Much of the movie’s local connection is associated with Washington, D.C. Scenes were filmed at and around Georgetown University in 1972, including the now-famous staircase connecting Prospect Street and M Street that became known as the “Exorcist Steps.”
But Blatty himself would later have a significant Montgomery County connection. He spent much of his later life living in Bethesda. Blatty died in Bethesda in January 2017 at the age of 89 and is buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Silver Spring.
