Tale as old as time. No, not Beauty and the Beast: a story of bestiality and Stockholm Syndrome thinly veiled as a romance for the ages and cleaned up and sanitized by Disney for your viewing pleasure. No not that one, I am talking about a much older story: that of the eternal struggle of good vs evil. This theme is woven in the threads of almost all our stories at some level. If you are a Christian or even if you are familiar with Christian iconography, these are personified as the omnipotent creator and one and only God and Satan, the fallen angel and devil himself. In 1971, a humorist named William Peter Blatty published a horror novel that would be turned into a movie often dubbed the most terrifying film of all time based on this exact struggle. That novel and subsequent movie was, of course, The Exorcist. Spoiler alert: The Exorcist tells the story of an innocent young girl who becomes possessed by a demon after she uses a Ouija board and of the Catholic priests who exorcise said demon after must persistence and turmoil. Good triumphs over evil and there is much rejoicing. Where on Earth did Blatty come up with such a dark and disturbing story? Well, as it turns out, he did not need to look too far. The idea actually came from of an article he read in a Washington newspaper. This article was about the supposed real-life possession and exorcism of a young boy in 1949. Blatty was all in – he changed it from a boy to a girl and dramatized the events and the horror movie industry was never the same. So why are we at the Some Weird Podcast doing a whole episode about this? Simple: the real story was far more terrifying. Nowadays, the tagline “Based on a true story” is pretty loose but if we are to believe the diaries of the priests who were there in 1949, we can certainly say that truth is stranger than fiction or, if you are a Newfoundlander like us, we can certainly say that true story that inspired The Exorcist is some weird.

Warning: some language or themes may not be suitable for all ages.

Check out our website: www.someweirdpodcast.com

Have your own story or your own take on our stories? Email us at [email protected] or on twitter @SomeWeirdPod