For American Evangelical Christians, Frank Peretti has been a household name for nearly 40 years. His debut novel This Present Darkness, published in 1986, was one of the first entries in the emerging Christian Fiction genre. As a “supernatural thriller” (or, for readers not afraid of the term, horror), the book widened Christian Fiction beyond romance novels like Janette Oke’s Love Comes Softly, making room for thrillers, fantasy and science fiction to slowly enter the genre.
Peretti can be compared to various authors. In Reading Evangelicals, Daniel Spilliman compares him to Stephen King, another 1980s horror sensation who wrote about darkness threatening small towns. Many of Peretti’s plot elements (discovering Satanism behind something innocent, a small band of religious conservatives fighting evil) also appear in Dennis Wheatley’s thrillers. Arguably though, Peretti is most comparable to an author who wrote a novel about demons 15 years before he did: William Peter Blatty.
If There Were Demons, Perhaps There Were Angels
William Peter Blatty (1928–2017) was a Catholic screenwriter and novelist who became a household name for his 1971 novel The Exorcist. Fellowship and Fairydust contributor Michael Goth has already covered Blatty’s life and religious motivations in “The Question of Faith: The Story of The Exorcist.” In brief, Blatty believed the key to The Exorcist wasn’t the spinning heads or the gore. As he put it in a 2011 editorial for Fox News’ website, The Exorcist was meant to be a “novel of faith in the popular dress of a thrilling and suspenseful detective story.”
Specifically, Blatty wanted the story (a girl possessed by demons, people trying to rescue her, a priest considering what he really believes as he tries to help) to make readers consider whether they believed the devil existed, and therefore if God existed. If one concludes that demons exist, then one must consider that the Bible describes Satan and his demons as angels created by God. That is, angels and demons are created beings, and if they exist, their creator must exist.
This argument, that recognizing evil exists leads to recognizing good must also exist, is central to both The Exorcist and This Present Darkness. Peretti shows how powers and principalities want to possess the town of Ashton for their purposes. As the plot progresses, characters skeptical of the supernatural (most notably journalist Marshall Hogan) have to rethink what they believe, ultimately facing the fact that what is happening can only be demonic. In the novel’s central scene, Hogan talks to pastor Hank Busche in a jail cell, and after Busche outlines what the bible says about demons, Hogan becomes a Christian. Similarly, in a conversation at the end of The Exorcist, Regan’s mother Chris comments that she’s not sure if she believes in God, but “the devil keeps advertising.” Father Joseph Dyer asks, “But if all the evil in the world makes you think that there might be a devil, then how do you account for all the good in the world?”
Chris replies, “Yeah… Yeah. That’s a point.”
The difference is that Peretti sets up his book so that readers see demons flying around his characters, talking to each other, and so forth. Blatty limits his novel to the human perspective (readers see the symptoms of possession, like the supporting characters they must follow a trail to see what’s going on).
Blatty also lacks Peretti’s interest in theological grandstanding: his characters talk about religious questions, but no one stops the action to lay out all the spiritual ideas. Peretti’s book writes the ideas in large letters across the sky; Blatty writes them small in his characters’ minds.
Not only did Blatty and Peretti write about the same idea. As novelists, Blatty and Peretti had a common problem: how to balance comedy and horror.
“Why Are You Laughing?”: Frank Peretti as Comedian
While This Present Darkness has many jump scares and thriller twists, it is often unintentionally silly. The demons with their fangs, warts and claws are scary… if you’ve never read horror fiction before. For a Stephen King alumnus, they seem a bit cartoony. The angels (who appear as normal people and then turn into huge figures in togas when they go into action) also feel cartoony. A friend joked to me that the book makes angels seem like Transformers.
This silliness seems inherent to Peretti’s personality, as seen in interviews and his signature lecture about “the chair.” In this presentation that Peretti has given at various conferences and colleges, he uses sound effects and pantomime to act out a scene: someone sitting in a dark room trying to find his surroundings while moving the chair around. As audiences laugh, Peretti explains his point: people need a set worldview, a chair that doesn’t move, to find direction.
In “the chair” lecture, Peretti’s love for silliness works. In a serious novel like This Present Darkness, it feels misplaced. By the early 2000s, Peretti’s novels like Illusion or The Oath had lost the cartoonish imagery (if not the cliches). By this point, he had also branched into a writing venture where silliness felt more natural. In Mr. Henry’s Wild & Wacky World, a series of children’s books and videos, Peretti played a character called Mr. Henry who retells Bible stories for kids. Imagine if Mr. Rogers had a silly brother who liked to do the “I’ve got your thumb!” gag and taught Sunday School, and you’ve got an idea of this series’ tone. It was ridiculous, but the perfect home for Peretti’s sillier side.
“It Destroyed My Comedy Writing Career”: The Second Career of William Peter Blatty
Before writing The Exorcist, Blatty had a successful career as a comedy writer. Most notably, he contributed to A Shot in the Dark, perhaps the best of the original Pink Panther films. One could argue some scenes in The Exorcist (someone dropping a pan on the floor during a conversation, the slow buildup to the priest meeting the possessed child) are Blatty applying comedy’s “build-up and payoff” techniques to a scary subject.
After writing The Exorcist, Blatty found himself in a dilemma. As he noted in the 2010 documentary Raising Hell: Filming the Exorcist, it was difficult to go back to comedy after writing such a well-known horror story. Blatty returned to comedy at least twice – his 1978 novel The Ninth Configuration and his 1996 novel Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing. The latter book is a farce about a screenwriter trying to make it in Hollywood. Given Blatty’s experience making a “Satanic movie,” the plot may be an in-joke about Blatty’s struggles to get away from The Exorcist’s reputation. The book is funny, but it’s a comedy about “working in showbiz” … meaning it’s hard to get the jokes unless you’ve worked in showbiz.
The Ninth Configuration, which Blatty adapted into a 1980 movie of the same name, works much better. The plot is reworked from his 1966 novel Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane: a psychiatrist works at an experimental asylum for Vietnam veterans who may be faking insanity to escape active service, and handles their shenanigans while analyzing their ringleader. However, Blatty cut most of the earlier novel’s farce elements and side characters, while expanding the protagonists’ religious discussions. The story still has comedy, but is clearly focused on the doctor and his patients debating the problem of evil and whether God exists. The Ninth Configuration is like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as written by Graham Greene. Somehow it works, but it’s an offbeat affair that couldn’t be replicated.
After the 1980s, Blatty focused on serious thrillers (a sequel to The Exorcist, a political thriller called Dimiter) which often got good reviews. He had proven he could still be funny, and gained the rare distinction of writing a funny book about religion that didn’t mock religion. However, unlike Peretti, Blatty couldn’t find a new side career that housed his comedy interests alongside his “serious writing.”