Legion (1983) is a horror novel by William Peter Blatty, a sequel to The Exorcist (1971), the first book in this duology. Both books have been adapted into movies, with the latter being extremely popular and widely considered a horror classic.
If we’re talking movies, though, I actually prefer Legion to The Exorcist. But I just finished reading the books, and I must report that in that space, I vastly prefer The Exorcist to Legion.
To say it plainly, I was blown away by the writing in The Exorcist. It’s beautiful, heartfelt, and moving. The push-and-pull of doubt that Karras goes through, also very well done. In no small part because while it was often in focus, it felt internal to Karras. They were glimpses into his inner life.
The ramblings of Kinderman in Legion, on the other hand – and they truly deserve to be called ramblings – are sermonic and heavy-handed. Because they’re windows not into Kinderman’s thoughts, but Blatty’s. And as such, while these ramblings are presented as good-faith questions, or open-ended dialogue in Kinderman’s head with himself, it’s very apparent that they’re not that. They are Blatty’s ideas on how an atheist-vs-theist debate should go. And Blatty was a devout Catholic.
There’s some possibility that I might be judging the book anachronistically. Since the advent of the internet and “new atheism”, maybe these topics and debates permeate the cultural mindspace much more than they did in 1983. Maybe this stuff felt genuinely fresh, novel, and insightful to readers then. But as somebody reading in 2026, it’s just been done to death. Everything Blatty brings up – infinite regression in contingencies, argument from desire a la C. S. Lewis – all of it’s been done. It’s a pain to read it all ‘again’ in Legion, with all the self-seriousness and motivated reasoning it comes with.
It happens so. many. times. too. These, shall we say, ‘musings’, are interspersed throughout the book, and somehow have a way of showing up at the worst possible moments. You read something shocking, horrific, at the end of a chapter. The tension’s high, you’re excited to read what’s next, and boom! An inane and winding monologue is there to greet you on the next page.
And this stuff actually feels very tacked-on. Kinderman feels different in this book – at least in these parts – from The Exorcist. As for his treatment in Legion overall, I’m torn. To have any hope, we must distinguish Kinderman as himself (the character), from Kinderman possessed by Blatty.
To its credit, Legion devotes ample ink to expanding on Kinderman the character. It gives him time and space to be the smart, over-dressed, schmaltz-loving and dogged middle-aged detective he is.
Kinderman’s curiosity, his love for reading, his genuine passion for cinema and the arts despite his lack of higher education, comes through very vividly. It’s very congruent with everything else about him, right down to the way he dresses. Blatty deserves praise for this. Like, look at this excerpt from when Kinderman’s trying to be discreet, as he scans a crowd of gathered bystanders for the killer.
Kinderman’s hand reached into an inside pocket of his coat; there was always a paperback book in there. He pulled out Claudius the God and looked at its jacket with dismay. He wanted to pretend to be an old man who was passing his Sunday by the river, but the Robert Graves novel held the danger that he might unwittingly actually read it and perhaps allow the killer to elude his scrutiny. He’d already read it twice and knew well the danger of becoming engrossed in its pages again. He slipped it back inside the pocket and quickly extracted another book.
Amazing. That’s Kinderman, at his core. Endearing, smart, and deeply himself.
But there are also moments when he just feels different. When Blatty speaks through him (or thinks through him, I guess), yes, but also other times. In these times, he’s bitingly witty, like he’s Tony Stark or something. He has zingers and one-liners to go, all day long. There’s just a general agility – a reflexive streak – and a seeming lack of curiosity in his personality. Incongruent to what we’ve seen in part one, and still see in parts of part two.
Incidentally, watch The Exorcist, then read the two books, and you’ll see why Lee J. Cobb as Kinderman is probably the most complete and masterful translation of a literary character to the screen, ever. George C. Scott in Legion did a good job too, but Cobb takes it by a mile.
Yet, Legion remains a better movie than The Exorcist. Why? It is, of course, scarier in my opinion. That’s a positive. But it also avoids a huge negative, because it cuts out basically all of Kinderman’s ramblings! Blatty directed Legion himself, but I guess it was just too much telling and not enough showing to be carried over to the big screen.
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