Dark Exorcist (2013)

"Just get out! Go away!" - Amanda

Police Officer Peter Roman is called to a disturbance caused by a young female showing enormous strength. Subduing the girl, no easy task, emergency services rush her to a local hospital for psychic evaluation, which proves to be something of a mistake. The girl run's rampant showing some strange abilities that had me thinking X-Men and Hospital Chaplain Father Pierce thinking possession. With weird things happening at the hospital, and a mounting body count, Roman is forced to shot the girl while Father Pierce calls for Papal reinforcements which arrive in the form of Father Harlan, an exorcist.

This isn't going to be any ordinary exorcism however as the demonic element has been around the girl's family for generations, and there's this whole Legion thing going down as demonic reinforcements arrive to possess Hospital staff and patients. Can Father Harlan cast out the demonic entity in the young girl, or are the gates of hell about to be ripped apart? The power of Christ may not be enough this time!

A couple of weeks ago we were all up in The Exorcist franchise and I have to admit by the end of that fandango I was mighty pleased to move onto something different. Naturally this meant an exorcism novel would creep out of the review queue and bit me on the arse. So I must admit to grumbling a bit when confronted by Tim Miller's novel Dark Exorcist, especially as the natural comparison was going to be to William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. Thankfully Miller, besides referencing The Exorcist franchise with the odd character name, goes beyond the normal "the power of Christ compels" and throws something unique in our direction. And no that wasn't pea soup. So up front here I'm saying don't expect just another Exorcist clone, thankfully Dark Exorcist is heading in other directions.

Before exploring the novel itself a bit on Tim Miller's writing style. It's an easy read with a firm flowing prose that should have most readers rocking along. Yes you can read this one at home in bed but equally knock yourself out on public transport. I was immersed throughout the book and was definitely in a good place as the story unfolded and took a few unexpected twists and turns. While I'm not so sure you would call Miller a naturalistic writer, something Yanks do very well in horror literature, he does coat everything with a veneer of normality before throwing us down the rabbit hole. I've been racking my brain for a comparison to another Author you might have read and surprisingly keep coming back to Graham Masterton. Miller has the same sort of light touch that sees mythology, in Dark Exorcist we're talking Christian mythology, given a tweak to fit the plot of the novel. I'll get back to you with whether or not the comparison to Masterton holds up after reading a couple more of Miller's offerings. So yeah sold on the prose style, will definitely be checking into other novels by this author.

The novel rolls out in first person narrative, which normally spells an end to tension - the narrator has to survive to end of the novel y'all, but Miller pulls a pretty nifty trick with the approach. The story is told in first person narrative from multiple character viewpoints, that's right folks not everyone is going to survive - no spoilers! Even better, and I believe this may be a first for exorcism literature, a number of chapters are told from the viewpoint of Amanda, the young chick who is possessed. Doctor Who fans are in for a treat there, or at the very least Tim Miller is going to get a lot of heated emails from the geekdom. Hey I'm all up for some mix and match popular culture, it worked for me. So yeah you get the immediacy of first person narrative without the loss of tension, two thumbs up on that front.

I'm not about to give the plot or twists away in this novel, that would deprive you of the pleasure of discovering them yourself but I will mention you get some demonic zombies, which were pretty cool, and the actual casting out of the demon comes as a surprise, no it doesn't follow the standard groove that to be honest has turned into something of a rut in the sub-genre. Miller shows a surprising amount of imagination and ability to edge through the cracks of the exorcism framework. Any comparisons to The Exorcist thus fall flat, yo not all exorcism novels or movies really have that much in common with the classic 1973 shocker. I can see Tim Miller revisiting this world in the future, could be the apocalyptic novel to end all apocalyptic novels in a sort of Lamberto Bava Demons sense, with a couple of characters being re-engaged.

Like all good horror, well most good horror, Dark Exorcist primarily occupies a single night with the main characters unable to get out of Dodge due to various reasons. All characters act in a logical fashion with no one showing superhuman abilities leading directly to the resolution. Tim Miller has his characters acting and thinking like real people, and yes there is a "hero's progress" with a number of characters coming to a new evaluation of themselves due to events in the novel. So not only are we talking a good horror novel, we're talking a good novel overall that is steeped in the Western literature traditions thing.

Must say I didn't expect it, after the submerging we went through during our The Exorcist overload, but I ended up really enjoying Dark Exorcist. Tim Miller writes an engaging line of prose, the novel goes in unexpected directions, and his major characters are likeable. That's about what you want from a horror novel, and Tim Miller delivers. Full recommendation, for those of us that can get down and dirty with penny dreadfulls, Dark Exorcist delivers an honest read.

So you want to grab a copy - head on over to Amazon and pick one up for around $9 plus postage or alternatively grab a Kindle version for around $4. If after more info on Tim Miller, and to perhaps find where he has buried the bodies, then Tim's Official Website is the place to visit.