Sequels to The Exorcist at all times really feel sacrilegious, and never essentially in a great way. How does one observe the scariest film ever made? It’s a query absolutely on David Gordon Green’s thoughts as he releases The Exorcist: Believer, the director’s newest legacy sequel, which—like his Halloween trilogy—skips earlier franchise entries and is a direct continuation of the 1973 Oscar-winner. It’s a worthwhile endeavor if not for one downside: The Exorcist III exists. Directed by Exorcist creator and screenwriter William Peter Blatty, 1990’s Exorcist III ignores The Exorcist II: The Heretic and presents a direct follow-up to the unique. In some methods, it resembles a legacy sequel, however in others, it’s more than pleased to go in weirder instructions. The film is an enchanting, imperfect thriller and an unsung victory within the collection’ spotty file.
The Exorcist skipped the horror sequel growth of the Eighties with good purpose. Echoing the ideas of many disenchanted critics and moviegoers, Exorcist director William Friedkin proclaimed 1977’s The Exorcist II: The Heretic “the worst piece of shit I’ve ever seen.” So, whereas The Omen’s two sequels adopted Damien’s journey to the White House, the Exorcist franchise laid dormant till 1990, when Blatty returned to Washington, D.C. for an additional possession. Except he didn’t.
An Exorcist sequel with out an exorcism?
Based on Blatty’s 1983 novel, Legion, The Exorcist III eschews a lot of what made Friedkin’s shocker profitable. George C. Scott takes over for the late Lee J. Cobb because the movie-loving Washington, D.C., investigator Lieutenant Kinderman. Still haunted by the slim steps the place he discovered a useless Father Karras (Jason Miller) 15 years earlier, Kinderman sees the inexplicable terror of that night time externalized all through the town as he tries to rationalize a slew of grotesque, faith-based murders dedicated by the Gemini Killer (Brad Dourif), who had been put to dying a decade prior.
Eagle-eyed readers would possibly discover a scarcity of exorcism in Exorcist III. For a lot of the film, the titular observe doesn’t think about. Kinderman predicts Morgan Freeman’s Detective Somerset from Seven, a rational, discovered observer of the world’s descent into damnation. Like Somerset, Kinderman fights on regardless of his perception in “slime and stink and each crawling, putrid factor,” selecting to disregard the unhealthy if it means defending the nice. Blatty’s deal with Kinderman provides him a brand new method into the story, foregrounding older individuals’s views and fears—a shift from the child-focused authentic. Scott initiatives a world-weary cynicism crafted by way of expertise and disappointment in what post-Vietnam America has wrought: mindless violence, crumbling establishments, and a profound inkling that the worst is but to come back.
Blatty avoids comparisons to The Exorcist by way of a depressing visible language extra nightmarish than Friedkin’s grounded, documentary-inspired type. There’s a classical appeal to Blatty’s affected person digital camera. It creeps towards D.C.’s gothic church buildings and concrete rot, shoving the viewer into the otherworldly horrors of mundane areas and a surreal afterlife staged in Grand Central Station and populated by Fabio, a pre-fame Samuel L. Jackson, and the Angel of Death performed by Patrick Ewing. But the film’s centerpiece, a minute-long static shot of a hospital hall, is pure cinema. Blatty’s lens holds on a nurse doing her night rounds because the inevitable catches up together with her, testing the viewer’s endurance and abdomen in a tense staredown with the unseen evil onscreen. It’s these easy however efficient scares the film loses in its bombastic, baffling conclusion.
Studio interference sends a promising movie to hell
Unconcerned with the previous film, the movie’s closing quarter-hour created issues onscreen and off. Four months after filming wrapped, Blatty, who begged Morgan Creek to drop Exorcist from the title, misplaced his holy battle, resulting in studio-mandated reshoots that set the stage for a deus exorcism machina. The finale is an inscrutable however thrilling set piece, full of spectacular results—cobbled collectively throughout the last-minute manufacturing—and an unforgettable Brad Dourif dripping with malice and hatred. However, the film crosses into full confusion by way of a tacked-on subplot about Father Morning (Nicol Williamson), a Georgetown exorcist who curiously resembles Max von Sydow’s Father Merrin from the unique movie. Plus, the Gemini Killer retains swapping our bodies with the late Father Karras (Remember? From the primary film!). None of it makes a lot sense, however we’ll be damned if a crucified and monologuing George C. Scott isn’t entertaining as hell.
That Blatty needed to distance himself from exorcisms is comprehensible. Why remind audiences of the collection’ final disappointment? It didn’t assist that Leslie Nielsen and Linda Blair’s spoof, Repossessed, was promoted alongside—and opened a month after—Blatty’s movie or that Exorcist III was one among six horror sequels between 1989 and 1991. Despite opening at primary, the film shortly sank like a stone and closed The Exorcist enterprise for an additional 15 years (just for it to reopen and shut once more for an additional 15). Though Exorcist III obtained some constructive critiques, the movie’s loudest champion was Jeffrey Dahmer, who watched the movie obsessively as one of many real-life killer’s escapees reported.
Over the years, Exorcist III’s repute as a fan curio, akin to fellow disregarded sequels Psycho II and Halloween III, would develop. In 2016, a long-rumored director’s lower of unfinished footage, rehearsal tapes, and deleted scenes gave us a glimpse of what Blatty initially had in thoughts. But a reconstructed Legion solely reinforces what Exorcist III already proved: Not each Exorcist sequel is an affront to God.
