IT'S A THROUPLE POSSESSION
George C. Scott growls his way through The Exorcist III
For Halloween we’re unleashing a few classic movie commentaries from behind the paywall. Here, we discuss whether 1990’s Exorcist III is the only good sequel in the franchise.
The Exorcist was a phenomenon of a certain time and place. William Peter Blatty wrote a script that focused on demonic theatrics as much as it wrestled with the problem of evil. William Friedkin, the most fearless director ever let loose in the studio system, filmed The Exorcist with both documentary realism and painterly beauty, no matter how horrific the scenes. It arrived like a primal scream, just when the counterculture was starting to crash on the rocks of the 1970s. Add to that high bar the subsequent one million parodies, Italian rip-offs, satanic panics, and the revelation of systemic abuse in the Catholic Church, and you can see why The Exorcist has had sequel problems over the decades.
Except for The Exorcist III. The Exorcist III is amazing.
That’s probably due to the fact that it was never intended to be a direct sequel. With The Exorcist III, shot under the title Legion, Blatty directed an unsettling police procedural about ritualistic killings in Washington D.C., driven by two supporting characters from the original story. It’s Blatty, so there are My Dinner with Andre–sized conversations about suffering, and it takes more filmmaking risks than most directors accomplish in a lifetime, including what is generally agreed upon to be the best jump scare in history. It’s brilliantly acted by George C. Scott, in full “turn it off” mode, and Brad Dourif, here playing an erudite killer.
Unfortunately, the studio lost faith and ordered Legion to be retitled The Exorcist III and then spent $4 million in reshoots to add an extraneous exorcism plot. The result, as we lament in our commentary, is a broken masterpiece. —BJD
Brian J Davis: So, we're watching The Exorcist III.
Emily Schultz: I don't understand, why aren't we commenting on the original?
BJD: Well, everyone has seen the original and it's one of the best films in history, while The Exorcist III is a bizarre assault on the senses only remembered by Gen X.
ES: I actually don't remember this one at all.
BJD: I saw this in the theatre when I was a tween and I really liked it, but I have not seen it since. Now I should say that as someone who went to Catholic grade school, when I watch any Exorcist film a part of me is on the side of the demon. #TeamPazuzu.
ES: George C. Scott is supposed to be Lieutenant Kinderman, the film buff?
BJD: And there he is with a photo of him and Father Karras. That's kind of weird because in The Exorcist, I think they knew each other for a week.
ES: Yeah, I don't think they were buddies. I mean, you know, he did ask him to a movie but he rejected his advances to go to the film.
BJD: The great Ed Flanders is supposed to be Father Dyer. Now, the actor who played the character in the original was an actual Jesuit priest and…let's just say that in the 1980s he was “transferred” a lot.
ES: I have to admit, this is a pretty effective dream sequence opening. But it almost feels like two beginnings.
BJD: You have the filmmaker’s beginning and then probably the studios’ beginning. So last week we watched The Exorcist and I loved your straightforward, raised-agnostic interpretation. You just kept on commenting, “So it's about repressed abuse, right?”
ES: Because it was.
BJD: And this is the problem any Exorcist sequel has faced since the original film in 1973. The scariest thing about the Catholic Church is definitely not Satan anymore. Like, Satan is one of the more upstanding characters in their IP.
ES: The original, until now, is still the only Exorcist film I’ve seen. And probably the first two times I saw it was on fast forward among a group of teenage girls who didn't want to sit through “all the boring stuff.”
BJD: The meditations on a non-interventionist God who allows suffering?
ES: Right, we just wanted to get to the head spinning. This line, “Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you're an asshole.” That's a good line.
BJD: William Blatty was Blake Edwards’ writer in the 1960s. And these scenes between Kinderman and Dyer show that Blatty spent 10 years writing comedies. It has that musicality of language that's kind of actually forgotten in film right now.
ES: Larry King? C. Everett Koop? In the same restaurant? Welcome to D.C.
BJD: Every server knows you never go up to the table where there's a veteran homicide detective talking to a weary Catholic priest because they're probably having a heavy conversation. Emily, did you any ever fake Catholic rituals going to church with friends, like communion or a confession?
ES: No, I didn't really go to church with my Catholic friends. But in 7th grade after reading Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, I thought that I should go to many churches to understand what this thing was about, having grown up, you know, in a sort of atheist/agnostic household. And I went with my friend to a Pentecostal church. I saw people speaking in tongues.
BJD: And then you're like, I'm done.
ES: No, I went to Sunday school there quite a bit and learned about the Second Coming. But I never went to a Catholic service.
BJD: That’s because there are no walk-ins. It would be like jumping into Lord of the Rings on the second book. It’s the prog rock of religions.
ES: Confession seems fun though. I want to go to confession to just talk about my novel or something. Wait, did George C. Scott just smell his hand after touching a dead body?
BJD: That’s a great moment. I imagine that's probably a thing if you touch bodies as part of your business, like, “Oh, did I get any on me?”
ES: This is such a surprisingly good supernatural procedural movie.
BJD: And when I was watching this last night, it really struck me: I think a lot of this went into SE7EN.
ES: Oh, interesting. But the exorcist stuff was literally shoved in after it was filmed, right?
BJD: Yes. And Blatty felt, if someone is going to do reshoots it might as well be him.
ES: Wow. George C. Scott yells a lot.
BJD: Oh my god, there is nothing better than when George C. Scott reaches his “turn it off” register.
ES: This is like a really bizarro, odd couple sitcom that the movie starts with.
BJD: Now, the dream sequence with Heaven as a casualty ward.
ES: Fabio!
BJD: Samuel L. Jackson!
ES: Oh my god. This is bizarre. I guess our buddy comedy is over.
BJD: The murder of Dyer is something I see echoed in SE7EN. The elaborate murder staging, religious themed.
ES: I feel like I'm having trouble following this. I'm sure it's not that complex though.
BJD: Oh, this plot makes no sense whatsoever.
ES: You're making me feel so much better, thank you.
BJD: The doctor is practicing his lies he’s going to tell Kinderman and even glances at his script. I am so stealing that.
ES: Did Perry Farrell decorate his office?
BJD: It was 1990.
ES: I think one of the things the 1990s gave us was murder set pieces done as installation art.
BJD: I would say this is the earliest example of it. [Ed note. I am so wrong here. Set designer Bob Burns invented this style on Texas Chainsaw Massacre.]
ES: Wow, that yelling. This is such extreme George C. Scott.
BJD: Now the patient is jumping between being a possessed killer and the reanimated Father Karras from the first film. Adding Father Karras was part of the reshoot. And you and I have been there before where someone asks you for the impossible to be put into a script.
ES: Sometimes it can be like, “Well if I have to do that, I'm at least going to make it somehow fun for myself.”
BJD: That’s part of the challenge sometimes. “Oh, you want Father Karras? He's back from the dead…by the power of exposition!”
ES: And now he's Brad Dourif. What just happened? This is almost like an experimental novel.
BJD: That is the single most disturbing five minutes of Brad Dourif’s career.
ES: It's an astonishing performance. I have to say, considering how terrible this scene could be, he's playing it so well.
BJD: Again, when they were making this movie, the name was not Exorcist III, it was Legion. This is a great, weird movie that has actually been made even weirder by studio involvement, and that sometimes happens. And there is a director’s cut that kind of re-builds it.
ES: We could be watching that movie!
BJD: I can really tell when a writer is directing. They do a lot of detailed inventory shots of like: here's a shot of a lamp; here's a shot of a bust; here's a shot of a window. As if they're writing the scene out for a novel. It's definitely not how a director might see a room.
ES: Yeah and what is going on with the length of this set-up?
BJD: Wait for it! And I mean you have to wait for it. [We’re talking about the jump scare of jump scares.]
ES: What the—!
BJD: I have always remembered that during that jump scare in the theatre, all bodies levitated as one. And they crashed and the theatre shook. The mise-en-scene of that jump scare is just…
ES: I was seriously getting bored. I was like, why did they shoot from way back here?
BJD: [After the Gemini killer explains everything.] Are you getting all this exposition, Emily?
ES: There's two spirits in his body? The one that was in Regan and the Gemini killer.
BJD: Yes. And the original body owner, Father Karras. It's a throuple possession.
ES: Oh, hot.
BJD: Father Karras is hosting for Pazuzu and the Gemini killer.
ES: I am so scared of Brad Dourif. I don’t understand this film but I give his performance an Academy Award.
BJD: And I think it's actually one of the last great George C. Scott performances. Broken masterpieces are so fascinating.
ES: That's insane. [A possessed elderly patient escapes by crawling on the ceiling.]
BJD: And now she’s going after his daughter, Julie Kinderman. I’d like to talk about the silliest retconning in this movie. That the killer only kills people with Ks in their name and that Father Dyer has the middle name…Kevin! They could have thought for one second more and arrived at Killian, but no, they were happy with…Kevin!
ES: Wait, they somehow saved the girl?
BJD: I have never forgotten that shot of her neck barely escaping the shears.
ES: All right, I was quite shocked by that scene. Oh, is this the exorcism?
BJD: If you thought there was still a lot to wrap up, you were wrong! We're actually at the ending.
ES: It's like George C. Scott is on the inside of The Rotor.
BJD: This is a very American version of an exorcism. “Yeah, that Bible stuff doesn't really work. You know what works? A police issue Smith & Wesson. That's how we're solving this one.”
ES: Wow. Just wow. I'm trying to make sense of it all.
BJD: You cannot sum up thoughts on this movie—it's just, it's too crazy.