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 did wrestling 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 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 tw…
