Director: William Peter Blatty
Starring: George C Scott, Ed Flanders, Brad Dourif, Jason Miller, Nicol Williamson
31 Days of Horror continues with this review by Ben Webster. Send me your horror reviews.
I prefer The Exorcist III to The Exorcist.
Now before you make the same accusations of heresy as those levelled at John Boorman, when his woeful Exorcist II left audiences wishing they’d taken the same window exit as Damien Karras, please hear me out.
Despite some retro tampering in the special edition, Pazuzu seems content to stay in bed all day in the original Exorcist – that’s not a sign of overwhelming evil to me. Maybe they should have left him alone to get through those difficult teenage years by himself. I’m sure he would have come out at the other end a more rational and well-balanced demon. Maybe he would have even got his own place?
Of course, it was never going to end well was it? After The Exorcist II sapped every ounce of fear from Pazuzu with its swarm of plastic locusts and climatic ‘dance-orcism’ there was little anyone could do to make the franchise scary again. Step forward Exorcist author: William Peter Blatty.
Blatty creates a remarkable world in The Exorcist III. Every character feels well rounded and believable, regardless of how long they stay on screen. Of course, that could be something to do with the film’s troubled production and subsequent tampering at the behest of the studio, though I prefer to think of it as just damn good writing.
The evil in part III is not content to lie in bed all day, haranguing priests and covering them with vomit. The precedent is set at the film’s outset, with the murder and mutilation of a 12 year-old boy. It’s heavy stuff, only alleviated by a dry, gallows humour and a browbeaten George C Scott as Lieutenant Kinderman, struggling to maintain a sense of decency among the carnage caused by the return of The Gemini killer – a case that was apparently closed 15 years ago.
I won’t go into further plot points but, needless to say, the case ties in with the earlier events of the first film, and despite a tacked on exorcism (required to justify the title, apparently) the film takes the series into new levels of insidious terror. There are at least three sequences in The Exorcist III that are worthy of the horror hall of fame. Again, I’ll avoid spoilers so I’ll just say ‘statue’, ‘shears’ and ‘ceiling’.
In fact the film is so different in style to the original that despite the title, and the aforementioned Exorcism, there isn’t that much that links it to the original film. This is great if you like to sequels develop themes and take things in new directions but in truth it’s what hurts the film the most.
The ‘Exorcist’ title brings a certain level of audience expectation that the film doesn’t really meet. True, it mediates on faith, humanity and spirituality with surreal, disturbing and terrifying imagery, but on a basic level, it doesn’t feature a little girl throwing up on a priest. And maybe that’s all anyone wanted.
Though if you like imaginative horror that engages the brain while testing the nerves, I strongly suggest you check out The Exorcist III this Halloween. You may not think it better than the original – and in truth, there’s not much that is – but if you can appreciate the different direction it takes then you’ll be rewarded in spades…and shears. And I guarantee you’ll never look at a nice old lady in the same way again.
