Exorcist II: The Heretic was stillborn, a franchise killer, the Worst Sequel Ever Made. Any chances of creating an Exorcist franchise, so promising in the popular rip-off fallout from The Exorcist, were now slaughtered in a disgusting mass of locusts, Richard Burton, New Agey B.S. and Linda Blair’s sudden voluptuousness.
The series was done.
In the meantime, “Exorcist” author (and Exorcist screenwriter) William Peter Blatty set about on an unrelated project, an adaptation of his novel “The Ninth Configuration,” formerly “Twinkle Twinkle ‘Killer’ Kane!” Blatty himself directed The Ninth Configuration in 1980, creating a bizarre and unclassifiable picture, at once in the Ken Kesey mode as well as Blatty’s usual modern Job mode. It is a comedy, a drama, a metaphysical exploration on the distinction between sanity and insanity, made of parts One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, “Hogan’s Heroes,” Marx Brothers and, I dunno, something by Hal Ashby.
Why do I even bring that up? Well, I’d toyed with examining The Ninth Configuration as an “unofficial” Exorcist sequel, a “detour” if you will, on account of certain connections. The novel, first written prior to “The Exorcist,” features an overlapping character – the astronaut little Reagan tells will “die up there,” here named Captain Billy Cutshaw. It is typical for authors to string characters throughout otherwise unconnected stories, which is easy to do. This is much less common in film, with issues of casting, rival studios, etc. to consider. Hence Cutshaw is played by a different actor here (Scott Wilson) – and besides, The Exorcist’s astronaut was never named in-film.
All that remains to tie The Ninth Configuration into The Exorcist are some debates on God versus the Devil, slightly reworked from dropped dialogue in earlier Exorcist drafts. That’s not much to hang a trumped-up sequel assertion on, and nonetheless The Ninth Configuration has zero horror in it (neither did The Heretic, but it was supposed to be scary – ostensibly).
So went Blatty’s post-Exorcist career. Then the 1980s fully came into their own, and with them a mania for horror sequels which would’ve served an Exorcist franchise well. Hell, this is the slasher-happy era which created freaking Psycho II! In this climate, Warner Brothers developed the blind Catholic faith that another Exorcist would triumph, sadly not tempered with good old Catholic self-doubt. They pressed Blatty to develop another sequel, and he even conspired with original director William Friedkin to make it happen.
Without knowing the full details, Blatty’s efforts did not lead to a third Exorcist, as the project was banished straight to Development Hell – major studio interests rather hamper horror sequel development when independent gore-mongers would churn out endless follow-ups. Instead, Blatty’s tale became the 1983 novel “Legion,” the first true literary sequel to “The Exorcist” – this is in a world which has wisely denounced The Heretic as the heretic that it is. Like literary sequels – which differ from cinematic sequels in many notable ways – “Legion” is a fair bit self-contained, a serial killer whodunit concerning minor characters from “The Exorcist,” Lieutenant Kinderman and Father Dyer.
The book’s success led back to movie consideration, lawyers allowing it to happen in exchange for awful Exorcist parody, Repossessed…okay, whatever). Despite Blatty and its Georgetown location, Legion was considered as a stand-alone work much like the book. As always, Blatty adapted his story into a screenplay, with John Carpenter to direct – in the ‘80s, there was no one better for horror, or any genre effort! Carpenter eventually passed, in deference to Blatty and his own clear love for the material. So Blatty was instead to direct, making conditions even more ideal for a respectful adaptation – by its own author! Who better to preserve the introspective, philosophical debates at “Legion’s” core?
That was before producers got their hands on Blatty’s handiwork, as we knew they must. They demanded a title change, so as to wedge in the word “exorcist” somewhere – you know, for market value, no matter The Heretic had presumably rendered the word poisonous. While Exorcist: Legion was batted around, the lame-ass decision was made at the final minute to release Blatty’s film as Exorcist III – its 1990 release date, 13 years after the previous sequel, makes it something of the Godfather: Part III of horror…except Exorcist III isn’t that bad. It’s a shame the title reminded audiences of that hated second sequel, and kept box office rather anemic – though technically profitable. All this despite Blatty’s protestations, naturally.
Exorcist III is a frightening movie, but not in the way of The Exorcist. It remains a much more subtle beast, in spite of the producers, relying upon implication with nary an overt moment of monstrousness or gore – until the climax, but more on that anon. Instead, an eerie soundscape, unexpected and exceptional use of the camera, suggestion and psychology are the rules of the day. It’s not what many horror fans wish for, accustomed to contemporary viscera; it’s more in line with the Val Lewton horror approach, I’d say, full of talk and dreamlike imagery – it even has a “walk!”
The opening is part of that approach, simply a disembodied POV (of a soul?) visually raping the Georgetown environs. There is an emphasis on The Exorcist’s notorious stairs, the POV even tumbling down them in much the manner of Father Damien Karas back in 1973.
Come morning, and the riverside is agog in a…police investigation. There’s been a murder, but we’ll learn more in time.
Heading the investigation is Lt. William Kinderman. The role’s been recast, since the original Kinderman (Lee J. Cob) died in 1976 (those eager to do so call it the “Exorcist curse”). In his place now is the utterly professional George C. Scott, who held his own against multiple Sellerses in Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a role he modified to Oscar glory in Patton – which gets an odd in-joke call-out here. Indeed, Kinderman is something of a movie nut, taken to regular classic screenings with his friend Father Dyer – deleted, now re-inserted scenes from The Exorcist detail the start of this friendship. Dyer is also recast, seeing as Father William O’Malley is, well, a Father. Now Dyer is now played by Ed Flanders, one of many returning from The Ninth Configuration.
Kinderman and Dyer gather to view It’s a Wonderful Life – Dyer’s favorite film and, one assumes, a favorite too of film nut Blatty. Their scenes together are lengthy, and populated by Blatty’s usual conflict between a man of God and a man of the world – something most popular films are too skittish to approach (see The Heretic for one).
In regards to Kinderman’s murder case…the details are only talked about, never shown, which is far more eerie. Here they are: The victim was a 12-year-old black boy, crucified ala Christ on a pair of rowing oars, ingots in each eye. His head was removed, replaced with the white head from a statue of Christ, it repainted in minstrel blackface. Oh, and one of his fingers was removed, a zodiac sign carved into one hand.
The second murder won’t be seen either, not immediately, though we are privy to the situation around it. Father Kanavan overhears an unseen person’s confession, hidden away in a booth. The voice confesses to 17 murders, and seriously changes timbre…Some time later, the priest’s body is found. Blatty’s camera once again dissects the neighborhood in a way which serves no obvious purpose, but is mighty tonal.
Kinderman, as an aging and spiritually agnostic individual, hasn’t the strength for this case – the priest’s head having also been replaced with a statue’s. For solace, he pays Dyer another visit, this time with Dyer in the hospital awaiting a regular tune-up. They have their usual idle chat on issues of faith, God and death, Kinderman yelling in stress. For there is a new break in the case – fingerprints at the two murder sites do not match. It is two separate murderers!
That night, Kinderman has a moody, poetic dream – one of the few moments I will say Blatty himself errs. In imitation of Wings of Desire, Kinderman imagines Heaven as a train station/church/hospital, staffed by literally winged angels and many cameos (and was that Fabio?). This moment never again repeats, leaving it a strange, mystical outlier. Nonetheless, Kinderman meets with the murdered boy, head now sewn back on. Dyer is there too, his neck showing the same stitching. And Dyer insists that he is “not dreaming.”
Kinderman receives a morning phone call – done entirely over a shot of his house’s exterior (effective and unexpected, a Blatty special). Back at the hospital, Dyer has been murdered completely off screen, much like the others. This spurs Kinderman’s emotional involvement. Oddly, Dyer’s body has been completely drained of its blood, now replaced in a collection of jars on his bedside – with not a drop spilled. Well…almost. The killer used his excess blood to pen a message on the wall:
Note that extra “l” in “wonderful.”
In interviewing the nurses, Kinderman deduces it was someone from within the hospital who committed the murder. With the aid of Dr. Temple (Scott Wilson), Kinderman is shown to the dementia ward, where dozens of elderly wallow in a state of near catatonia. Mrs. Clelia is the likely culprit seen near Dyer’s room last night, and indeed her fingerprints match. Yet she retains no memory of this place, and cannot be held. Further investigation will show the prints from the former murders belong to different patients in this ward. Around now, people are questioning whether demon possession will ever come into play.
Dr. Temple, apropos of nothing (yet), shows Kinderman to the Disturbed Ward, through a double-steel airlock. Of note here is a man known to the credits only as Patient X, an amnesiac in a padded cell, about whom little is known. But note the actor! Jason Miller. He played the martyred Father Karas in The Exorcist, who’s been seen here in photos as a former friend of Kinderman. Hmm. Furthering the strangeness, X rambles on about Death in voice over, King James style: “Nor canst thou kill me.”
Kinderman finally voices his fullest suspicions to the hospital staff. There was a Gemini Killer, who operated in San Francisco in the early ‘70s, bearing a notable zodiacal obsession – yes, it’s the Zodiac Killer yet again, just like Scorpio in Dirty Harry. This guy, Gemini, he was caught and executed 15 years ago (Exorcist III seems to take place in 1987, by this fact), and yet the recent murders bear his distinctive M.O. Worse yet, it is not the M.O. released to the newspapers – the police provided misinformation to filter out false confessions. Also, in his notes to the papers, Gemini always doubled his finall Ls. “Wonderfull” life indeed.
Now...about the producer-mandated idiocy. Basically, they wanted an exorcist in a movie called Exorcist – called that at their insistence! Blatty didn’t learn this untill well into filming. So at the last minute, he was forced to rewrite, force a character in where there was none, rather reworking the plot. So now we get to know Father Morning (Nicol Williamson), in a tacked-on scene with Kinderman discussing Karas’ background, and his exorcism. (Morning’s explained-away back story concerns an exorcism in the Philippines, because otherwise this whole subplot is as unrealistic as any Exorcist knock-off.) So anyway, here’s Morning, hold onto him, and for the sheer pleasure of it, here’s a crucifix weeping blood!
That nonsense temporarily out of the way, Kinderman can meet with Patient X. Having recently escaped from his 15-year catatonia, X (who was found idling wandering the rivers back in ’73 or thereabouts) now believes himself to be the Gemini Killer. Not only that, but the camera believes it too, as X transforms into the freakish, angry visage of Brad Dourif (a certifiably odd duck, as he’s a regular for both Werner Herzog and David Lynch – and indeed I feel Blatty to be a sort of kind-hearted Lynch).
Here is the meat of Exorcist III, what it offers audiences in place of a grotesque, Regan-esque possession – the sessions between Kinderman and Gemini. These are lengthy, lengthy scenes, made effective by Blatty’s dialogue and Dourif’s expert performance. Bounded and motionless, Gemini is as unthreatening physically as Regan was (one gripe about The Exorcist), yet it is not an issue here. Someone is acting out Gemini’s violence, and his demented, evill worldview is all the more threatening (if also more human) than the vulgar blasphemies Regan trafficked in. It’s something of a dry run for the sessions between Clarice and Lechter in The Silence of the Lambs some two years later, and arguably as powefull as theirs’.
“Tell the press that I am Gemini, or I will punish you.”
Gemini/X promises a random killing to sway Kinderman, to get his name back in the papers. What follows is THE moment in Exorcist III, an exercise (or exorcise) in suspensfull Hitchcockian mode – this is the “walk” I referred to. With a single, unmoving (rarely edited) long shot of the hospital hallway, we are privy to a complete 5 minutes of activity, or inactivity. And then…
The mightiest jump scare possible! If there was nothing else of value in Exorcist III, this would be enough! (And still not an iota of blood…)
I feel I’m under-explicating the second half of Exorcist III, but I don’t wish to write out the whole of Gemini’s speeches, of how he is “legion, for we are many,” or ruin the effect of the hallway scene in text. Let’s just say that a white-sheeted figure, maaaaybe Gemini, removes a nurses organs and replaces them with rosaries (off screen, of course).
Also, Doctor Temple is dead at his desk, a suicide.
Kinderman returns to X-amine Gemini, who offers up an X-planation. After the electric chair, Gemini’s incorporeall soull hovered the world aimlessly, untill encountering…a demon. The demon Karas had forced from the MacNeil girll, in fact. In a moment of petty demonic revenge (hence a less apocalyptic evill than in The Exorcist), the demon grants Gemini’s soull possession of Karas’ body, to disgrace the priesthood. Or, in Gemini’s words, “HE IS INSIDE WITH US! HE WILL NEVER GET AWAY! HIS PAIN WON’T END!” Settle down, Gemini!
It took Gemini ages to regenerate Karas’ body, to rouse his inactive brain cells. Hence we are told (ghoulish imagery = off screen) about how Karas/Gemini/X clawed “their” way from a coffin. Then picked up along the river, it took Gemini another 15 years to strengthen Karas’ brain enough to achieve his recent sentience.
But still, X is lashed, confined, locked away behind significant security. Ah, but the elderly aren’t, and “catatonics are so easy to possess.” On his nightly killings, Gemini has evacuated Karas’ body to momentarily controll Mrs. Clelia or her friends. These brief moments grant Karas what scant self-controll he can afford.
And apparently, Gemini can grant these patients Spider-Man powers, in one of Exorcist III’s few outré moments (making me think it’s a producer moment – and those are fresh in the wings now!).
Come day, Gemini sends one of his legion of minions on an errand, to target Kinderman’s own family. Clad as a nurse, an old lady reports to Kinderman’s house with autopsy shears, nasty blades made specifically for removing heads. It’s only Kinderman’s quick response which saves his daughter’s life – and her neck was already well within the shears! And the nurse only falters as Karas grows strong, taking controll away from Gemini.
The time has come for – sigh – an X-orcism. Father Morning, he of that one useless scene from prior, independently strolls on into X’s cell to do religious battle – with no “OK” from his church superiors, or a research period, or anything. (See how foolish it was to slap this on?) And while Gemini can grant his possessees superstrength and Spidey Sense, it seems he can also make Patient X into Professor X. Why else would X suddenly have psionic powers?! Why, so he can quickly best Morning, and rip the flesh right off his body (yes, when producers suddenly intrude, so does highly out-of-place gore). That way Kinderman can still have his finale, as though nothing had ever happened (as it hadn’t in the originall drafts, or novell).
Kinderman arrives now to face Gemini, and still they maintain that foolish parade of speciall effects. That’s what happens when movie mogulls grant you 50% more of your originall budget for once scene! So behold cobras, lightning, rain indoors, a pit to Hell, Karas crucified on a cross surrounded by the soulls of Gemini’s victims – this is only minorly acceptable because it’s shown as a manifestation of Kinderman’s mind alone. Still, Exorcist III rather lets the sight down in the finall act, through I presume no fault of Blatty’s (he actually does a respectfull job trying to make this work as well as possible).
Anyway, Karas finally overcomes Gemini, at least long enough to plead Kinderman for death. Kinderman obliges, shooting Karas and all else within him. “We won.” Cut straight to Karas’ tombstone, at last receiving proper buriall. Never mind any sort of consequence for Kinderman assassinating an unarmed mentall patient, as most would consider it.
That ridiculous ending, the whole finall 20 minutes, really undercut what was working – a sustained mood of dread, riveting conversations with Gemini, rare but highly effective scare moments. For 3/4ths of its X-istence, Exorcist III is an infinitely superior film than damn well most with a “III” in them can hope for – especially considering II. It mightn’t have been the equal to The Exorcist (for what could be?), but III was entirely functionall – and in Blatty’s estimation, even scarier than the first, which…I just miiight concede to (sorry, The Exorcist is good, but it doesn’t frighten me none).
Too bad about those producers. Their dumbass insistence upon showboating, like Gemini himself, makes the film self-contradictory. The ending is purely commerciall, transforming an auteur’s filming of his own book into a mere product. This sucks, and in a way it’s an indignity far worse than the out-and-out catastrophe that is The Heretic. Because Exorcist III had a chance!
Still, a partly successfull movie – a horror sequell, post-‘80s no less – is better than nothing, and credit to Blatty for doing what he could. Rumor has it there is even something resembling a director’s cut, as close as possible to Blatty’s original desire, floating around the Morgan’s Creek offices someplace. Recent assertions maintain such footage is lost, if it ever existed, leaving Exorcist III stuck like Damien Karas in a ragged and compromised state. But considering the franchise’s love of restructuring footage (a story for tomorrow), if this footage is found, you can be assured they’ll release it…Eh, maybe.
Related posts:
• No. 1 The Exorcist (1973)
• No. 2 Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
• No. 4 Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
• No. 5 Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)
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