Exorcist 3
The original Exorcist, released in 1973 and directed by William Friedkin while being written by William Peter Blatty from his own original source novel, was a true game changer in the horror genre as well as in cinema history itself, successfully using the tenets of religious faith to play upon the worst fears many have of demonic forces invading ordinary lives. Much of the goodwill and enthusiasm to continue the tradition was utterly squashed by John Boorman’s irredeemable 1977 sequel, Exorcist 2: The Heretic, which bizarrely postulated that Linda Blair’s now teenage ditz was in some strange way a sort of pseudo messiah figure whose profound goodness was what caused her to be targeted by the main demon for destruction. Both Friedkin and Blatty showed open contempt for this interpretation, always knowing themselves that the demon’s only intention for the girl was to bait Max Von Sydow’s saintly, dedicated priest to coming out and facing him one last time in order to tempt him and claim his soul, but failing that due to Von Sydow’s fatal heart attack, ultimately settled for Father Damian Karras (Jason Miller), the tortured, doubting younger priest who had succeeded at saving Blair but at the horrific cost of taking the demon onto himself, then using his last remnents of bodily control to hurl himself out the window in a supreme act of self sacrifice that almost surely canceled out the Catholic notion of how suicide is supposed to be a mortal sin being that it accomplished the greater good of defeating a truly twisted force of evil. Unfortunately, the putrid stench of Boorman’s utter failure of a follow up would continue to hang over the franchise potential of the concept for years to come, so much so that when Blatty himself actually got to both write AND direct the third chapter in 1990, the buildup, anticipation, and overall reception were lukewarm to say the least, with the whole project having had problems right from preproduction. Blatty’s sequel idea was adapted from his own novel Legion, where the main character was now Lt. Bill Kinderman, the congenial, laid back police investigator from the original who was really just a peripheral character at best but was now taking center stage. Unfortunately, Lee J. Cobb, who had played the part in the original, was now long since dead, so George C. Scott was signed on to replace him, bringing a somewhat more bitter, nastier side to the character who has seemingly lost his faith after all the atrocities he has seen criminals commit and truly feels that no legitimate God would ever allow such events to occur. But there were more issues at hand. Jason Miller was made an offer to reprise his role as Karras (now a mysterious catatonic enclosed deep within a mental health facility) but he was unavailable at that time, so Brad Dourif was cast instead, with Blatty reportedly going so far as to shoot a prologue recreating the ending of the first film with Dourif in the role of Karras in order to establish the new continuity of the story, but then the production company noticed that there wasn’t any actual exorcism in the film, so Blatty took the time to write in a new character of a priest played by Nicol Williamson just for that purpose, followed suddenly by Miller becoming available and being able to partially shoot some of the Karras scenes while footage with Dourif was retained depicting HIM as the long dead serial killer known as The Gemini who was possessing Karras for the most sinister of reasons. The story begins with Scott’s Kinderman still doing his job and still hanging out with Father Dyer (Ed Flanders replacing Father William O’Malley, who was also “unavailable”) when a series of extremely gruesome murders start taking place around the Georgetown area that stretch even the most widespread boundaries of sadism, as the victims are injected prior with a special drug that renders them paralyzed to the point of being unable to speak (and eventually kills them outright) as the killer butchers and mutilates them while the victim is fully, horribly aware of what is happening to them. Even worse, all the victims carry the distinctive MO of The Gemini, the psychotically evil son of a famous evangelist who had long since been executed 15 years ago, but whose actual methods of murdering his victims had never been publically revealed, thus putting the sense of pure fear into Scott as his investigation leads him to the isolated cells of a mental hospital where he immediately recognizes his old friend Karras apparently still alive but yet seemingly suffering from amnesia, his brain activity having been “revived” by The Gemini whose soul (among others) had also been placed into his body, with the purpose sort of being to “trap” Karras and thus force him to witness the murders being committed, which are actual, literal “revenge” murders against people connected to the original exorcism from the first film. Even worse is the fact that the murders being perpetrated by The Gemini / Karras are being physically carried out by other mental patients in the ward (usually older catatonics) who of course have no idea nor recollection of what they’ve done, and whose varying fingerprints and / or DNA left behind that indicate different killers is enough to drive the faithless Kinderman to fits trying to find a reasonable way to understand that some form of pure evil such as this can really exist. While Scott uses every opportunity to rant and rave and blow his top as Kinderman (a departure from Cobb’s more serene interpretation), the acting honors really must go to Dourif as The Gemini, a calm, collected and callous being who brings sinister relish to describing in great detail the exact methods used to literally extract life from his victims as well as explain key plot points as to how he got ahold of Karras himself when Karras was all but dead at the end of the original, accurately picking his spots to go all out raving lunatic but yet still keeping himself perfectly controlled, which is especially disarming when you consider that this was reportedly Jeffrey Dahmer’s favorite film, but the fact that Dourif almost seems to be naturally demonic without the use of any actual makeup or prosthetics is an acting accomplishment of the highest order, which is unfortunate because Dourif was reportedly bitter that his actual scenes as KARRAS were cut out to make way for Miller, whom the audience only sees in the role when The Gemini seemingly regresses his control long enough to allow other beings (including possibly even Pazuzu himself from the first film) to speak through Jason Miller’s face and voice while the real Karras only sporadically appears in brief instances (with the idea being that Kinderman and the others can only see Miller the whole time while only the audience can see Dourif whenever he manifests himself). Nonetheless, the stunning dual nature of “Patient X” is something to be truly frightened of, and The Gemini’s ability to possibly kill you using a weaker mind as his vessel sends chills up the spine with the idea that he can literally do ANYTHING he wants and not have to be held accountable since he’s locked up inside his cell the whole time. As said, some of Scott’s grumpy old man acting technique wears thin on the viewer at times, and a ridiculous dream sequence featuring a very quick cameo by Samuel L. Jackson and Patrick Ewing as The Angel Of Death(!) almost turns the whole thing into a parody (Scott to a Gemini victim he encounters in the dream: “Oh, I’m so sorry that you were murdered.”), but the free for all ending which sees Williamson’s character finally step up to the challenge of an exorcism only for the possessed Karras to throw even the kitchen sink at him as Scott spits and roars out an anguished monologue about finally believing after seeing just exactly what he is faced with is both thrilling and moving at the same time and actually allows this to end on a very high note as being one of the better horror sequels ever that also erases the stench of Part 2 and finally allows a hero to find his peace…
9/10