I hold a special soft spot in my heart for The Exorcist III (my doctor is very worried, but there it remains). I can’t say it’s better than the original The Exorcist, but it’s miles beyond whatever the fuck Exorcist II: The Heretic was. But through some warts I can see the movie III wanted to be and might’ve been. Which is a roundabout way of saying I watched the theatrical cut, not the director’s Legion cut. Come on, I’m not going to watch the same Exorcist franchise movie twice for Paranormal Octoberty! That would be crazy.
The Exorcist III follows lieutenant Kinderman, played by Mr. Lee J Cobb in The Exorcist. But he died in 1976 so the role was recast with George C Scott, star of hit films like The Changeling and The Day of the Dolphin. 15 years after the event of the first movie, he and Father Dyer (Ed Flanders) mourn the death of their dear friend, Father Damien Karras. Didn’t Karras and Kinderman barely interact in the first film…? Look, remembering details of The Exorcist are not going to help you here so just… go with it. A series of brutal, ritual killings are happening which remind Kinderman of the Gemini Killer, a serial killer that was executed 15 years ago. Eventually his investigation–and the death of Father Dyer–leads the cop to a violent mental patient found wandering with amnesia 15 years ago. Kinderman is thrown for one hell of a loop when the patient looks exactly like Karras because yeah, they got Jason Miller to return. Turns out when the young priest fell to his death in The Exorcist, the demon inhabiting his body–fuck off with that “Pazuzu” nonsense, we don’t name it here–took the spirit of the Gemini Killer, James Venamun (Brad Dourif, AKA Charles Lee Ray from Child’s Play), and put it into the priest’s mostly dead body. It took a decade to heal enough that Gemini was able to start killing again, mentally taking over the bodies of people (usually other mental patients). Unsure what to do about his good friend being possessed, Kind–wait, what? Who the hell is this priest suddenly performing an exorcism on Karras’ body? “Father Morning” (Nicol Williamson)?! You mean the random guy the movie kept cutting to and who, up to this point, had no bearing on the plot is suddenly important? Oh, okay, this reeks of executive meddling. So Father Mourning and Kinderman manage to weaken Venamun/the demon and put Karras out of his misery. The movie ends abruptly with them burying Karras, for real this time.
This movie is kind of wild. You can absolutely tell that writer/director/author of the novel the movie was based on William Peter Blatty was forced to tie this movie to The Exorcist more than he wanted. But even some of his own decisions are weird enough to make this movie memorable. The first murder in the film is of a young black boy, and it’s revealed that his mother was the person Father Karras went to in The Exorcist to find out if Regan was speaking a foreign language (she wasn’t, it was backwards English). Except… in The Exorcist that was a white guy. Kinderman and Dyer’s conversations are quite quippy and generally fun and funny, but stuff like the cop’s monologue during the exorcism about how he believes in evil–and therefore the demon–doesn’t really go anywhere or add anything. Then there’s a dream sequence where Kinderman visits what I interpret as Heaven’s waiting room. There he learns of Dyer’s death before he’s officially informed, but the sequence is just… so surreal. There’s Fabio as an angel, Patrick Ewing–you know, from Space Jam–as the Angel of Death, and then Samuel L Jackson as a blind man trying to contact Earth, but he’s dubbed over and wearing black sunglasses with a beard so I literally didn’t recognize him. Me, with built in IMDB vision!
But it’s really the Gemini Killer that holds up. Mostly. Brad Dourif gives a truly haunting performance, ranting and raving about working with demonic “friends” to continue killing. Whenever he goes on a rant/monologue, he swaps places with Karras so we the audience know who’s in control of the body, even if Kinderman seemingly only sees his friend. But it turns out this was done because in real life, Jason Miller was apparently a drunken mess during filming and couldn’t remember the lines for any extended scene, so Dourif was brought in and the spiritual body swapping was introduced as a plot point.
You know, I think that’s the best way I can describe this movie: It’s a mess, but it’s got some real good parts. You could do worse for an Exorcist sequel! And we did with Exorcist II: The Heretic!
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