Exorcist III, The (1990)

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Exorcist III, The (1990)

Not as bad (or good) as they say

In writer/director William Peter Blatty’s personal vision of what happened after the events of The Exorcist (which wisely ignores Boorman's Exorcist II: The Heretic), Lt. William Kinderman (George C. Scott) is tracking down a killer apparently copycatting a serial killer executed the same night as the original exorcism. This killer tends to go after priests especially—pause for drum roll—but he uses the Gemini’s exact MO, which is impossible because it was never made public. (This apparently ignores the possibility of water cooler gossip in a police station) Meanwhile, Kinderman gets together constantly with Father Joseph Dyer (Ed Flanders) to reminisce about the dearly-departed Father Karras. Soon, Kinderman starts getting clues about the killer’s identity—clues that point him to a nearby mental institution. To his utmost horror, he finds that his old friend Karras (played once again by Jason Miller) is actually alive, and possessed by the spirit of the Gemini killer, using his old friend’s body as a tool of revenge. Whether he's getting revenge by killing these priests or by spouting inanities at full-volume, however, is not for me to say.

Contrary to standard operating procedure, the plot isn’t really what drives this film at all. It’s an interesting technique, but not worthy of the movie’s 105-minute running time. Brad Dourif, who plays the Gemini Killer (apparently to differentiate between devil-possessed Karras) goes way overboard in his depiction of a deranged tool of the devil, and even Scott himself has several ham-fisted lines that he can’t dress up no matter how much he tries. “I believe in death…I believe in disease…I believe in adultery…” he croons to a smiling devil at the conclusion. He also apparently believes in the power of a deep voice to obscure even the most clichéd writing in existence.

The Exorcist III really has two conclusions, and the first one--when Kinderman figures out how the Gemini is able to escape his cell and go about his murderous business in the outside world--is decidedly more satisfactory than the second --the entrance of the Champion Demon Exorcist Father Morning (Nicol Williamson). Morning is big and bad, but apparently overlooked in the first movie and when he begins to exorcise, I assume, the devil himself, I lose ninety percent of the respect I had for the original film’s not playing that particular trump card. Demonic possession is scary, but if someone is playing Satan himself, we’re always going to be disappointed. Even Pacino couldn’t do it. What makes Blatty think Miller could?

Where the film does in fact succeed, though, is in its unique scare tactics. Evil is lurking everywhere, sometimes where we least expect it, and Blatty delivers it juxtaposed with the utterly incongruous (to borrow a phrase). When Father Kanavan (Harey Carey Jr.) sits to hear a confession, the voice on the other side of the screen doesn’t sound at all evil, only creaky, tired and confused. That is, until it actually makes its confession: “Seventeen of them, Father. The first was that waitress in Candlestick Park. I cut her throat and watched her bleed. She bled a great deal. It's a problem I'm working on, Father. All this bleeding.” And we close-up to Kanavan’s face, transfixed in horror, as we hear a laugh that would make Jack Nicholson turn green with envy.

This is Blatty’s signature style in this movie, and it works. Unfortunately, many of Blatty’s writing flaws (overcharacterization, abrupt endings) are also signatures here, and they don’t work. If a few scenes and the second ending could be chopped off here, The Exorcist III would work much better.

Still, if the movie has no other value, it makes a good drinking game. With one shot per cameo appearance (which include Larry King and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop), by the end of the movie you might be drunk enough to actually think it was good. Barring an actual possession, there’s not much more hope for this turkey.

-Long