So, I had all sorts of ambitious possible plans for this post: maybe watch a set of the Polish horrors I’ve collected that don’t have subtitles and give my first impressions based on my imperfect understanding of the language, perhaps dig into a series of short stories that had been instrumental in my getting into horror about 25 years ago and examine my particular journey, maybe explore the differences between some book and its filmic adaptation, but somehow I just haven’t had the power. Certain geo-political events occurring in the country next door have been weighing heavily on me and it’s been difficult to focus my mind towards personal projects such as this; it’s been difficult even just giving full attention to anything really. The other day, I watched the first thirty minutes of three different films I’ve been really wanting to watch before giving up on each (two of them, I’m sure I’ll return to).
In a time like this, I think it’s rather hard to get into something new or challenging, and it can be a comfort to just return to something familiar, so finally, that’s what I did. Now, after last week’s explication of my dislike of the exorcism film, this movie may seem an odd choice, but it could be argued that today’s film was never actually intended to feature an exorcism, and while I’ve only seen it twice before, it’s richness of character offers a kind of idiosyncratic, puzzling, atmospheric, and weird warm blanket, so let’s take a look at…
The Exorcist III (1990)
William Peter Blatty’s follow up to The Exorcist is a deeply flawed, deeply compromised film. The initial concept is already pretty strange, it features some extraordinarily random elements that can really leave you scratching your head, and following an overwhelming degree of studio interference, its ending strikes a discordant tone with the rest of the film and forces the introduction of a character and storyline that have nothing at all to do with the film around them. In Blatty’s original book and script, there hadn’t been any exorcism at all. The studio saw the first cut and was like, “how can we sell a movie called Exorcist III without an exorcist or exorcism in it?” Blatty was like “Well, I didn’t write a movie called Exorcist III, I wrote a movie called Legion, but fine, I’ll add one” – 4 million dollars later – increasing the budget of the film by almost 50% – there is a really tacked on, totally out of place, special effect laden exorcism and an exorcist who doesn’t interact with a single other character, and just shows up out of nowhere to perform said tacked on exorcism. It is gloriously weird.
But the thing is that, in spite of all of this, it is still such a personal, specific, and unique production – and somehow it really works. It just has so much character and the characters (excluding Father Morning, the random exorcist) themselves get so much room to breathe, to feel, to have significant relationships with each other, that it grounds everything else that happens in the film, however odd it may be. It has endless atmosphere, from its muggy, spooky nighttime scenes on the streets of Georgetown, trees buffeted by the summer wind, to the cold, institutional vibe of the hospital setting in which so much of the film takes place. The story is interesting and different – a strange murder mystery more than a possession story (though possession is an important element). And it is scary, featuring what many consider the best jump scare in horror cinema (it is pretty great).
In short, the story follows Lieutenant Kinderman (George C. Scott), a friend of Father Karras (the exorcist who died at the end of the first movie). Fifteen years have passed since both his friend’s death and the execution of ‘the Gemini killer,’ a serial killer whose case he had worked years back. And now, a series of mysterious, religiously themed murders, bearing signs of the Gemini killer pull him into an emotional, personal investigation in which he seems to find his dead friend alive and possibly possessed by a serial killer in the mental wing of a local hospital. By the end of the film, dear friends have been murdered, his family has been threatened, and he has to make a terrible sacrifice. It is affecting and intense, and for all of the heightened drama, the performances are so nuanced and solid that it never becomes melodramatic – really, the emotion lands.
And this commitment to character is present from the get go. Much of the first act splits its time between Kinderman investigating the gruesome and mysterious murders and establishing and exploring his friendship with Father Dyer (Ed Flanders), another old friend of Father Karras’s. We see them meeting on the anniversary of Karras’s death, each convinced that it’s his duty to cheer up the other every year on this sad day. They go to a movie together and talk about candy. They go for a cup of coffee and debate how a good god could allow such suffering. Kinderman complains about his mother-in-law, specifically how he can’t go home because she has a carp swimming in the bathtub, and he hates it (making me wonder at her ethnicity as keeping a carp in the bath for the couple of days before Christmas is a very Polish tradition). The fact that this sometimes genuinely scary film allows so much time for such a quirky rant (he really hates the fish) speaks to its investment in character. And it pays dividends – I believe in these people and their very sweet love for one another, and I feel for them when truly horrific things happen. And the film is so patient in letting the actors really do their work.
That patience is also key in this film’s success as a scary movie. Blatty has a good eye and is willing to let the camera sit, utilizing the long hospital hallways to great effect. As mentioned above, there is at least one great scare here and it works because so much suspense can be built when you’re willing to have so little happen for a few minutes. I won’t describe it in detail as it was spoiled for me before I first saw it, but it is a study in great horror film-making. If you’ve already seen the movie, I recommend this fascinating break down from the Rue Morgue Magazine Youtube channel of why the scene plays so well.
While most of the interference from the studio sticks out like a sore, poorly thought out thumb, one thing really works. Originally, Blatty had cast Brad Dourif as “patient X” (who may be Father Karras and/or may be the Gemini killer) and he gives a blistering showcase of a performance, all of which was filmed for the original cut. However, the studio really wanted Jason Miller (who had played Karras in the first film) to have the role and ordered all of the scenes reshot with him instead. Sadly, Miller was struggling with alcohol at the time and had trouble with the long, intense monologues, so Blatty found a strange but effective solution – he used both. It is startling the first time we cut from Miller to Dourif, but after a moment, we adjust and we get the sense that Kinderman sees the possibility of both men before him. He sees his friend. He sees the killer. He doubts them both and they are both present. Even what is seen with his own eyes cannot be taken as objective truth. It is very, very strange, but the effect is uniquely compelling. And I think it may be the one improvement over Blatty’s original cut – it is good to see Miller’s face. It helps us to see the man, the old friend who is suffering here, who we know to be dead. And it is so important to use Dourif’s performance as it is award worthy in its histrionics.
In 2016, Shout Factory released a director’s cut of the film using newly rediscovered footage. They were able to reconstruct Blatty’s original vision, and by all accounts, it’s great. But I haven’t seen it. And while I would love to do so one of these days, on Friday, when I wanted some comfort food, it was such a pleasure to return to this deeply flawed version. Somehow its imperfections increase its charm. I feel I can see Blatty’s intentions beneath the studio mandated surface, and I somehow also really enjoy some of the strangeness resulting from those mandates. In what he had wanted to film, there is already some deeply weird stuff (I haven’t even mentioned the heavenly dream sequence with Fabio the angel, a Jesus statue whose eyes open in shock when it gets windy, the old lady crawling on the ceiling, or the head of the psychiatric department who is clearly crazy himself), and I feel the studio demands probably add to the oddity, thus contributing to the overall, distinctive surreality of the whole affair. I expect the director’s cut is a better film, but I kind of love this one, warts and all.
And following up on my previously discussed distaste for the possession-exorcism narrative (of which, The Exorcist is certainly the ur-example), besides the fact that the exorcism scene herein can be ignored as a totally alien addition, the possession story is so specific and has such a different character than that of any other possession film I’ve seen. Notably, the possessor is not a demon, but a man, though one who was a monster, and his interlocutor is not a man of god, not a priest or an exorcist, but rather a detective and a friend. Kinderman’s horror is not anything to do with the dawning realization of devilish evil – he knows evil already. He sees the horrors humans do to each other every day. He experiences them himself. We have little impression that he ever had a rosy view of humanity, whether in seeing children brutally murdered, or in seeing his own police officers half ass a particular investigation because the victim was a black boy. In the end, he manages to save his friend, but at a cost, and we never really see him turn to a higher power for help. There is a clear supernatural element to the possession, but this is a human story and it turns on human acts.
In its inherent humanity, in its total weirdness, in its expertly crafted tension and release, this is a film that it is easy to return to, to dwell in for a time, to have a laugh and shed a tear with. And for me, it really gave some comfort during a trying time.