"Exorcist III" from 1990 - weak but watchable.

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http://uashome.alaska.edu/~jndfg20/website/exorcist3.gif http://www.americanphoto.co.jp/photosearch/Previews/CIN91133_034.jpg


Unpolished gem? Certainly not and yes -- it sullies the original film, but George C. Scott and Brad Dourif's performances are both so utterly over-the-top that it remains compelling, despite the indenfensibly shit plot.

What say you?

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 29 October 2005 03:22 (twenty years ago)

Actually, scratch that.....it's crap.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 29 October 2005 03:42 (twenty years ago)

i always thought it funny that it was basically a william peter blatty story completely seperate from the exorcist, but he decided 'fuck it, we'll just re-cut and call it exorcist 3'.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 29 October 2005 04:13 (twenty years ago)

i've never actually seen it myself, though. don't care to, either.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 29 October 2005 04:15 (twenty years ago)

this is the worst film ever

captin crunchheart (dr g), Saturday, 29 October 2005 04:16 (twenty years ago)

i thought latebloomer's comment was true for the second one but not this? I can't remember. anyway there are a couple of fucking terrifying scenes in this, the nurse with the shears for instance. I haven't seen it since it came out but it was scarier than II which had nothing to do with the Exorcist at all.

kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 29 October 2005 04:33 (twenty years ago)

There are two sequences were are genuinely frightening, I thought. The first being a long, drawn out scene involving a nurse at the hospital on the graveyard shift. She thinks she hears something stirring, so she cautiously futzs around to find out what it is. She experiences a predictable fake-out by uncovering a sleeping doctor who scolds her, and then goes back to futzing around -- mostly depicted through a long shot looking down a hallway. Just when you think nothing's going to happen -- which of course means something is about to happen -- she goes into a closet. On her way out of the closet, there's suddenly a jarring shriek and a figure in a sheet with decapitating shears runs out, immediately spliced with a quick shot of a decapitated statue of Jesus. Nothing ground-breaking here, but it's a keeper of a sequence.

The other shot, in retrospect, is more silly than scary, but it involves the old woman crawling around on the ceiling (see pic at top of the thread), which kinda alludes to Regan's fabled "spider walk" scene in the first film.

George C. Scott's heroically histrionic speech to the demon at the climax ("I believe in Murder...I believe in Cruelty & infideltiy...") was sampled to nice effect on the Cop Shoot Cop b-side, "We Shall Be Changed," for implausibly select few of you who might give a rolling rat fuck.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 29 October 2005 04:50 (twenty years ago)

Jesus, there are two sequences which are genuinely blah blah blah...

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 29 October 2005 04:51 (twenty years ago)

The first scene I was talking about....

http://saltsaltsalt.hp.infoseek.co.jp/movie/EXORCIST%20III%20REGION/jpg/EXORCIST%20III%20REGION_02.jpg

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 29 October 2005 08:19 (twenty years ago)

http://uashome.alaska.edu/~jndfg20/website/exorcist3.gif

Fuck me! I need a cleaning lady like that!

nathalie, a bum like you (stevie nixed), Saturday, 29 October 2005 08:28 (twenty years ago)

Just saw this tonight. Very powerful I thought. Yes lots of holes in in the plot, but I think it creates a great atmosphere, with a very surreal and knowing edge to it.

Masked Gazza, Thursday, 3 November 2005 01:31 (twenty years ago)

I wonder what the original film was like before they added all the Exorcist stuff? The ending in the released version is weirdly abrupt.

Has anyone managed to see Paul Schrader's Exorcist prequel yet?

Philip Alderman (Phil A), Thursday, 3 November 2005 10:50 (twenty years ago)

Alex that graveyard shift scene is one of my favourites of any horror movie, comes a close second behind the radio promo tape going berserk in The Fog.
Anyway I stayed up last night just to watch that scene. I enjoyed the rapor between Geord Scott and the priest at the beginning part of the movie, it was kinda refreshing.

Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 3 November 2005 15:38 (twenty years ago)

check out Legion by William Peter Blatty, the novel that served as the basic source material for Exorcist III - the opening pages contain some of the most comically overblown writing evah

Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Thursday, 3 November 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

Patrick Ewing's in this.

David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:00 (twenty years ago)

Brad Dourif? Over the top?

miccio (miccio), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:01 (twenty years ago)

when i was in college my roommate found a copy of this just sitting on the sidewalk

mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:03 (twenty years ago)

Alex that graveyard shift scene is one of my favourites of any horror movie,

Yeah, it is quite well done -- the payoff being indelibly jarring (although the details of what the killer does to the nurse -- i.e. a multitude of rosary beads in lieu of innards -- is also a bit over-the-top).

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:12 (twenty years ago)

...something about the flowing white robes as he exits the closet is damn freaky.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

and how close he is behind her.

Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

There's something deeply weird and uncomfortable about the mise-en-scene - the camera always appears to be in not-quite-the-right-place, as if Blatty has never seen a film before and had to work out how to do it from scratch.

Harthill Services (Neil Willett), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:33 (twenty years ago)

That movie freaked me out in 1990. Haven't seen it since, except dubbed into Spanish, wherein it loses much of whatever scariness it might have had.

Sparkle Motion's Rising Force, Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:46 (twenty years ago)

four years pass...

one of the greatest horror films ever.

We need more horror films from insane auteurs like Blatty, and far less from mildly demented hacks like Roth.

Matt Armstrong, Monday, 2 August 2010 00:39 (fifteen years ago)

I wonder what the original film was like before they added all the Exorcist stuff? The ending in the released version is weirdly abrupt.
Has anyone managed to see Paul Schrader's Exorcist prequel yet?

― Philip Alderman (Phil A), Thursday, November 3, 2005 10:50 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark

SPOILERZZSGPOIH

Apparently they cut out a little dialogue (but gee, we still have plenty of loopy dialogue in it anyway), and in the original ending, there's no exorcism, Kinderman just walks into the cell and kills Patient X.

And Patient X was originally all Dourif (even though that doesn't really make sense if he's supposed to be inside Karras' body).

I think the studio's decision to make them use Jason Miller as Karras actually adds a cool tension to the scenes where they flip between the two actors. The exorcism feels really pasted on though, and there's too many effects in it-- the original exorcism in part 1 had a lot of pacing and tension that built up, but in this one it's just them trying to spend 4 million dollars in as short a period of screen time as possible.

Matt Armstrong, Monday, 2 August 2010 00:45 (fifteen years ago)

I would have liked this movie a lot better had they completely removed the Exorcist connections (being that it came from a novel titled Legion). Some parts of it were good but it went into LOL territory fast by the conclusion.

San Te, Monday, 2 August 2010 00:46 (fifteen years ago)

BULL SHIT. this film was horrible.

Pissed off our Weingarten (Stevie D), Monday, 2 August 2010 01:26 (fifteen years ago)

I just wrote abt it a month ago on this thread:

Since there's really nothing else on this thread I'm just going to talk about movies I've recently seen.

Pissed off our Weingarten (Stevie D), Monday, 2 August 2010 01:27 (fifteen years ago)

one thing that I can't defend is the photography. It has that dull, neutral palette that a lot of films from around 1990 had. Yeah yeah, they were filming under florescent lights a lot, but the whole film is just so sterile looking in a way that doesn't add anything to the mood.

Matt Armstrong, Monday, 2 August 2010 01:32 (fifteen years ago)

six years pass...

guys i love this movie so much

ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Friday, 16 June 2017 14:55 (eight years ago)

everything about it is so good but i would like to shout out george c. scott's dream of heaven

ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Friday, 16 June 2017 14:56 (eight years ago)

the infinite establishing shots that precede almost every scene

ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Friday, 16 June 2017 14:59 (eight years ago)

the vials of blood

ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Friday, 16 June 2017 15:02 (eight years ago)

the bit where the possessed lady crawls along the ceiling gave me serious terrors the first time I watched this. and almost anything with george c. scott in is worth a re-watch.

calzino, Friday, 16 June 2017 15:08 (eight years ago)

Look at me twelve years ago talkin shit about shit I didn't know shit about, haha. Now I'm older, wiser, fatter and have seen Exorcist III. Life comes at you fast.

The Marmadook (latebloomer), Friday, 16 June 2017 17:44 (eight years ago)

Anyway, it's a decent movie. Worth it for the hallway scare alone.

Plus ANGEL FABIO

The Marmadook (latebloomer), Friday, 16 June 2017 17:45 (eight years ago)

One of the more surprising reputation revivals out there.

insidious assymetrical weapons (Eric H.), Friday, 16 June 2017 17:49 (eight years ago)

I dunno -- I remember at least a couple of contemporary reviews giving it some cred, at the least for the nurse station scene.

Ned Raggett, Friday, 16 June 2017 17:52 (eight years ago)

Shout Factory is having a big sale through the end of this month, and their Exorcist III Blu-Ray is a two-disc set that includes a director's cut that's apparently substantially different.

grawlix (unperson), Friday, 16 June 2017 17:58 (eight years ago)

idk if i'd call it substantially different, but there's a lot of additional dialogue, a considerably expanded interrogation scene between scott and dourif. the entire exorcism scene is subtracted so it just sorta ends with scott shooting dourif which is maybe even stranger and more arbitrary than the exorcism the studio insisted on. all of the additional scenes were sourced from vhs dailies bc the original footage was lost, so the quality of the picture shifts dramatically throughout

ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Friday, 16 June 2017 18:14 (eight years ago)

three months pass...

i watched the ninth configuration the other day and that movie rules too

ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 15:45 (eight years ago)

I had to roll back my pitch a little after mentioning to my excited sister that there was a pseudo-sequel to The Exorcist that she'd never heard of.

Gewgaws for Meemaw (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 15:51 (eight years ago)

The Ninth Configuration is such a cool and strange little movie. Blatty must have been an interesting dude.

a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 17:06 (eight years ago)

Love Ninth Configuration! And refreshingly it doesn't seem to be part of the film dork canon, so I don't have to muddle my head with other people's takes on it.

In fact I love it so much I should probably see Exorcist 3 sometime

Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 26 September 2017 17:49 (eight years ago)

I can't believe it got multiple Globe nominations and won for screenplay. Must have been a slow year.

a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 17:55 (eight years ago)

In fact I love it so much I should probably see Exorcist 3 sometime

― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, September 26, 2017 10:49 AM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hell yeah you should

ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Tuesday, 26 September 2017 18:01 (eight years ago)

two years pass...

just rewatched Exorcist III and my lord I forgot how absolutely insane this movie is

my only complaint is the abrupt ending

k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Monday, 13 April 2020 01:03 (five years ago)

reading brad's comments above, neither ending sounds great but tbh the studio mandated one was probably the right way to go

k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Monday, 13 April 2020 01:05 (five years ago)

Ok, I just remembered I went on a date senior year of high school with a goth girlfriend and saw a double bill of Exorcist III and Nightbreed at a drive-in. All I remember was my raging teenage hormones and that we had a really short friend who resembled the Berserkers.

Why, I would make a fantastic Nero! (PBKR), Monday, 13 April 2020 01:45 (five years ago)

is this true?

Microbes oft teem (wins), Monday, 13 April 2020 10:28 (five years ago)

???

Why, I would make a fantastic Nero! (PBKR), Monday, 13 April 2020 12:06 (five years ago)

Sorry, should have put in italics. Wasn’t a response to your post, it’s a bit from the film I love

Microbes oft teem (wins), Monday, 13 April 2020 12:12 (five years ago)

four years pass...

I just watched this. Absolutely batshit. I had a great time. I could watch a film that is just George C. Scott and Ed Flanders drinking coffee in a poorly lit cafe, to be honest.

As much as I love Brad Dourif doing Brad Dourif things, the film noticeably loses something when he appears? I love how bug-eyed and insane he is, but there's too much exposition and some of the atmosphere is lost. Loved how the scenes with him and Scott were lit though.

I 100% wanted more of the death metal growling.

I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Tuesday, 7 January 2025 22:03 (eleven months ago)

oh no way re: brad dourif. so much atmosphere in that thing he does

ivy., Tuesday, 7 January 2025 22:03 (eleven months ago)

I think it's that until he appeared, I had no idea where the thing was going; I was carried by the atmosphere and the strangeness of it. It had to build toward some great monstrosity of course, but Dourif appears and, for all his horror and bile, it becomes a film I know.

I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Tuesday, 7 January 2025 22:11 (eleven months ago)

I dug the switches between him and Miller though. I totally bought into Karras' desire to be released.

I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Tuesday, 7 January 2025 22:12 (eleven months ago)

eleven months pass...

Exorcist II was really good, but no thread for it

xyzzzz__, Sunday, 28 December 2025 22:26 (four days ago)


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