William Peter Blatty adapts his own sequel to THE EXORCIST (the book was titled LEGION), completely ignoring THE HERETIC. Ironically, EXORCIST III is, in many ways, an inferior movie.
Homicide detective Kinderman (George C. Scott, replacing Lee J. Cobb) is in the middle of a bizarre investigation involving priests and children being brutally murdered in the method used by a serial killer executed fifteen years earlier. The investigation leads to a psychiatric ward where a straight-jacket-bound man claims to be the killer--and bears a striking resemblance to the late Father Karras (Jason Miller), who lept to his death from the possessed girl's bedroom window in the original EXORCIST.
This intriguing premise has potential, but Blatty piles on so much overwrought mumbo-jumbo that the plot collapses under its own weight. There are some good moments (a nurse being stalked and killed during the night shift stands as one of the scariest sequences in modern horror cinema), but Blatty over directs relentlessly, and even the simplest of scenes are headache-inducing.
His screenplay is also a mess, with some mind-bogglingly awful dialog (the "fish in the bathtub" speech is one of the most bewildering and pointless examples of exposition I've ever heard) and glaring inconsistencies with the original film (and book). A couple of examples are the fact that Karras and Kinderman barely knew each other in THE EXORCIST, yet here they apparently were best friends; and in a bit of contrived dialog, a connection is made between one of young victims and the original possession, by saying that the kid's mother is the one who figured out that the demon was speaking in English in reverse. This is wrong, as in the original movie (and book) a male friend of Karras is the one who figured that out.
Scott chews the scenery like a champ, Brad Dourif is effectively bizarre as the killer's ghost and Viveca Lindfors has a creepy little part as a catatonic mental patient. Zorha Lambert, on the other hand, as Kinderman's wife, gives a howlingly bad performance.
The working title was LEGION, and initially it was going to be an unrelated thriller until studio execs thought it would do more business as a direct sequel. Therefore, the title was changed and some awkward (and fairly incoherent) footage was added, including scenes with Nicol Williamson as a priest who eventually performs an exorcism at the film's conclusion.
The result is a jumbled train wreck of a movie, though it's developed a loyal cult following.
Homicide detective Kinderman (George C. Scott, replacing Lee J. Cobb) is in the middle of a bizarre investigation involving priests and children being brutally murdered in the method used by a serial killer executed fifteen years earlier. The investigation leads to a psychiatric ward where a straight-jacket-bound man claims to be the killer--and bears a striking resemblance to the late Father Karras (Jason Miller), who lept to his death from the possessed girl's bedroom window in the original EXORCIST.
This intriguing premise has potential, but Blatty piles on so much overwrought mumbo-jumbo that the plot collapses under its own weight. There are some good moments (a nurse being stalked and killed during the night shift stands as one of the scariest sequences in modern horror cinema), but Blatty over directs relentlessly, and even the simplest of scenes are headache-inducing.
His screenplay is also a mess, with some mind-bogglingly awful dialog (the "fish in the bathtub" speech is one of the most bewildering and pointless examples of exposition I've ever heard) and glaring inconsistencies with the original film (and book). A couple of examples are the fact that Karras and Kinderman barely knew each other in THE EXORCIST, yet here they apparently were best friends; and in a bit of contrived dialog, a connection is made between one of young victims and the original possession, by saying that the kid's mother is the one who figured out that the demon was speaking in English in reverse. This is wrong, as in the original movie (and book) a male friend of Karras is the one who figured that out.
Scott chews the scenery like a champ, Brad Dourif is effectively bizarre as the killer's ghost and Viveca Lindfors has a creepy little part as a catatonic mental patient. Zorha Lambert, on the other hand, as Kinderman's wife, gives a howlingly bad performance.
The working title was LEGION, and initially it was going to be an unrelated thriller until studio execs thought it would do more business as a direct sequel. Therefore, the title was changed and some awkward (and fairly incoherent) footage was added, including scenes with Nicol Williamson as a priest who eventually performs an exorcism at the film's conclusion.
The result is a jumbled train wreck of a movie, though it's developed a loyal cult following.