the exorcism in exorcist III

Welcome! New fans here are always great. 😀

The answer I’d like to tell you is: The Demon (Pazuzu or whomever… is up for debate in another thread here) simply has lots of demonic powers and exhibits them in different ways and on different occasions; hence the differences of such between those found in THE EXORCIST, and now in THE EXORCIST III (there is no “II” in this trilogy… if you ask me, and many, many other folks around these parts!). As for why he was scared, everybody’s different and acts differently from time to time; Morning might be typically brave, but here just buckles under the pressure; hard to say. As for what the demon did to him, that’s his face getting pulled off. You didn’t recognize that? 😛

Now as for the real answer to all of this:

Morgan Creek shoe-horned this exorcism sequence, and thus, this particular exorcist — Father Morning — into this film. These elements weren’t even present or conceived of until it was decided, “A William Peter Blatty film featuring peripheral characters from the first film needs an exorcism! And let’s get Jason Miller in there somewhere, too! Who cares that Lee J. Cobb and O’Malley are unavailable… The more original actors in this film the better — the closer it will resemble the original Exorcist film. Every little bit helps!” In short, the exorcism and exorcist therein are really and truly pointless when you consider the kind of story Blatty intended to make before Morgan Creek at the last minute deemed it not scary enough and… made the film their own, as they did more than a decade later with that other “not scary enough” Exorcist sequel, the original prequel that this time already had an exorcism so they decided, “let’s just remake the whole thing.” The Exorcist III was just a warm-up for them in dumbing-down. But unfortunately for The Exorcist III, Blatty’s original version of the film is history — lost — whereas with Paul Schrader’s scrapped prequel, it got both a theatrical release and a DVD.

I hope I’ve helped. 🙂

M.I.K.E.

Yeah, it looked to me like his arm, back, and the back of his head got demonically stuck to the ceiling and then slowly torn away again.

Peripheral comment: although Morning and his exorcism were MC tack-ons, having had this dumped on him, Blatty still did some fine work: He used the unecessary scenes to construct Morning as a surrogate Merrin character.

The scene in Morning’s room, which introduces Morning, is eloquent in its wordless silence. His sancity is established in a few seconds of cutting to various objects in his room, which are both simple and pious. Note how Blatty’s camera tracks Morning’s shadow moving across the wall similarly to the way that Friedkin’s camera tracked Merrin from the rear as he moves thru the Iraq streets. Or note how Blatty’s scene has the plaque on Morning’s wall: “What we give to the poor is what we take with us when we die”, which is also (if memory serves) printed on a card in Karras’ wallet in the Exorcist novel. Observe the implication of Morning’s compassion in his care of the little bird by the window sill, and how Darkness enters when he finds the bird dead. Note how a sudden wind blows thru Morning’s room – clearly resonating with the presence of Pazuzu in both the original novel and the original film. All told, not a bad job at all, this minor achievment of Blatty taking an intrusive, tack-on character and stocking it with truly Blattian-Exorcist elements.

Thanks, MIKE, for your comments. I know it’s a guilty pleasure, but the Morning character – for me, as a confession – actually gives E3 “that Exorcist feeling” because it reminds us of Merrin, that other saintly priest who had been traumatized, but also faith-strengthened, by a prior encounter with possession.

I feel – tho’ somewhat less so – the same about the exorcism scene. Though it, too, was a tack-on, there was still
“that Exorcist feeling” with the powerful Roman Ritual and its pro-human, anti-Satan admonitions. I just wish they’d held down the pyrotechnics. Friedkin’s film’s exorcism scenes didn’t need fireworks, and neither did Legion. Also I wish Karras could have died of shock-exhaustion, rather than having to be shot to death by his best friend Kinderman.

Technically, Karras’ request to “Shoot now, kill me now, Bill!” violates RCC ethics, which views such an act as a morally forbidden “mercy killing”. It would have been better if Morning’s exortation to Karras was sufficient to strengthen Karras to permit him to throw out the demon. Then Karras could either get a new lease on life, or could, as I said before, just die of shock-exhaustion. (Of course, a living Karras would present huge dramatic problems…)

Good comments, Greg. Yes, Karras’ motivation in having Kinderman kill him may well have been to prevent re-possession. Given the premise of re-possession – this notion is the movies’, not Blatty’s, since in the Legion novel Karras has gone on to his just reward – then quite possibly Karras’s body needs to be killed (for the second time!) to prevent re-possession.

My personal reaction to this is one of extreme discomfort because it gives the demon inordinate power, but at the same time inordinate weakness.

First, it robs Karras of the fulness of his victory in The Exorcist: sure, his sacrifice saves Regan, but – again, contrary to the novel – the glint of triumph Dyer detects in the dying Karras’ eyes is somcehat mitigated, if not rendered meaningless.

Second, if the demon can repossess at will, why didn’t he simply repossess Regan? That would have been the perfect revenge.

Third, if the demon can jump from body to body – in The Exorcist, the demon jumps into Karras, in the Legion film, the demon/the Vennamun spirit jumps into the vacuous minds of “old friends” – then why couldn’t it jump into Kinderman the moment he kills Karras?

Morgan Creek’s insistence that there be an exorcism necessitated some kind of a real demon to be exorcised. This insertion of a Pazuzu-like demon in turn created the scenario of Karras himself – not simply Karras’ _body_ as in Blatty’s Legion – being the victim of a dyadic possession – by both “Pazuzu” and by the Gemini-Vennamun. This in turn created the insisted-upon exorcism scene. Fr. Morning’s exorcism, as in the original Exorcist film and novel, is ineffective, and when all seems lost, Morning’s crucifix-brandishing verbal encouragement (“fight, Damien!”) apparently gives Karras the strength to momentarily break the demon’s control. The demon’s grip, we are led to believe, is broken by Karras’ supreme act of will.

However, if that is the case, then why can’t other possession victims similarly cast out their own demons by a supreme act of will? The whole premise of Blatty’s original novel is that the human will is helpless against the demon’s power. The same is true of the execrable E2/The Heretic, wherein Kokumo’s will cannot cast out the demon. And it’s true of the awful Exorcist The Beginning, and the somewhat better Exorcist: Dominion. All through the “franchise”, from novel(s) to films, no one can remove his/her demon by will power. The one exception is Morgan Creek’s version of Damien Karras.

So: the demon seems inordinately powerful – able to possess and/or re-possess anyone at will. But at the same time, in the Legion film, the demon is inordinately weak because he can be cast out by an act of human will.

If that is the case, one wonders why Karras didn’t simply cast out Pazuzu-Gemini by merely willing it to happen. Neither Morning’s recitation of the Roman Ritual nor Kinderman’s friendship effected Karras’ filmic possesion. In the final analysis it is only the dying Morning’s cheerleading “Fight, Damien” that aids Karras to successfully throw out the demon. Seems a pretty weak premise to me.

Well, I think Christ is probably mentioned in Morning’s recitation of the Roman Ritual. Unfortunately, however, the Ritual is ineffective. The effective factor is Morning’s “Fight, Damien” – which, as you say, doesn’t mention Christ. At least verbally. Visually and symbolically, however, Christ is “present” in Morning’s hand – in the form of a crucifix, which is spotlighted by a divine light (the light of Christ?) But I think you’re right, had Morning said, “Fight him in the name of Christ” it might have been more dramatically and theologically pleasing. Also, Morning holds the crucifix with the corpus facing him, not outward toward the possessed Damien Karras. I think it would have been more effective for the corpus to be facing Damien, not away from him.

Never know, Maybe it was James Robinson.
If there is ever a Special Edition of EXORCIST 3, Obviously I Hope Somehow the original version be there, but either way, I would say they should digitaly fix that.

an example, the most recent DVD Release
for a Nightmare on Elm Street, Had a few minor things done, there was some Recoloring done to most of the nighttime scens and dark scenes, kinda wat happend with the EXORCIST, also theres apart when freddy falls backwards on the stairs, It’s always shown a Mattress on the stairs for the stunt Man, it’s gone Now.