[Jaygon]

As I stated in another thread, it is the introduction of the concept of Legion without addressing whether Pazuzu is one of those demons or if it was “one or many” in the original.
We should e-mail Blatty himself!Only he knows!

[iamnoone]

Greetings fellow fans…my very first post (LONG time watcher of the site!).

Actually, I have always regarded “The Ninth Configuration” as the true “sequel” (number 2). I have no clue if this has ever been discussed in this forum. It’s truly a remarkable film, and although its ties to the Exorcist are minimal, it’s creepy (to me).

It makes a much better “Exorcist 2”.

I have to really disagree with you about the dream sequence. The only bad part of the film is the ridiculous ending. The true ending (novel) is always what I want to see on the screen.

[Greg]

I too have always believed The Ninth Configuration was the true sequel. It is an excellent film, very well written and directed, laced with great performances, and has a lot of great things to say whereas Exorcist II has always been a gigantic mess. I think the original script of EII was still a gigantic bombastic misunderstanding of the Exorcist universe.

I actually wrote a review/history on Exorcist III a few years ago. Here’s my honest points: (It’s a lot to read though)
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Now I’ve only felt that The Exorcist III was only ok/fine. Ok doesn’t mean it was bad though, and certainly not as bad EII. I like the fact that Blatty wrote and directed it himself, and did a good adaptation of his book, Legion. Here’s some trivia you might be aware of or not: Originally, Blatty wanted to release this just as “Legion,” but of course the studio didn’t like that idea and wanted the audience to know that this was an Exorcist film and make sure it was known that it relates to the original. So they wanted to release it as The Exorcist III. Blatty though had two BIG problems with that. One, there was no exorcism in this film or any from the book. So why call it Exorcist? Two, why would you want to acknowledge Exorcist II which was incredibly horrendous and give this a numeral III?

Unfortunately, Blatty had to abide to the Warner Bros’s wishes and he placed an exorcism in the film that in terms of its preparation and development with Father Morning it wears a little thin. Morning is only mentioned once and he then has two scenes to himself where he experiences weird phenomenon though there is no explanation. When first watching his scenes, you think he just knows that there is something wrong, but doesn’t have any idea Patient X has something to do with it. We seem to know as an audience that something is wrong, but it doesn’t signal to us as signs of possession like in the original. So somehow he gets the premonition that there’s something at this ‘different’ psychiatric hospital. The exorcism in this film is actually my favorite part of the film, and it gives the necessary nostalgia we have for the original. Though I think certain elements of the exorcism are also a bit bombastic: bible catches on fire, snakes everywhere, collapsing head? It was Jason Miller’s freakish demonic performance (with a Mercedes McCambridge-like voice similar to Regan in the original) that made me love it a lot. That brings me to another point: the great internal, natural Jason Miller who played Father Damien/Patient X was not even originally in the production. It wasn’t until after Blatty screened his first cut to studio execs that they asked for an exorcism and wanted a member of the original cast to be put in place to give it some actual nostalgia (sounds like at least one exec went to film school). Brad Dourif who is famous for Chucky and now Grima Wormtongue that plays the Gemini Killer in that film was also originally Father Damien entirely in the rest of that film. In fact, the scene where Damien takes his dive originally showed Dourif simulating the fall. In the trailer to Exorcist III, you will hear a voice screaming the original lines, “Take me!! Come into me!!! TAKE ME!!!” Then we cut to Blatty’s new and grimer look at the stair ‘descent.’ It’s Brad Dourif’s voice. So Blatty had to go back and reshoot all the Damien scenes including the picture of him in the beginning once he got Miller (don’t know why he didn’t get him before– scheduling problems?) and the result is an even better schizophrenic, nostalgic fight between poor, “metaphysically raped” wronged Father Damien and overzealous, “Igor-like” psychopath showman James Vehenman. Incidently (yes, incidently– hee hee), I prefer Miller’s more truthful sounding psychotics to Dourif’s “look at me I’m a psycho killer” scenario, though Dourif is quite brilliant himself. “Oooh, a few boos from the gallery.” I suppose this is one of the few times I have heard a studio making a right decision about a film (though some other decisions from the studio also caused some problems on the other hand), though some Exorcist III die-hard fans wanted a director’s cut without the exorcism.

Humorous enough because Blatty knew that he was partially responsible for the making of Exorcist II: The Heretic because he gave away his rights to allowing WB to make only one sequel without his involvement, Blatty does not show the house at all when Father Dyer takes a look down those famous ‘Hitchcock’ steps again. I think it was pointed out by someone here that The Exorcist III could have been a lot better if certain things were allowed a little more concentration instead of what they picked. I agree for reasons that it should have been obvious, and these are problems that filmmakers would usually notice. That is why some people still felt this sequel was cursed itself for Blatty’s decisions and the studio’s decisions, even though that may sound superficial. Blatty’s damaged movie. For example, I myself think they spend way too much time on The Gemini Killer’s psychotic confessions. Yes, it’s very fascinating the first time around, but by the third it gets a bit old. It would have been better to spend more time with the humanity of the characters especially more so with George C. Scott’s breakdowns over Dyer’s death. There are a number of things that also don’t make sense in conjuction with the original Exorcist. One, in Exorcist III Scott’s character of Lt. William Kinderman (played originally by the great American method actor Lee J. Cobb– yay!!! unfortunately died in ’77) was supposed to be best friends with Jason Miller’s Father Damien. When did this happen? Damien and Kinderman only meet in one scene in the original film. I suppose they could have developed an off-screen friendship during that film, but that seems like too much speculation. This theory though thins out when Kinderman is seen ‘watching’ Damien leave the MacNeil house in the original. If they were friends, why didn’t he say ‘hi?’ Because he was undercover? That’s highly unlikely. And when did they have the time to take that picture seen in the opening scene? It has been speculated by other Exorcist III fans that Kinderman was so lonely that he would ‘make up’ friendships that may have not really been as close as you would think as seen where he keeps asking people to see movies with him. Friedkin in the original always said that was his Columbo approach to get people to like him as he slowly finds out the truth, so I’m not sure if that was ever an idea that was conceived in the original. Kinderman and Dyer seem to have had a better chance of developing such a friendship in the Version You’ve Never Seen that shows Kinderman and Dyer meeting at the end. It was also Dyer who was only seen during Damien’s ‘death’ in the original played by a brilliant non-actor Father William O’Malley.

O’Malley himself played Dyer as a bit of a ham, but a very caring, warm, and friendly man. Ed Flanders who plays Dyer in III (respect to Flanders who also died in ’95) plays him more with a cynical, jaded, sarcastic, and closed-off exterior. I understand that Flanders is entitled to his own interpretation especially so since he was an accomplished actor vs. O’Malley was only an accomplished priest. Yet we seem to miss the old Dyer, and when he meets his death, we felt like we missed a great chance to see that old side of him again. Scott and Dyer who are obviously good friends seem to spend more time talking about things that bother them than really opening up like all the characters ordinarily. I believe Blatty is giving us more a grim, pessimistic, and dehumanized view of the world with III, but by doing so seems to cut off the emotions from reaching full potential carthasis to the audience. Stanley Kubrick was infamous for directing actors to be dehumanized always gave very potent, strong, concentrated, isolated moments of heavy emotion which was essentially the point that will really jump at the audience. In fact, Kubrick was originally one of the directors they asked to direct the original. Yet there does not seem to be really that much indication of that theory here. Scott does have moments where he explodes, but they quickly subside as if nothing happened. Another thing that could have been better explained was Scott’s reluctance to spend time with his family. Even that explanation there gives too much credit. His family seems to really care for him, but not enough is seen to really up the stakes later when the family is threatened. We barely see the family, and suddenly now they’re in trouble? Less of the Gemini’s diatribes would have helped. I’m also not sure why there are so many blasted cameos/guest appearances in this film such as Larry King, Patrick Ewing, Samuel L. Jackson, Silvia Sidney, and even a Child’s Play reference to Brad Dourif.

I think also at times Blatty could have focused less on the character’s conversations to ‘pass time’ and all these regular occurances: ‘”Like what’s your favorite movie?” -“The fly.”, “There’s a cod in my bathtub. I wanna kill it.”, “You’re reading Women’s Daily?”‘ Tarantino does this a lot in his films where people are talking a lot about everyday or unusual things not directly coherent to the story. Though with a film that requires this much explanation and emotional output, it would have been more beneficial to see more of the truth behind the friendships, the family, the corrupted doctors, and Scott’s lack of faith. In fact, most of the exposition comes from the Gemini Killer who talks mostly about how much he loves killing people, the precise specifications to his bloody work, and even random bits of information that doesn’t seem to even motivate Kinderman into staying, and only little bit of the plot is figured out by Kinderman himself. Most of these things are implied, however these emotional human traits are abundant within the original Exorcist. I’m not trying to make a direct comparison here, but that’s why The Exorcist is such a masterpiece. It is due to its great attention to detail in telling the story through people’s woes, emotions, flaws, mistakes, and lack of faith. Exorcist III is more of what Blatty does well as a writer: a heavily detailed account of what goes into science and religion mixed together with complexed descriptions, a lot of technicialites, and theological discussion. Though as a director, I think the writer part got the best of him. This was also his second and last film to date as a director. My favorite bits are always when they refer to the original. I love the new versions of the stair fall, those creepy narrations by Patient X about nightmares of a rose and the fall, and that one bit where the priest makes the connection to the Regan MacNeil exorcism and we hear suddenly a quiet giggle taken directly from that film. I also love that shot of the three helicopters behind the sun– very surreal. I love a lot of the performances in it even though they are a bit inhibited by the complete dehumanization. Miller is my favorite uttering Gemini lines with such joyous ambigiousness like, “It’s a wonderfulL life,” “Little Debbie…. pink…. ribbons in her hair…,” and “You again. You’ve interrupted me. This time you’re going to looooooose,” and then his non-dehumanized (mainly the only really human bits) where he cries, “Ohh Bill!!!” and “We won– now free me.” Dourif is very entertaining with his blasphemous outbursts and with, “Littllle Jaaaack Hornerrr,” and “Ohhh, good…. gracious me… Was I rambling?” Scott is great when he gives us his soul, but then we don’t really know how he feels afterwards. Don’t get me wrong, I think The Exorcist III is entertaining and interesting, but something that only takes one or two viewings to learn everything about it. And I have only seen it three times.

Did you know Blatty originally wanted Carpenter to direct Legion? But when he declined fortunately, Blatty put matters into his own hands. Friedkin denounces all the follow-ups as rip-offs (except Dominion interestingly enough), but he does respect Blatty a great deal. I guess he just has reservations about the studio granting Blatty to do this sequel. I guess Friedkin was like– why bother?
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[Benocles_Czar]

Friends,

I am confused at this posting in that I gather you are discussing the adaptations, rather than the text. E3 is clearly the sequel to E; if you get the chance, read The Exorcist and follow it up with Legion (which E3 is loosely based on).

Cheers & God Bless
Benjamin Szumskyj

[Father Lamont]

Most people here agree that William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III is the true/if not only sequel to the Exorcist that we know and love. We can all list the high points of the film. But can someone really be honest and state what’s bad about the film. Kinderman’s dream is way out of place and dumb. Everything else is top nothc film making if you ask me. What do you think.

Also, do you think at one point The Exorcist II could have been good. Does anyone have a copy of the ORIGINAL script?

[Author]

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