CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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Yeah, I think the scene would have been more powerful if it had had her say, “Now put his c–k in his hands. The last rites” just after her nasty little giggle.
Ex III Legion is one of my favorite films, but in some ways it’s a guilty pleasure. I think Blatty missed a few points by:
Not keeping the “night of the MacNeil exorcism” scene where Kinderman sees Karras’s corpse in the autopsy room and says, “Goodbye, Damien.” Scott could have grown a mustache for the part to at least suggest the Kinderman viewers are familiar with. In fact the immediate post-Karras window-jump scene could have been re-shot with a mustached-and-hatted Scott looking out of Regan’s shattered window. A darker-hair-dyed Ed Flanders could also show up at the bottom of the steps to hear Damien’s last confession.
Having Kinderman standing not two feet distant from a huge, glaring murder clue: the decapitated Christ statue in the hospital corridor. The real Kinderman would not have missed this.
Making mentally afflicted people spooky. Friedkin’s film avoided this – when Karras visits his mother in the hospital, the afflicted are seen as such. Their _afflictions_ are presented as disturbing, but the patients themselves retain their humanity. They are not used for cheap laughs as when in Legion the elderly wheelchair patient exposes himself to the nurse. That’s bad, pandering writing – and it isn’t funny.
Rolling the beginning credits over the long shot moving down the Georgetown street. This shot is sufficiently creepy that it deserves not to be cluttered over with writing. Also, the writing tends to obscure the _very_ creepy cassocked priest who runs across the street twice – a very important element of shading and resonance for the film.
False scares should have had no place in this film, e.g., the church secretary who screams at Kinderman while delivering notes of a speech to the college president; the knife-wielding saint “Joker” statue in the college building’s lobby; the ice cracking in the glass and the patient screaming at Nurse Keating. The original Exorcist was free of all these kinds of cliched, false scares – except the scene where Karl startles Chris in the attic. However, this scene was integral to telling the “poltergeist” element of the story, and was therefore justified. Not so Legion’s junk scares.
Scott’s nasty, aggressive Kinderman – unrecognizable as the Kinderman of the novel and original film. Also the invented long-term “best” friendship between Kinderman and Karras. This could have been remedied somewhat by a newly-shot flashback showing Scott and Karras interacting as friends 15 years earlier. Granted, this would also be “invention,” but it would make Kinderman’s statements of “best” friendship with Karras more plausible. It could have been shot at a distance with requisite CGI and makeup to make Scott and Miller appear younger.
Still, Exorcist III Legion, with all its flaws, still remains one of my best-liked films.
For me I joined the site because its excellence combined with my love of the novel and movie. Folks around here appreciate the genius of the film and novel. We range from materialists and skeptics to cautious believers to strong religionists to agnostics, but what we have in common is our devotion to the Exorcist phenomenon and to Captain Howdy’s excellent website. Stimulating conversation, state of the art news updates, nice people.
Hard to say exactly why I like the film so much – I thought the book was much better, but also think that Blatty and Friedkin’s judicious decisions about the film created one of the greatest films of all time.
First, I love Blatty’s characters. I love the way he was able to scare me with psychological, not primarily physical, dread. I love the way he hints at the possibility of spirituality and redemption even amid life’s “dung” so well portrayed in the possession of an adolescent girl. When Karras makes his silent confession to Dyer at the bottom of the steps, something transcendent enters both novel and film – something we don’t see every day in books or movies.
If anything at all is historical about Jesus, other than his crucifixion, then it is the tradition that he was a wonder-worker and exorcist. The Exorcist so presents him. The demon is challenged to depart because “the power of Christ” compels him. In the novel, the demon is aware of Christ and His power. And the demon is finally vanquished by the Christ-like self-sacrifice of Damien Karras. Like Jesus on the cross, Karras felt abandoned by God. Yet, also like Jesus, at the end, he put his faith in a power greater than himself: “Into your hands I commend my spirit” might well have been Damien Karras’s final thought.
This is what rabid fundamentalists, with their hatred of Catholicism as well as many kinds of mainstream Christianity, cannot and will not admit to: The Exorcist happens to be one of the greatest religious – even Christian – films of all time.
It was different from any other film, horror or not, up to its time. It took a documentary and intellectual approach, employing understatement combined with scenes of deep shock. It portrayed its characters realistically, including its priests. It set the standard of all subsequent horror films. It outraged sensibilities and provoked debate.
No, I don’t think it was a “political” film with a social message – its primary intent was to entertain and to shock. However, the way in which Blatty wrote the novel and Friedkin directed the film was bound to make the audience ask questions about the nature of reality and the function of religion in relation to that question. But it wasn’t a “message” film in my view.
It’s also the point of his full “awakening to faith”, albeit darkly. All psychiatric and religious doubt is now gone – Karras knows the demon is real.
I don’t see why it has to be a hoax/prank on the one hand and an authentic possession on the other. The kid could have “enhanced” his symptoms, sure. But there are eyewitness reports of paranormal activity and the kid’s use of more or less sophisticated Latin. It comes down to one’s subjective belief threshold. For those who completely dismiss the paranormal, then prank/hoax must suffice. For those who don’t dismiss the paranormal, then the manifestations can be viewed as genuine – with or without “assistance” from the kid.
Ex III Legion was a very uneven film. However, it has given me much satisfaction even through multiple viewings… so I can say it’s one of my favorite movies (though, in parts, it’s a “guilty pleasure”).
I don’t regard Kinderman’s dream as taking place in heaven – looks more like purgatory or the bardo state. People aren’t there permanently, that’s why it resembles a train station. Also I like that the scene’s lead-in is a shot of a rosary falling through space – a nod to Friedkin’s shot of the St Joseph medal falling in Karras’s dream.
Some of it was ludicrous, e.g., the “sharp as a tack” Kinderman standing not three feet away from the decapitated Christ statue; the invented bit of “Damien Karras was my best friend”; especially miserable was the “wheelchair patient exposes himself to the nurse” scene – in the first film the sick and mentally ill, though disturbing to see, were treated compassionately as victims – but Legion ineptly makes them “spooky” -or ribald, as in the exhibitionist scene.
The “ceiling crawl” didn’t strike me as funny. It creeped me out the first time I saw it – because it was completely unexpected. Up to that point the film had not prepared the viewer for any egregiously paranormal activity (other than the Pazuzu wind blowing through the church & Morning’s room – that kind of thing). So when the old lady ceiling-creeps, it it did make me jump a little. Granted, it’s a silly image, but so was Regan’s “spider walk” and head-spinning – and _those_ didn’t get too many laughs, nor were they intended to.
Anyway, I don’t expect tons of folks to love Legion – especially since I do consider it a guilty pleasure… but oh, how I’d like to see some of the lost scenes restored, e.g., Kinderman’s “goodbye” to the dead Karras in the coroner’s autopsy room…
Yeah, not only awesome priestly characters, but unlike all too many horror novels and films, Blatty provided believable, _authentic_ priests. Their willingness to help, even to sacrifice themselves, stands out against the schlock horror cliche’ of the “crazy, creepy, sinister, ineffectual” clergyman who haunts so many films and books.
Yeah, a nut job, but one sanctioned by fellow nutters. There are far too many denominations, sub-sects, congregations, churches, and faux-“Born Again” individuals that hold and promote the same kind of “thinking” as the OP. From their POV, it’s the world, not themselves, that’s “nuts.” Even some mainstreamers come close, e.g., Billy Graham’s claim that a demon lives in the very celluloid of The Exorcist.
Worst part of it is, they can’t help themselves – they are dogma-and-duty-bound to “witness” to what they perceive as a “fallen” world. If they don’t do this, then they have failed in the so-called “Great Commission” to spread their faith – which equates to failing their Lord and annulling their salvation. In a sense I suppose it’s an honor to be targeted by such individuals as the OP. Means we’re doing something right.
