CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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Fr. Fletcher
Good commentary. One thing I liked about TVYNS was the addition of Karras listening to audiotapes of the pre-possession Regan in the language lab.
First, it shows the huge contrast between the possessed Regan and her normal persona, and it shows Karras deeply involved in absorbing this dichotomy.
Second, it forms a perfect bridge to the next scene where Karras is celebrating Mass. It is obvious from his inflection and his eyes that the Regan tapes have put the hook into his crisis of faith. He almost looks with a dawning wonder at the Eucharistic elements. The tapes have put a new hope into his soul: perhaps the colossal difference between normal Regan and possessed Regan means that the possession is genuine. This intuition gives an entirely new connotation to the Mass’s words as Karras says them, “This is the cup of my blood, the new covenant… THE MYSTERY OF FAITH”. Faith stirs in Karras because of the tapes – something that is not obvious in the original film.
Yeah, Greg, in ref to E2, I was never sure what “terms of achievement” it was aiming for. It didn’t scare me, it made me laugh inappropriately, it ruined Blatty’s ideas and characters. It did have about sixty seconds of interesting stuff from Merrin (“does goodness draw evil to itself?”) and the color and photography were top notch. But it didn’t have a message beyond “Regan’s possession was not unique, Pazuzu is trying to destroy these New Holy Kids thru possession…”
That’s how I felt about EII, Greg. What a howler of a bad movie, it took Blatty’s great material and stomped all over it.
Yeah, it was similar to Legion, one of the best X Files. Dourif should be recognized for his work in Legion, one of the most riveting performances ever.
sigiam2
That would be great… would you be able to review the music score too? Whoever the composer is, s/he will find Jerry Goldsmith’s original score for the first 3 Omen films a hard act to follow.
Sorry, I have to disagree on this one. Bad effects are bad effects and distract from the narrative. Dominion’s African exorcism is the crucial faith-and-life crystalizing event for Merrin. It is in no sense less important and significant than the events in The Exorcist, and therefore it should have been fleshed out with state of the art special effects. We are dealing in Dominion with Father Merrin’s crisis, which is as central to Dominion as is Karras’s crisis in The Exorcist, and Merrin’s story deserved streamlined sfx as much as did Karras’s and Regan’s story. (I realize that time and money problems restricted the sfx quality, but that is not relevant to the argument I am making here.)
There is no “charm” in Dominion’s badly rendered hyenas, just embarrassment. Moreover, the excuse that bad sfx migh possibly imply an earlier way of film making, and therefore an earlier historical time period, is not valid, because the rest of the film is not shot in such a way. We know it’s 1947 because we are shown Nazi-occupied “Holland: 1944” and then told that a few years have elapsed, and we are shown people driving around in late-Fourties vehicles, rooms with fans instead of air conditioning, etc. None of these items is presented badly in the way the sfx are bad.
In short: if you are arguing that the sfx ought to make the film “look older”, then logically the entire film should have been shot “older” – it should have been in black and white, there should have been a lot of noticable reel-break spots in the film, the sound should not have been “Dolby”, the musical score should have been in 40’s style, etc.
But since the rest of the film was not “retro” _except_ for the sfx, it does not work in the way you suggest. In fact, the sfx become even _more_ obtrusive when considered as a (failed) attempt to artificially “date” the film.
One thing in favor of #2, Damien: it was the only truly human character development for Damien. He doesn’t take the news that he is the Antichrist well at all: “why me?!” or words to that effect. An identity crisis and a crisis of conscience. It’s the only issue of depth in the entire trilogy.
The Final Conflict had a superb “religious/spiritual” score for the Second Coming motif, and a sort of fundamentalistic grandeur re: the “new Christmas star”. But the rest was garbage, especially theologically: God’s “end time plan”, including the return of Christ, depends on an act of murder by purely human means. If the mother had not stabbed Damien – in the back, no less! – we are to think that God, playing by “Omen rules”, would have lost the ultimate battle. Sheer nonsense.
Captain Howdy might be seen as Regans’ “dark” or “demonic substitute” father – in fact, the book has doctors surmise that the name Howdy is related to Regan’s Dad’s name, “Howard”. But the book makes clear that Captain Howdy is truly a non-human demon, whose “fatherly” role, if any, toward Regan, was a trick to win her trust and to smooth the way to full possession.
Thanks for your comments, cappy. I like your idea of having the demon play with the audience’s mind, which could be done with the right kind of writing, e.g., the way Douriff plays with our minds in Legion, and how Hopkins plays with our minds in the Hannibal movies.
I agree, Greg… I just wish the minor-chord Main Theme had been edited to play louder. On my DVD at least, it’s far too quiet and could use some boosting.
Dominion: more art, more heart, more resonance, more depth, more intellect, more literary value in general.
Blatty makes clear that Karras’ poverty is related to his vocation as a Jesuit, not to his avocation as a psychiatrist. He did not have a lucrative psychiatric “business” – rather, he was a counselor to other Jesuits. Presumably the “vow of poverty” so sarcastically alluded to by Douriff in “Legion” precludes a large personal salary for Karras. Certainly Damien’s uncle shames Karras that IF Karras had been “a famous psychiatrist by now, Park Avenue, instead of this… (“this” being his mother treated in a poor ward of a hospital).
Karras’s “past problems” were in the recent past, i.e., his crisis of faith, his religious doubts, his midlife crisis, his guilt re: his mother’s poverty. His youth seems to have been fine, but his crises began with the onset of middle age.
Karras was not simply poor “because he wanted”. His vow of poverty which he took on entering the Jesuit order probably preceded his psychiatric degree by many years. Jesuits and most other priest, especially when they’ve taken the vow of poverty, know that they will likely not have a large bank account. Both Karras and his mother knew this as soon as he decided on the priesthood.
I’ve surmised that Blatty’s experience shaped his characterization of Karras: Blatty’s Dad walked away when Blatty was a young child – Dad just walked away one day and never came back, leaving Blatty and his Mom (Karras and his Mom) alone to fend for themselves. Both Blatty’s parents came to the U.S. on a cattle boat, poor Lebanese immigrants. Blatty describes his father as a gentle man with a Chaplinesque gait.
I second and third the motion for more demonic dialogue. The book’s demonic dialogue, though lurid, at least established that the invading personality was supernaturally ancient, evil, and wise. But the movie’s demon didn’t convince me of any of those qualities – more dialogue could have delineated the demon’s truly alien character.
Also, I was disappointed in the demon’s voice – granted, not as bad as in Heretic and Legion – but the book describes a booming bass male voice. As effective as Mercedes McCambridge’s vocalizations were, still the demon’s voice for me at least was far too female-sounding.
