‘Exorcist III’ and the Art of the Unnecessary Sequel
The more celebrated a film, the more wary people become about its sequels. The Exorcist is very possibly, after fifty years, still the most celebrated horror movie ever made. As a result, it is almost impossible to convince anyone to check out one of its sequels. In fact, outside of the general horror community, just talking to friends in day-to-day life, I have brought up Exorcist III countless times, I have sung its praises to people who have seen and loved the original. I have never successfully convinced anyone to actually see it. This is absurd, because there are so many reasons to recommend this film. First and foremost, Exorcist III was written and directed by original author/screenwriter William Peter Blatty, based on his novel Legion. While that novel features the return of Lieutenant Kinderman as its lead, that’s about as far as it goes in terms of being an actual sequel to that original novel. The film pushes the story more in the direction of a true sequel, largely thanks to studio interference, but even with that interference it is unquestionably one of the best horror sequels of all time.
The film follows Lieutenant Kinderman, played by the incredible George C. Scott, as he investigates a series of murders that seem at first glance to be committed by a copycat of the Gemini Killer, a serial killer executed fifteen years prior. As the investigation deepens, Kinderman begins to wonder if this is really a copycat, or if this is the Gemini Killer somehow returned to life, as impossible as that might be. They are recreating the crimes authentically, in ways never revealed to the press.
Kinderman is led to eventually visit a patient at a mental health facility who has been mostly comatose the past fifteen years, until he began to claim he was the Gemini Killer. The patient is none other than Father Damien Karras, who somehow survived his fall down the steps at the end of the original film, and has in fact become possessed by the Gemini Killer. From there, it only grows stranger, more sinister, and more intense.
Everyone in Exorcist III acts their ass off. The casting of George C. Scott is absolutely brilliant. His performance works in a very similar way to his earlier performance in 1980’s The Changeling, perhaps the greatest haunted house movie ever made. Exorcist III works because it is so character-focused. It is such a unique sequel in that respect, especially considering the fact that it centers on a fairly minor character from the original. Some of Scott’s greatest moments in the movie don’t even really have anything to do with horror.
My favorite example is early on, when Kinderman gives a whole monologue about a carp his wife is keeping alive in the bathtub before killing before a family feast because she refuses to buy fish from the grocery store due to the “impurities.” I think about this scene all the time. It is so out-of-left-field and yet so well-acted. His hatred for this fish is palpable. It has nothing to do with the plot and that’s good because we are establishing a character we need to believe is a real person, with a life and a family, people he holds dear but also drive him crazy at times. All of that is important. Any person we believe is real is a person we believe can be terrified, and a person for whom we become terrified when the horror starts, no matter their gruff exterior.
This is a film that can be genuinely disarming when it comes to the horror, too. The procedural revolving around the supposed return of the Gemini Killer is so engrossing, and so are Kinderman’s friendship with Father Dyer and his interactions with pretty much everyone else in the movie, that you can almost forget that you’re watching a horror film at times. When the horror does happen, though, Blatty hits you with some of the most unsettling imagery ever put on screen. Even visions of angels, which start almost tranquil at first, feel like a trip to Hell. Then there’s the old woman crawling across the ceiling like a spider. The decapitated statue. Brad Dourif in just a single scene giving one of the most terrifying performances of all time as the reincarnated Gemini Killer.
Then, of course, there is Exorcist III’s biggest claim to fame: the greatest jump scare in cinema history. I know that talking about it here is going to diminish its power for anyone who hasn’t seen it. But it is impossible to talk in-depth about this film without talking about the sheer power of that scene. The camera is static throughout the entire scene. It almost never moves. It’s a single shot. We’re looking at a nurse’s station from a distance and even though we’re looking from a distance, it feels like we’re watching through a security camera. Audiences know the building blocks of a good jump scare, even when they don’t consciously realize it. At this point, the viewer is waiting for something to happen.
The nurse goes about her rounds, she talks to a security guard, he sits down, gets up, sits back down, leaves, and the scene keeps going. And going. And going. And still the scare doesn’t come. Therein lies the brilliance. Blatty knew people were watching and waiting for something to happen, so the scene goes on just long enough so that the viewer lets their guard down, and decides it’s gone on long enough. The jump isn’t coming. And that’s when it comes, the very second they let their guard down. With a runtime in mind and executives breathing down a director’s neck about holding the audience’s interest, that’s an almost impossible scare to pull off. But it works because, in how many other ways the film was interfered with, the director had total, masterful control over that scene.
The Exorcist III was not a hit at the time, even though it was a sequel to the most infamous horror movie ever made, still widely hailed as “the scariest movie of all time.” Part of that is no doubt due to the fact that Exorcist II had been seen as a colossal failure. Even though that movie was thirteen years old by the time Exorcist III was released, the memory still lingered and the damage was done. Thirty-five years after Exorcist III hit theaters, though, it has finally received its share of respect. Many even prefer it to the original. I’ve certainly met people who even consider this their favorite horror film of all time. Regardless, it holds a worthy and virtually undisputed legacy as the one truly great Exorcist sequel.
