HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2019: The Exorcist III: Legion (1990)

Today’s sponsor is a man who’s familiar to lovers of adventure, movies and the seven-year wonder that was Better In The Dark, someone I’m proud to call my brother, the one and only Derrick Ferguson!  Derrick has way too many laurels for him to rest on, but you can learn all about him and his prodigious body of work on Ferguson Ink!

Derrick chose for me a sequel to a film we covered earlier in this year’s Horrorfest, The Exorcist III: Legion.  This film has quite a rep as being as scary as the original, and was the second of only two features directed by the man who wrote the novel this film was based on, William Peter Blatty...so I was intensely curious.

Here’s the thing...there are moments where I think it’s a shame Blatty didn’t make more films because he’s amazing, and there are moments where I think Blatty is legitimately insane because of some of his choices.

The film follows Lt. Kinderman (George C. Scott, taking over from Lee J. Cobb in the original) as he investigates a series of murders that reflect the M.O. of the Gemini Killer, who was executed fifteen years ago.  Well, that execution apparently happened concurrent to the death of Father Karras (Jason Miller), and certain forces planted the Killer’s soul in Karras’ body.  Now having repaired himself, the Gemini Killer (Brad Dourif) is killing again, targeting people connected to that exorcism and tormenting Kinderman with rambling monologues....except he’s been confined to a mental hospital and bound in a straitjacket.  How is he getting out to commit these murders, and how did he get ahold of those scary-ass bone shears?

There’s a lot I like in this film.  It’s very quiet, relying on its actors to establish its increasingly unsettling mood.  With the exception of one body in the third act, there’s no on screen violence; it’s all described in dialogue, mostly by Scott and Dourif who know how to deliver some of these lines.  There is almost nothing in the way of jump scares, to the point where the soundtrack sounds way out of place with its music stings.  And there is an overwhelming sense of watching a man’s last nerves torn apart, something Scott effectively conveys throughout the film’s running time.  Blatty knows that violence itself isn’t what scares us, but that the violence happens to someone we know; by the time Nurse Keating (Tracey Thorn) is attacked in what is arguably the most famous scene of this film, we’ve seen her several times before and have gotten attached to her--which makes the shot of the Gemini Killer coming after her with those bone shears all the more upsetting.

But then there’s stuff like that dream sequence that’s partially shot in Grand Central Station where Patrick Ewing doles out tarot cards and the kid who was murdered in the first act tells Kinderman he misses him, or the scene of the woman crawling across the ceiling of the hospital, or that wackdoodle exorcism that was apparently added at the behest of the studio.  Those scenes seem to come from an entirely different film, and they disrupt this atmosphere of bleakness and despair that Blatty skillfully created.  The final twenty minutes in particular seems not to belong with the first ninety, as we’re treated to Nicol Williamson (who appears out of nowhere) being covered in snakes, holes opening up in the floor and Scott being flung around the room like a rag doll.

I should mention Brad Dourif, who shows up as the real inhabitant of Father Karras’ body halfway through, stares down Scott and proceeds to take possession of this film.  Sure, some of his monologues are the kind of Movie Ka-Razy that make me cringe, but the bulk of it is fascinatingly creepy.  He is the MVP of this film, hands down.

I should also mention the appearance of one Zohra Lampert, who plays Kinderman’s wife.  To me, Lampert will always be the Goya Lady, the spokesman for a company that sold a variety of Latin foods.  I don’t know if those commercials were anything other than regional, but they imprinted on me something fierce.  Everytime she was on-screen, I thought ‘Goya, oh boya!’

Even though some of those weirder touches infuriated me, but the majority of the film fascinated me.  I am certainly interested in the Director’s Cut that emerged in 2016, and I think it’s sad that Blatty’s experience making this soured him on filmmaking.  It is very recommended...just be ready for some unintentional silliness.

Our sponsors for tomorrow is the comic book writer/artist team who has brought to life such iconic characters as Jonah Hex, Power Girl and Harley Quinn, the masterminds of Paper Films, Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner!  They’ve chosen for me a remake made by a favorite director of mine that also features one of the Best Theme Songs Of All Time, Paul Schrader’s 1982 version of Cat People!

Anyone who joins the Domicile of Dread Patreon at the $3 or more slot not only gets bits of writing and exclusive podcasts (like the upcoming Pacific Rim Rialto and maybe a little surprise at the end of this month), but can sponsor one of those slots and choose the film I have to watch and report on!