The Exorcist III

aka The Exorcist 1990 aka William Peter Blatty's Legion

Directed by William Peter Blatty
1990
Rated R
110 minutes

Summary from Netflix: William Peter Blatty, who wrote the original novel The Exorcist and the Oscar-winning screenplay, writes and directs Part 3, which is based on his novel Legion. When a supernatural serial killer strikes again, police detective Bill Kinderman (George C. Scott, taking over Lee J. Cobb's role from the first film) investigates. The original's Father Damien, Jason Miller, returns in a guest role.

My rating: ★★★★ out of 5

"I have dreams... of a rose... and of falling down a long flight of stairs."

For years fans pestered Blatty about doing an official sequel to The Exorcist to wash away the horrible sequel known as Exorcist II: The Heretic which came out four years after the success of the original film. Those that never got to see that sequel should be grateful because even though Linda Blair returned as Regan it just was thrown together and hardly worthy of being called a "follow up" in any sense of the term.

I watched the original Exorcist for the first time on cable when I was probably 11 years old with a bunch of my friends at the time in the basement of their house. It was an experience that I would never forget because it managed to get under my skin in ways that made it hard to let go of the emotions I felt that night. It is still one of the few classic horror films out there that still make me a bit jumpy about odd noises in the night after seeing it.

When I first started college in 1990, I decided to take my first venture into being published by working as a movie reviewer for the small student campus paper. It was my pleasure to discover that very weekend was the premiere for Exorcist III and just seemed perfect for my first review. So that Friday I made my way to the local mall and got myself a nice comfy seat for the first afternoon showing since I had no classes that day.

I was sucked into the film as soon as the opening scenes started and it was very much the ride that I expected it to be. George C. Scott made the best of his roll as Detective Kinderman as possible and the duality of the character known as Sunshine/Patient X (played by both Jason Miller and Brad Dourif) was played off quite wonderfully in both writing and acting. The film was a nice balance of a supernatural thriller with an edge of mystery to it since it left the audience guessing who was the killer and how could he/she could possibly be carrying on the same modus operandi of The Gemini Killer who was executed years before. The shocking moments always came out of nowhere for first time viewers which is wonderful to experience in a theater filled with people who jumped, screamed, and even laughed at the right moments just like the writer planned. While the soundtrack by Barry Devorzon was quite good it didn't quite have the same vibe that Jack Nitzsche and Mike Oldfield got while working together on the first film.

During my research for this review however I discovered a much bigger story behind the scenes involving Blatty and the studio executives that I was never aware of before. Blatty came up with a story idea for the sequel and intended for William Friedkin to return to direct it but they had disagreement which left it falling into development hell. That story slowly evolved into the novel Legion, which was published in 1983, allowing Blatty to tie up story elements from the first book and bring a new twist into the core plot by presenting a much different type of evil force for the main characters to face. Morgan Creek approached Blatty about making the novel into a movie but he only agreed unless he was allowed to write and direct the film himself and the production would return to Georgetown so it would remain faithful to the original film and the books.

While the film was completed on time and just slightly over budget the executives and producers informed Blatty after a screening that they were unhappy with his filmed ending and wanted him to rewrite and refilm that segment because "an Exorcist sequel needs to have a demon possession in it" which was a completely different direction then what his actual novel has gone in. He decided to follow their instruction as long as they ponied up the extra filming cost and the cast made the best of the situation as they could including George C. Scott who had major issues with redoing scenes he already thought was his best performance. For those unfamiliar with the book and/or movie I'll just point out the differences between the original ending and the new ending in a footnote below the review to spare those who are sensitive to spoilers before watching/reading it themselves.

When Blatty decided to make a Director's Cut of The Exorcist for the 25th Anniversary of the film he inquired to 20th Century Fox (who released the film at the time) and Morgan Creek to release all of his unused reels of Exorcist III (which included the original completed cut of the film) and behind the scenes footage they had locked away in storage. He was informed to his shock that when Warner Brothers resumed the rights of the Exorcist films a few years earlier all of that material was removed and somehow lost between both companies. Which means that unless some collector out there managed to stumble across those "lost" reels or someone else reveals they had a copy of the original cut then there will never be a Director's Cut of Legion as it was originally intended to be released before the new ending was added on. It's a horrible shame because when you read the novel of Legion you can only imagine what kind of film it would be to experience up on the big screen fully intact.

If you ask me what a good night of scary movies would be.. I'd definitely say watching The Director's Cut of The Exorcist AND Exorcist III as a double feature would be as good as a suggestion as any. Both are great films and having a true sequel in the hands of the original author who is directing the film himself which is actually a great ride on it's own is pretty hard to find these days.



*** SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT ***

The one major thing that separated the original film from the new ending was that Sunshine/Patient X really was Father Damien Karras who somehow managed to survive his horrible fall, autopsy, and burial. He was found wandering around Georgetown with no memory of who he was and placed into an asylum. It was a whole different kind of possession in the original story as the Gemini Killer had grown quite strong in the afterlife and used the body of Kerras to return to living world and resume his gruesome work. The finale of the book and original cut was just a simple showdown between Detective Kinderman and The Gemini Killer and ending with Kinderman finally putting his emotions in check and shooting the body of his old friend and sending the evil spirit inside back to where ever he escaped from. The new ending introduced Nicol Williamson as Father Morning who is called in to perform an exorcism on Patient X and leaves Detective Kinderman in a situation where he must accept the existence of evil until they both find a way to free Damien from his prison,. They also add on the revelation that Pazuzu, the demon who possessed Regan in the original movie, provided Gemini the power to return in Karras's body in revenge of being forced out of his perfect host. Pazuzu and Gemini both share the body with Damien's soul caught in the middle before Kinderman can finally put an end to their control of their vessel. There is a brief scene from the original ending that made it into the trailer for the film which is a scene where Patient X is morphing through various faces while struggling for control of the body. One other thing I wanted to add here is taken from a post on Wikipedia about the ending of the novel version of Legion:

"The final chapter of the novel, an epilogue, has Kinderman at a burger-bar with his faithful partner, Atkins. Kinderman explains to Atkins his thoughts and musings of the whole case and how it relates to his problem of the concept of evil. Kinderman ends by concluding that he believes the Big Bang was Lucifer falling from heaven, and that the entire Universe, including humanity, are the broken parts of Lucifer, and that evolution is the process of Lucifer putting himself together back into an angel."