THE EXORCIST III
A review in the public domain
by The Phantom
(baumgart@esquire.dpw.com)
The Phantom went into THE EXORCIST III with a bad taste in his mouth, and although it may have had more to do with some strange Italian mineral water he had just drunk, he thinks that part of the reason is the general state of horror films today. Through no fault of his own, a few nights ago he was forced to watch most of last year's indescribably bad THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, and as the film plodded through scene after predictable scene of tedious violence and more close-ups of Robert Englund's latex-encased face than even his mother would appreciate, let alone enjoy, the Phantom considered the current state of the horror film.
How things had come from the suspense classics and psychological thrillers of years ago to this monstrosity, this badly plotted affront to the name "Phantom," this latex nightmare, is a mystery. Either audiences have become stupider (for there is no other adequate description of a film like Englund's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA), or filmmakers believe that audiences have become stupider, or there is simply no one left who can direct an intelligent horror film.
Consider the Phantom's most recent reviews, which span just about a year's worth of horror films:
BASKET CASE 2
BRAIN DEAD
CLASS OF 1999
FLATLINERS
THE FIRST POWER
THE GUARDIAN
HALLOWEEN 5
HENRY, PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER
LEATHERFACE
NIGHTBREED
SHOCKER
THE STEPFATHER 2: MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY
TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE
In a year's worth of horror films, how many were good enough that anyone would want to see them once, let alone again on video in years to come? HENRY, and for those phans of the Twilight Zone, BRAIN DEAD. The rest range from downright awful, to predictable, to "well, I know it sucked, but it had great special effects."
Yet as he compiled this roll call of the mediocre, it struck the Phantom that the best of the lot (HENRY and BRAIN DEAD) are both primarily psychological thrillers first and horror films second. Although some graphic violence is depicted in each, these two films achieve their effect through good direction, good plotting, good cinematography, and just plain good story telling. In years gone by, even the Roger Corman/Edgar Allen Poe quickies had some measure of intelligence to them; whether because of the severe restrictions placed on the display of graphic violence, or the infancy of film effects and makeup techniques, or because latex hadn't yet been invented, horror films had to be designed to scare their audiences through subtle manipulations rather than through overt displays of blood and gore.
Of course the Phantom realizes that there were exceptions to this rule -- more than a few low budget gore-fests were produced during the seventies -- but for the most part horror films made before the Jasonized eighties had a different look and feel to them, and the successful ones were successful because they gave us credit for having imaginations and intelligence. However good one thinks the HELLRAISER and EVIL DEAD series are, one would be hard pressed to say that these films were very thoughtful or even more than superficially clever. Alas, it seems that even in the best of the most recent horror films, phans have had to settle for style over substance and clever camera work over original plots and intelligent dialogue.
But what does any of this have to do with the subject of this review, the latest EXORCIST sequel? Just that while THE EXORCIST III isn't a classic horror film, it is certainly a cut above the vast majority of sad excuses for horror films we've seen recently. Best of all, it's a worthy successor to the original EXORCIST, and it all but erases from one's mind its mind-numbing predecessor (though the Phantom must admit that he makes a special stop for it at his local Blockbusters whenever he really needs a good laugh).
The Phantom thinks that this makes for a nice ironic contrast with William Friedkin's 1973 classic, the original EXORCIST. Though THE EXORCIST may have been a lot of things, subtle it was not. But phans must keep in mind the time in which the film was released. 1973 was very much different from 1990 as far as what an audience expected to see in a horror film; in fact, THE EXORCIST is one of the films that so changed our expectations that it spawned an entire sub-genre, the "bogus Catholic theology" genre of horror film (of which this year's THE FIRST POWER is one very unfortunate example).
THE EXORCIST worked because it pulled out all the stops, but times have changed, and the Phantom has seen dozens too many horror films that make THE EXORCIST look like a Disney production. Pea soup and gruesome special effects just don't cut it anymore, and too many recent horror films that were technically excellent still failed to satisfy because they regularly sacrificed story, character, and dialogue to the all-powerful god latex.
And so the Phantom was astonished to see that THE EXORCIST III forsakes almost entirely this false god and so succeeds in a way that few other recent horror films have.
The film is William Peter Blatty's "official" sequel to the original EXORCIST (which was based on his novel of the same name), and it too is based on one of Blatty's novels (in this case, "Legion"), but this time Blatty himself directs from a script that he himself adapted. That alone was enough to give the Phantom pause; after all, the last time a writer had directorial ambitions Clive Barker managed to waste David Cronenberg's startling performance and produce a very mediocre NIGHTBREED. Before that, Steven King imagined that MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE would satisfy those of his phans who up until that point had not been happy with the film adaptations of his novels. (The Phantom thanks heaven above that Rob Reiner, and not King, is directing the forthcoming MISERY, since it was while watching MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE the Phantom discovered what the protagonist of MISERY must have felt like; when asked if would like to see MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE again, the Phantom always responds "I'd rather be in hell with my back broken.")
But Blatty seems to have decided that in EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC he had a safety net: no matter how bad EXORCIST III turned out, it couldn't even approach the sheer awfulness of its most recent predecessor. And so he set out to make a traditional horror film, one that recalls THE OMEN or THE HAUNTING more than it does THE EXORCIST, and one that at times feels more like a play than a film.
It is a film in which people act -- actually act, not just stand around and say things like "It's probably the storm, I'm sure it's just the wind, let me take a look in the basement and make sure" -- and in which the characters speak in complete sentences. The dialogue throughout the film is intelligent, witty and interesting -- one really wants to listen to what the characters are saying, and the dialogue itself contains countless clues to the mysteries of the film's plot. And the film achieves its effects in precisely the way that made the great horror films of the past great: through the use of psychological horror rather than through acres of latex and liters of blood.
In fact, at one point in the film, the Devil, speaking through his latest instrument of death, says that he has always enjoyed Shakespeare's works. Given the structure and tone of much of the film, it's easy to see why. THE EXORCIST III is filled with what in different circumstances might be termed soliloquies. Strange for a film made in the past few years, and stranger still for a horror film. And strangest of all, although this is one of the Phantom's most hated forms of exposition (since he feels it is entirely inappropriate in a visual medium that affords the artist so much freedom), the Phantom found that he enjoyed Blatty's style -- and his script -- immensely.
The story is a simple one, and so the Phantom will have to be careful not to give too much of it away. The action takes place in the present day, 15 years after Linda Blair gave her head-turning performance, and 15 years after the Devil killed Father Karras. Phans will remember that the Devil was exorcised that day, and Blatty reveals that he's been itching for revenge ever since (the Devil, that is, though one could argue that Blatty's been itching for another success; the people who have purchased his last novel have not been, well, legion).
This is the starting point for THE EXORCIST III. George C. Scott plays a detective who was a good friend of Father Karras', and who now has the responsibility of solving a string of bizarre, ritualistic murders that at least initially seem to proceed with no real pattern. Each murder is more gruesome than the next (though phans of bogus Catholic theology films will be glad to know that none tops the acme of these deaths: the priest in THE FINAL CONFLICT (the third OMEN film) who was strung up, wrapped in plastic, and then set on fire as he swung suspended over a television studio), and in time Scott comes to realize that he is dealing with something that is decidedly unnatural. He is plagued by dreams -- first of Father Karras' death as he tumbled down those sinister looking stairs, then by visions of heaven in which the dead and soon to be dead mingle with angels playing big band music and with assorted NBA all-stars (no, the Phantom is not making this up, but it *is* just a dream, you know), and finally he discovers the link between what happened 15 years ago, a series of murders by someone known as "the Gemini killer" that had been solved at about that time, and the murders that are occurring all around him with astonishing regularity. What that link is the Phantom will never divulge, but he warns phans not to get their hopes up; Blatty may be able to make the Devil believable, but John Le Carre he is not.
If the Phantom has made this film sound like another FIRST POWER, or perhaps another PRINCE OF DARKNESS, then he's done it a grave injustice; perhaps it's because so much of what is enjoyable about THE EXORCIST III has nothing to do with its rather shopworn plot. Whereas THE FIRST POWER and PRINCE OF DARKNESS were exceptionally stupid and dim-witted films (respectively), films that did not even come close to doing their subjects justice, THE EXORCIST III delivers. Although Blatty could have turned this into another special effects extravaganza, he directs with a remarkably literate and restrained style. The murders all take place off camera, and yet because the characters describe them, they turn out to be even more effective than the most heavy-handed slash and trash scene. Instead of seeing decapitations and disembowelments, we hear about them -- something truly unique in these very illiterate, yet overly literal, days. It is psychological horror at its very best: we are scared not because of what we see, but because of what we hear and imagine.
And still more remarkably, the film has a very low SLC Quotient [from the Phantom's Dictionary of Horror Film Reviewing Terms: "Spring-Loaded Cat Quotient," so named in honor of the technique Ridley Scott used to scare his audience in ALIEN]. The film has a spare feeling, and most scenes have just two or three people in them; in fact, the film's most effective scenes are staged in a cell in which Scott listens to the Gemini killer discuss his work. Not since HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER has a director attempted to get his audience inside the head of a psychopath, and while John McNaughton was far more successful in his excellent HENRY, Blatty, utilizing some rather eccentric and compelling monologues, comes close.
There are no profound surprises to be found in Blatty's plot, and for a film that starts out with a rather interesting premise, THE EXORCIST III ends in a very conventional way. In fact, the Phantom has heard rumors that the original version of the film did not end with an exorcism as the current version does, and that the ending was mandated by nervous studio executives who didn't feel comfortable releasing a film called THE EXORCIST III if it didn't contain at least one exorcism. These same meddlers might then also be responsible for the film's only scenes of blood and gore, scenes which seem remarkably out of place given the tone of preceding 90 minutes. The Phantom has not read "Legion," so he doesn't know whether or not an exorcism was featured in Blatty's original conception of the story. But the film's ending is both disappointing and jarring -- worse than being simply a bad ending, it seems entirely inappropriate.
But that is but a small quibble. For the most part, Blatty deserves nothing but praise for attempting to raise the genre from the black depths into which Jason, Michael and Freddy have cast it. Simply put, THE EXORCIST III is a very enjoyable, very compelling, and very successful horror film. See it, phans; it's even worth $7.50.
: The Phantom
: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com
: {cmcl2,uunet}!esquire!baumgart
.
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