Have you ever wondered what it would be like to watch a book? If so, look no further than William Peter Blatty’s 1990 film The Exorcist III. Because here in The Papermaker Mag I’m given an excuse to talk about incredulous films that defy logical reason, this feels like the perfect place to discuss this enjoyably convoluted artwork. William Peter Blatty directed only two movies: The Ninth Configuration and The Exorcist III. The former film was a preachy theological envisioning which tackled a familiar “God and Evil” trope, and the latter film is an indictment of social institutions and perpetuity of evil within the modern world. Both films share a common theme - William Peter Blatty’s love for literature. Few films exist in the same artistic realm as The Exorcist III, and that can entirely be attributed to Blatty. Before continuing in this review, I highly suggest that you watch the film. If you choose to read this review first, there is a good chance that what ensues will sound so off-the-wall that you will never be persuaded into a first viewing.
The film opens with Father Dyer, played by Ed Flanders (who also had a role in The Ninth Configuration), walking through Georgetown in Washington D.C. and Detective William Kinderman, played by George C. Scott, sitting at his desk. As the theme of The Exorcist begins, we’re treated to a callback of the original film through a reversed shot of the infamous staircase, and the audience assumes we’re about to go on a familiar adventure through the world of The Exorcist. However, the familiar music halts in less than fifteen seconds, and the camera moves inside of an emptied church, where a single rose lies. Catholic iconography fills the screen before wind blows open the doors to the church. A statue of Jesus opens its eyes and looks at the camera with dread as the wind flings church programs and fliers into the air and extinguishes the previously lit candles. The framing moves out the door and wanders the streets of Georgetown as we listen to heavy breathing and an overarching voice which says, “I have dreams of a rose, and falling down a long flight of steps.” An abrupt cut sends the viewer to helicopters scanning a nearby river as Father Dyer preaches in the background, speaking of “God, the Prince of Peace.” He says “The Lord is the defender of my life” as we cut to a harsh comparison of Detective Kinderman examining a body near the water, an obvious muder scene. This is the first six minutes of The Exorcist III.
Not frequently do I find it necessary to interrupt the brief synopsis often included in film reviews, but it will be required in this write-up. During the introductory credits, director William Peter Blatty references characters or major events of the first film three times (once during the introduction of each of the two main characters, and a third time during the reuse of the theme music). Blatty also subverts expectations by rapidly cutting away from these references as if to say “That was then, this is now” to the audience. Blatty also touches on the nature of the allowance of evil under God as was explored in The Ninth Configuration, introduces an off-screen murder of a character not yet seen, and films teritiary characters saying things like “I am flight”. In six minutes, Blatty has successfully forced the audience to pay attention to every detail of his film, as they have no idea what kind of information will be important.
As the movie pushes forward past the first six minutes, we begin to learn more about our protagonists Father Dyer and Detective Kinderman. Father Dyer sits with a member of the clergy and reports his plan to watch It’s a Wonderful Life, which Dyer has seen 37 times. Dyer reports that it is this day that he is responsible for going to cheer up Detective Kinderman. Meanwhile at the precinct, Kinderman consults with colleagues and explains Macbeth is “a play about the moral sense”, while accusing his colleague of being a racist for not taking the death of the boy (which we were introduced to in the first six minutes) personally. He further elaborates on the poor culture of his partner, saying that he wrote, “Rabies [sic] are Jewish priests” on his police entrance exam. Kinderman insinuates he would get more information regarding the boy’s murder from an alien species on Mars than from his colleagues and leaves the police station angrily. Kinderman returns home, meets his family (and overtly racist mother-in-law), and reports that he is responsible for going to cheer up Father Dyer today. Both Kinderman and Dyer meet up yearly under this pretext at the movies.
At the movies, Kinderman brandishes his badge to get in without a ticket under the guise of “Police business”, while Dyer searches feverishly for lemon drops (which he says he became addicted to after smelling it on the breath of children in confession for years). After the film ends, Kinderman tells Dyer he can’t go home. What follows is a direct quote:
“My wife's mother is visiting, Father. And Tuesday night, she's cooking us a carp. It's a tasty fish, I've got nothing against it. But, because it's supposedly filled with impurities, she buys it live and for three days, it's been swimming... up and down... in my bathtub. Up and down... and I hate it. I can't stand the sight of it, moving its gills. Now, you're standing very close to me, Father; have you noticed? Yes. I haven't had a bath for three days. I can't go home until the carp is asleep because if I see it, swimming... I'll kill it.”
After the quote, we see the two sitting in a diner as Kinderman says, “The whole world is a homicide victim, father. Would a God who is good invent something like death?” as he shakes his head. Father Dyer suggests he shouldn’t blame God, and Kinderman replies, “Who should I blame, Phil Ruzzuto?”. Kinderman talks about suffering children, rapists, Mongoloid babies, and death of loved ones while dangers prowl the streets and God waltzes through the universe “like a cosmic Billie Burke”. Dyer suggests Kinderman’s pain comes from the death of the boy at the start of the film. Kinderman replies that he knew the child, his name was Thomas, and he was murdered by having ingots driven into his eyes and subsequently being decapitated. In place of his head was the head of a statue of Christ done-up in blackface, and the boy had been crucified on a pair of rowing oars. We are now just 15 minutes into the film.
Again I will detract from this writeup to emphasize the overtly literary tones and nearly pretentious nature of this film. Though the aforementioned description of death was graphically described, it is never shown on screen, which runs contrary to design choices taken in precedent popular films of the 1980s. The 1980s were absurdist, a term I use here to describe the visceral, “bigger and better” film style of that era. 1981 brought us David Cronenburg’s Scanners, which is remembered most for its violent depiction of an exploding human head near the film’s beginning. The Friday the 13th series ran rampant, killing teenagers and young adults on screen in as many imaginative ways as possible. Indeed, films like The Fly, The Blob, Hellraiser, Nightmare on Elm Street, and more ran amok with violence. Trashy horror films like Anthropophagus or Silent Night, Deadly Night seem to have been created for the purpose of challenging contemporary moral sensibilities through extreme visuals. I bring these films to attention because they are the exact opposite of what William Peter Blatty does with The Exorcist III. Instead of gross-out visuals, Blatty opts for deeply literary references of Macbeth, blames the entire concept of death on a shortstop from the New York Yankees, compares God to a famous Broadway actress, and shares deeply disturbing (but non-visual) retellings of death with the audience. Directors frequently try to ‘show the audience’ rather than tell them, but Blatty has decided that the literary form represents the summit of his film’s aspirations- to him, the highest form of compliment.
If I continued writing at this pace this writeup would be far too long to maintain any readership, but trust me when I say that the film continues in a similarly literary fashion. Picking any individual event within this film could result in a page-long analysis. With a 1:36:14 screen time before credits, there would be simply no way to cover every absurd event which occurs within this film in a succinct writeup - we have only been introduced to the antagonist in name! Well, in name and in theology.
As the film continues forward, the audience is treated to two more off-screen deaths which are described in horrific detail, a dream sequence which includes cameos from Patrick Ewing (the Georgetown basketball coach) and Fabio Lanzoni (the famed Italian-American fashion model), the unexpected death of a main character (also offscreen), interviews with characters who are clearly being played by actors who aren’t sure if they’re supposed to be portraying neurological or psychiatric conditions, and statues of Jesus that bleed - and these aren’t even the most extravagant examples. There are at least three more events within this movie that deserve further attention.
The first is an interview that Detective Kinderman holds with the antagonist of The Exorcist III. This scene is extraordinary in its unorthodox use of multiple actors to portray the same character within a single conversation. The force of evil in this film is simultaneously played by Jason Miller, who plays Father Damien Karras in the first The Exorcist film, and Brad Dourif, the voice of Chucky in Child’s Play (released only two years prior). As Kinderman interviews this antagonist, who refers to itself as both The Gemini Killer and as Legion (a group of demons from Hell), the camera cuts between shots of Miller and Dourif in conversation with the detective. This creates the effect of the actor's face and voice physically changing during the conversation, remarkably capturing the demonic and supernatural essence of this scene.
I must say, while each actor’s performance was incredible throughout, none topped that of Brad Dourif. Though he has very little screen time in The Exorcist III, his impact on the audience is palpable. Dourif’s constant changes in voice inflection and obsession with grandiosity set the stage for an impressive monolog, and the constant face-swapping during this interview between Miller and Douriff creates uncertainty for viewers. The entire performance leaves the audience with a sense of unease which remains long after the film’s end. Despite the jarring and unorthodox visual effects presented in this scene, Blatty’s understated approach to film remains intact. At the end of the day, the audience simply experiences two (three?) people talk to each other, an otherwise mundane event made remarkable by purposeful film design.
The second event worth calling attention to is perhaps the most effective jumpscare in horror history. At about 1:15:00 into the film, the camera is placed at the end of a long hallway. While the scene is tense as we watch a nurse wander from room to room, Blatty has conditioned the audience to believe that they are safe - we are essentially watching a book, after all. There’s even a fakeout jumpscare to further lead the audience to believe that they are safe - the worst has come to pass. The nurse walks around more, servicing rooms. As she leaves the final room, a figure cloaked in white suddenly emerges from the room she had just left, brandishing a knife, while the music swells to a volume not previously utilized. However, almost comically, this scene is followed with an off-screen kill of the nurse. Again described in brutal detail, Blatty’s literary vision lives on even while utilizing one of the most visual devices in horror filmography.
The final event worth calling attention to is this movie’s namesake: the exorcism attempt by Father Morning, played by Nicol Williamson. The scene of Williamson attempting to exorcise Miller and Dourif was reportedly a forced addition mandated by the film by studio executives against the wishes of director William Peter Blatty. Without this scene, there wouldn’t have been an exorcism in a film titled The Exorcist. Almost without context, Father Morning meets Legion in his cell and is greeted with the phrase, “You again?” by the antagonist. “Come in Father Morning. Enter, night”. Morning quickly begins with an exorcism. However, after only about three minutes of film time, he is ruthlessly killed and cast aside for the remainder of the film. These three minutes of film are notably visually disturbing and have horrific sound effects complementing the on screen imagery. Blatty is visual here, though only in a moment of studio interference. The tone shifts quickly back to non-visual literary description (the climax is eventually resolved through discussion and reason, with heavy allusion to God as is typical throughout the film), and this solitary ‘picture’ stands out in a sea of words.
I want to remark that watching Nicol Williamson die in the horrific manner he did was vaguely cathartic to me. Williamson was known on-stage and on-set for his primadonna outbursts and difficulty to work with - he had more than one event where he was known to assault his co-stars, leaving prior to scheduled performances, and walk off stage early. Watching him get ripped apart by the forces of evil just felt right.
Though I could perhaps ramble about The Exorcist III and its strange musings, biblical undertones and overtones, lack of typical film visualization, superb acting, and distressing theology for much longer, I will conclude this review by encouraging you to watch this film for yourself. Though this film is more like a book than a typical movie, my words will never do it justice. Very few films buck traditional cinematography successfully, and even fewer do it by supplementing conversational pieces in place of traditional action or suspense. George C. Scott, Ed Flanders, Brad Dourif, and Jason Miller put forward exceptional performances and play off one another expertly. The chemistry between Scott and Flanders was electric throughout. Nicol Williamson also put forward a limited but successful portrayal of Father Morning, to my reserved dismay. This film was overall highly enjoyable, very intriguing, and riddled with more philosophy, theology, and literature than one might initially expect. If you have ever wanted to watch a book, consider watching (reading?) The Exorcist III.
★★★★☆
Maximillion Ripley
Staff Writer at The Papermaker