Candy and a Movie: Movie # 74 The Exorcist III

The Exorcist III (1990)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099528/

I’ve decided it’s time for an exorcist movie. Most people have seen the original and although I haven’t seen the second, I’ve heard that it’s garbage. The only logical thing then is watch the third. Before getting into the movie though, let’s talk about trailers. The movie world would be a better place in my opinion if instead of the common trailer with the dude who has the movie trailer voice explaining everything that is going to happen while the few funny scenes are being spoiled that everything was a teaser. Imagine its 1973 and you’re in a movie theater waiting for Deliverance or something and this pops on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u15h02Y0MDY . It might have been better to die of the seizure than try and fall asleep that night. The latest good one I’ve seen is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXwLJLdpOmU the movie could be garbage but other than seeing that Kevin Costner is unfortunately still acting that’s a sweet trailer.

Back to the scares and the creepy exorcist song is played during opening credits, as it should be. Wind and a raspy voice blow open an empty church’s doors which causes a statue of Jesus to open its eyes. Just usual, everyday boring rights? The two main characters are a cop (George C. Scott) and a priest named Father Dyer. They go to a movie and then Scott tells Dyer about a murder that happened the previous night. Someone stabbed a 12 year old in both eyes, cut off his head and then stuck the head from a statue of Jesus onto the boy’s shoulders. As if that wasn’t enough, he was then crucified on a pair of rowing oars. Whoa.

More whoa when a priest is listening to the voice of an old lady give a confession in the very next scene. Things start normal until the woman starts talking about murdering a waitress and begins a very solid evil laugh. We don’t get to see the priest get it but there’s a good pool of blood. Scott shows up to examine the body and it has wounds on each hand. Stigmata! Another cop tells Scott that the first dead kid was given a drug that causes paralysis so he was cognizant of the whole head cutting business and could do nothing about it.

That night Scott has a dream which might be one of the coolest things ever. He is walking through a train station full of dead people and angels. Samuel L. Jackson is a random blind person; friggin Fabio is an angel and none other than Patrick Ewing (Patrick Chewing) is the Angel of Death! WHAT? I couldn’t think of a weirder and yet more awesome cast for that. Scott is awakened from the dream by a phone call alerting him that Dyer was killed that night. He arrives at the hospital where the police was staying and sees the same stigmata. Along with that, in jars next to the bed is all of Dyer’s blood. A detective says that not a single drop was spilled and what isn’t in there is on the wall. Written in the blood is “It’s a wonderful life” which was the movie the cop and priest saw together 20 minutes ago. Uh oh.

The plot gets juicier when Scott tells us about the Gemini Killer. He died 15 years ago but these three murders where done in just the same pattern and only the police and the killer himself knew what his trademarks were. The bloody hands weren’t stigmata but zodiac carvings. While this is going on a dark figure in a straight jacket reads the Death Be Not Proud poem in his cell. There’s a suspenseful scene in a church were Scott is questioning a priest. The guy mentions that it might have something to do with the exorcism in the first movie and the clock stops, lights go out and a creepy voice is heard. He walks around and we see a creepy face on a statue but ultimately nothing happens.

One of the guys at the hospital tells Scott that a guy has been catatonic for 15 years but just recently snapped out of it and has been saying that he is the Gemini Killer. He goes into the room and what do you know, it’s the priest from the first movie. He says that he is the killer again and describes the victims who he’s killed and says he’s done it for a friend on the other side. Suddenly mid-speech the possible Gemini killer changes faces and starts signing in a woman’s voice. Scott punches him in the face and leaves. That was a pretty sweet scene.

A few minutes later one of the best scare scenes ever happens. We see a figure or something go into a room and the nurse hears something. She goes and checks one room and a guy jumps out and scares us. What’s so great about that is we think the scary part is over. The nurse calms down, checks out another room and when exits a figure in white robes pops out behind her with garden sheers at her head. There’s a loud noise and its cut to a statue with its head ripped off. Later a detective said she was split open, organs removed and replaced with a bunch of rosaries.

THINGS ARE HEATING UP

Scott has another long and creepy talk with the Gemini killer and through a few clues learns that he is using the mentally handicap/Alzheimer’s patients and other people like that to do his killings and Scott’s daughter is his newest target. Oh before he leaves, one of those people climbs around on the ground. He makes it home and sees that everything’s ok. Then the old lady who showed up talks in the Gemini’s voice and almost cuts the daughters head off. She roughs up Scott and another cop but freaks out right before killing them.

We see that she stopped because a priest has entered the Gemini’s cell and is going to do an exorcism. The cell gets really cold just like in the first one but then looks like the snake chamber in Raiders of the Lost Ark. That’s just in his mind though I guess because things go back to normal. We seem to think the priest is winning but then the bible blows up and he is flown to the roof of the cell where his skin appears to be all torn off his back. When Scott shows up we see that the priest is dead and pulls out a gun to kill the guy and he too is flown and stuck on the cell wall. He gives a speech this time until a bunch of lightning strikes the ground and a bunch of souls come out of it carrying the first boy and the priest from the first movie on crosses. Metal. It goes away just like the Indiana Jones scene. Scott was about to have his skin ripped off but the skinless back priest ends up not being dead and tells the possessed priest to fight the possession. He does and manages to get a little moment of clarity and Scott shoots him in the chest than head to “free him”. Right before that, the possessed guy says “We’ve won”. The end.

THAT WAS A RUSH

FAVORITE SCENE: The scare scene. If you don’t feel like sitting through the whole movie, you can watch it here. Just imagine that there has been an hours worth of tension built up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH8ynu0jRvY

FAVORITE LINES: “I still hear from her occasionally, screaming. I think the dead should shut up, unless there’s something to say.”

RATING: 6.5 Lemon Heads I thought this wasn’t really an exorcist movie and I was right. It’s a murder mystery with an exorcism scene at the end. After a little research it looks like I am totally right. The director wrote a book, made it into a movie and then had to reshoot the whole last third of the movie because producers wanted it to be more closely related to the original. It still was an enjoyable movie with some disturbing things happening although we don’t ever get to see the gore. Scott might be guilty of a little overacting but I would also say that’s his style. Good enough movie, probably would watch again in a few years.

ALTERNATE ENDING: That crosses coming out of the ground thing was pretty sweet. It’s also real and Patton starts fighting zombies

WHAT I WOULD DO IF I WAS THE MAIN CHARACTER: Get freaked out and put someone else on the case. Also after speaking with someone who’s talked to the devil, start believing in some things.

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE SEQUEL: I know there’s a fourth exorcist but I’m pretty sure it’s a prequel: Patrick Ewing gets possessed. He uses that defense to get out of that whole Gold Club scandal. After that Ray Carruth, Ray Lewis and any other Ray who tried to kill someone.