Exorcist III: Legion (William Peter Blatty, 1989)

[HerrSchreck]

As far as Freidkin Exorcist stories go, those were pretty tame.

[cinemartin]

Who cares? Freidkin was able to manage those things, making him the envy of every filmmaker who had to be under a studio's thumb. He had the studio working for him, as opposed to the other way around. Freidkin may be a jerk, but he still managed to get his film done his way and have a little fun making the studio sweat. Going over budget was more than compensated in its initial run, so everybody wins. I've never heard Blatty complain about the finished film, either.

[Murdoch]

I think Friedkin hasn't lost all his steam, Bug is one of the best horror films of the decade and Friedkin showed he still has the ability to capture claustrophobia and anxiety as well as any other director today. Granted, that's the only recent film of his that was any good, but I think he still has some interesting films left in him even.
I have yet to see the third Exorcist, but I've added it to my netflix queue, I guess it bodes well for the film that it was directed by the author of the books.

[HarryLong]

As far as Freidkin Exorcist stories go, those were pretty tame.

Probably. They're the ones I recalled, that's all.
Maybe you can share some of your favorites...
There was an article about the making of the film in VANITY FAIR (I think) many, many years ago that I read with an increasingly descending jaw. Pity I don't seem to have saved it.

[Highway 61]

Who cares? Freidkin was able to manage those things, making him the envy of every filmmaker who had to be under a studio's thumb. He had the studio working for him, as opposed to the other way around. Freidkin may be a jerk, but he still managed to get his film done his way and have a little fun making the studio sweat. Going over budget was more than compensated in its initial run, so everybody wins. I've never heard Blatty complain about the finished film, either.

I'm with you on this. In fact, I'm shamelessly amused by Friedkin's overt, fuck everybody egomania. His interview on The French Connection DVD is a welcome and hilarious change of tune from the standard making-of ass kissing. On the other hand, his tongue biting on commentaries makes for painfully bad listening; I wish he'd just let loose the opinionated bastard in him.

[sonofkinski]

I'd like to second Michael's compliment on HerrSchreck's original post. A great description of the palpable dread created in the first film... Has the paranormal ever been personified as well as it is within that film?

Side note/Giant-tool admission: I used to have George C. Scott's soliloquy at the end of 'Exorcist 3' ("I believe in slime, and stink... and every putrid... AND CORRUPTION!" etc.) as the automated voicemail pickup on my cellphone for a long time. I blame that and a tendency for avoiding calls in a recent unsuccessful job search.

[royalton]

As far as Freidkin Exorcist stories go, those were pretty tame.

Probably. They're the ones I recalled, that's all.
Maybe you can share some of your favorites...
There was an article about the making of the film in VANITY FAIR (I think) many, many years ago that I read with an increasingly descending jaw. Pity I don't seem to have saved it.

There's always the racy stories from Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls which never made it into the many docs about the making of the film...

- The audition with Linda Blair when they talk about the crucifix scene; Biskind alleges that Blatty asks her if she knows what masturbation is and is surprised when she does; he asks if she does that and Blair replies, "Sure, don't you?" (Blair and Friedkin deny this.)

- The fact that Ellen Burstyn alleges she had a long affair with Friedkin even after he damaged her spine during the crucifix scene, and that she only learned their relationship was over when he married Jeanne Moreau. ("We both auditioned, and she won the part.")

[zedz]

I watched this the other night on the strength of the recommendations here, so thanks all for the tip.

I've never been particularly attached to the original Exorcist, and the sheer awfulness of Boorman's sequel (which all the evidence points to being so-bad-it's-good, but the film itself doesn't quite deliver) stopped me exploring any further.

III, however, is a damned good film, delivering some genuine shocks, but, more significantly, managing to be creepy and disturbing the rest of the time as well. It follows the golden rule of not showing too much - you get a sense of real mayhem even though you don't actually see any of it.

It's only the arrival of Super-Exorcist at the end that lets things down seriously. From the company's point of view, they only have one thing to sell: not Blatty, Scott or the small matter of a decent film, but the word "Exorcist", so it's understandable that they'd want an exorcist in the film. Williamson is only very perfunctorily integrated however (a line of dialogue and one incongruous scene earlier on), which is why his arrival to save the day seems so ridiculous. The fact that it turns into no more than a distraction to the pre-existing climax makes the manipulation even more threadbare and compromises that climax badly (though I suspect that it wouldn't quite work even without Super-Exorcist).

Regardless, Hollywood wasn't churning out enough smart, scary and stylish horror movies in the late 80s / early 90s that we can take any of this film for granted.

Re. that scene:

Spoiler

It's a real gem of a shocker, and it's fun to figure out why it works so well.

The first surprise for me is how outrageously telegraphed it is. That Akermanesque long shot of the hallway is unlike any other set-up in the film, and Blatty holds it and holds it, then returns to it again and again. Clearly something's going to happen that disrupts the formal rigour and stillness of the shot, unless we genuinely believe that Exorcist III is about to morph into Hotel Monterey II.

Blatty uses repetition and misdirection smartly. He returns to the 'set-up' several times without delivering the expected shock. He moves cops ('protection') in and out of the frame, artificially ramping up and down the 'danger', even though we don't know exactly what that is or where it will come from. He moves the nurse on and off-screen as well, increasing our anxiety. He delivers a side-shock with a classic 'bus' when the doctor rears up from his sleep, and this feint in turn confirms our suspicions that the friendly nurse is Gemini bait by giving us her giveaway name.

The set-up corridor shot at once gives us too much and too little information. All that space around the character presumably presents low-threat areas (i.e. if anything happens, we'll see it coming, since it has to cross the space / the screen to reach her), hence the increase in anxiety when she goes to the edges of the screen or into a side-room - although we've got a clear view of deep space, we've got no view whatsoever of those lateral spaces.

So we're primed for something, we assume it has to come from the side of the screen (ceiling and floor, unlike most other scenes in most other movies, are well exposed in this set-up), so why does it still shock us?

First, there's the old magician's trick of now-you-see-it-now-you-don't, since the threat comes from the very space the nurse has just checked and dismissed as non-threatening, and it comes far too fast for it to have been plausibly concealed, so in terms of character logic, it's coming from the last place you'd expect, and it's super-natural.

I think the other big factor is that the shot, in the space of only a handful of frames, goes from undersaturation of information to information overload. We've been looking at this space for several minutes all told, combing the frame for any indication of action or oddity, and noting only minimal changes (primarily the movement of actors and small sounds) - we're primed for the tiniest confirmation of our worst fears. Suddenly, there's far too much to process: blaring sound, an entirely new figure (and we can't quite make out what it is - the thing sticking out in front is presumably the loppers, but is the flash we get, it reads almost comically as the 'advancing mummy' pose), rapid movement across the screen (again, out of character with that particular shot, but also with what we know about the 'killer') and, perhaps the touch of genius, a rapid zoom in (maybe an optical, and so brief at the end of the shot that it's almost subliminal). The space between the horrific action and our vantage point abruptly crumples at the moment of impact, and this is followed by a shock cut that itself takes a second or two to process, as it weirdly combines the figures of killer (robe, pose) and victim (missing head).

Some very deft filmmaking in this sequence. Bravo, Blatty.