Movies - The Exorcist III

Home > Listing Index > Movies > The Exorcist III

	Movies - The Exorcist III

The Exorcist III is a 1990 horror movie directed by William Peter Blatty and based on Blatty's novel Legion. It stars George C. Scott and Brad Dourif.

Tagline: Do you dare walk these steps again?

The movie is a sequel to The Exorcist
and ignores the events of Exorcist II: The Heretic
. It takes place in Georgetown fifteen-years after the events of the first film, in which a young girl named Regan was possessed by a demon.

Plot outline

Detective Kinderman (Scott) is a philosophical police detective who was briefly involved in the case of Regan's possession. He has to investigate a string of grisly murders that appear to have a satanic motive behind them, and furthermore have all the hallmarks of a serial-murderer known as the Gemini Killer. The most baffling thing is that the Gemini Killer was executed years ago.

The evidence eventually leads Kinderman to the psychiatric ward of a mental asylum where an already disturbing case takes a shocking twist.

Although it did not match the success of the original, it is nonetheless held in much higher regard than Exorcist II. The slow pace and emphasis on dialogue in The Exorcist III is cited as a reason for both liking and loathing it by horror fans.

Samuel L. Jackson, basketball player Patrick Ewing, and model Fabio all make cameo appearances in a dream sequence, in addition to television host Larry King's appearance as himself in a restaurant.

Synopsis

The film opens with a haunting sequence in a church, whereby the doors eventually fly open and a blast of wind sends trash spiralling through the pews. A statue of Jesus opens its eyes and gazes at the camera. The camera then takes the point-of-view of someone as they walk from the church, a voice informing us "I have dreams...of a rose...and of falling down a long flight of stairs." We then indeed see a camera shot of someone plummeting down the steps that occurred in the climax to the original movie, The Exorcist.

An abrupt jump sees us with Detective Kinderman (George C. Scott) at the scene of a murder. Thomas Kintry, a twelve-year-old boy (who was seen in the dream-like sequence at the start of the movie) has been murdered.

Later, Kinderman takes his old friend, a Priest named Father Joseph Dyer, out to see their mutually favourite film It's a Wonderful Life
. Kinderman relates, after the film, the details of the murder of the young boy he was investigating that morning; the child had been paralyzed with succinylcholine, a muscle relaxant, and then decapitated and finally had his head replaced with the head from a statue of Jesus (but made up like a minstrel, as the victim was African-American) and finally crucified.

Despite the horrific aspects to the film, there are comical overtones to the dialogue between Kinderman and Dyer, who often appear jovially hostile towards each other in only the way that long-time friends can be, such as the following conversation that invokes a light-hearted approach to the problem of immortality;

Kinderman : Would a God who is "good" invent something like death? I don't buy it Father. It's not a winner.

Dyer : Don't be stupid, you wouldn't want to live forever.

Kinderman : Yes I would.

Dyer : You wouldn't, you'd get bored.

Kinderman : I have hobbies.

Another murder soon takes place; a priest is decapitated in a church. We see an old lady leaving the scene. Kinderman, as he did with the previous victim, checks both hands of the corpse.

Father Dyer is shortly hospitalized, although not with anything serious. He apparently has just been having dizzy spells and feels like putting his feet up.

That night, Kinderman has a strange dream, featuring the cameos mentioned above. He sees Father Dyer, who has big stitches across his neck. Kinderman wonders aloud whether Dyer is dreaming this too. "No Bill, I'm not dreaming," replies Dyer, meaning that he is dead and therefore cannot dream.

The next day, Father Dyer is found murdered. He was killed the night before, as implied by Kinderman's dream. Every drop of blood in his body has been drained out of him and his head severed.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Exorcist III ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Exorcist III; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay