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 philisophical 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 The 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 it's 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 occured 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. 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 Dwyer, 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 a drug, decapitated, 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 apparantly 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.

Unexplained Events

At each murder scene, an elderly person has been sighted, and the fingerprints at the crime scenes do not match up to previous scenes, indicating a different person committed each crime, despite the obvious similarities.

In a discussion with the hospital staff, Kinderman finally relates the reason for his unease about the series of killings. Fifteen-years ago, the Gemini Killer was executed; with every victim he cut off their index finger and carved the Zodiac sign of Gemini into the palm of their other hand. Kinderman has been checking the hands of the three victims and verified that the Gemini's sign has been there. Furthermore, to filter out false confessions, the original Gemini Killer's true mutilations were kept a secret; the newspapers reported that the forefinger was severed and that the Gemini sign was carved on the back. In these new slayings, the correct mutilations - known only to the true (deceased) killer - have been used. The only plausable solution is that the Gemini is not dead - but he he was very definately executed. Kinderman doesn't know what is happening and isn't afraid to make this obvious to his equally perplexed colleagues.

The head of the psychiatric ward, Dr. Temple, asks to see Kinderman. Temple is very nervous, chainsmoking cigarettes and shaking with terror. He relates the history of a man in Cell 11, who was found wandering aimlessly fifteen-years ago with no memory of who he was. The man has been locked up since then, catatonic up until recently when he began to be violent and claim he was the Gemini Killer.

Kinderman humours Temple by going to see the patient, only to see that the patient is - at least in appearance - Father Karras. Father Karras was the Priest in the first movie, The Exorcist, who let Regan's demon posses him before he killed himself by throwing himself out the window and down the steps.

Kinderman does not believe what he is seeing. The patient brags of being the Gemini Killer and taunts Kinderman by expressing ignorance over who this Father Karras is, and also boasts of killing Father Dyer, infuriating Kinderman.

Not knowing what to believe, Kinderman leaves the hospital.

The Corridor Scene

There then takes place a notorious scene that many fans of this movie regard as it's highlight.

There is a prolonged, wide-angle shot of a corridor whilst a nurse goes about her rounds. After several minutes of uneventful silence, there is a false alarm when a harmless patient abruptly wakes up and scares the nurse.

Silence then reigns once again and the nurse checks the other patients. A security guard who sits in the corridor is summoned by someone and leaves, falsely suggesting to the viewer that events will follow him. Instead, the camera remains fixed down the corridor as the nurse goes through the motions of checking her charges are all okay. The scene has by now lasted several minutes.

Just as the viewer is probably getting bored, the camera shot zooms in on the unsuspecting nurse crossing the corridor whilst a mysterious figure - draped in a blanket and holding out a pair of amputation sheers - strides after her, ready to slice off her head. Immediately, the film jumps the following morning when a morose Kinderman is being informed that the unfortunate nurse has been found dead. She was decapitated, slit open, her intestines torn out and then her body stuffed with Rosary Beads.

That same morning, it is discovered that Dr. Temple, who first bought the man in Cell 11 to Kinderman's attention, is dead. He committed suicide in his office due to some unimaginable terror that was after him.

Explanation

Kinderman finally goes to see the man in Cell 11 - who looks just like Father Karras - who claims to be the Gemini Killer's spirit. He says that he was indeed executed but before his soul could depart it was thrust into the dying body of Father Karras. The demon who possessed Regan in the first movie was furious at being pushed out of the child's body and is exacting it's revenge by putting the soul of a vicious serial killer - the Gemini Killer - into the body of Father Karras. Each evening, the soul of the Gemini leaves the body of Karras and posseses the elderly people with senile dementia elsewhere in the hospital and uses them to commit the murders. This explains the elderly people seen lurking around at each murder - despite them seemingly being physically and psychologically unable to commit such horrific deeds - and the different fingerprints at each crime scene.

The victims are associated with the events of the original movie. The first victim, the young boy, was the daughter of the woman who figured that the 'nonsense' language of Regan was actually English, but backwards. The first Priest to be killed recommended Karras as an exorcist and finally Father Dwyer was a good friend of Karras, Karras being the one who eventually drove the demons out of Regan. The fourth victim, the nurse, did not have anything to do with the events in the original movie, the Gemini killed her merely to prove his point to Kinderman.

Ending

Initially, Kinderman disbelieves all of this, but changes his mind when the Gemini posesses an old woman who makes a failed attempt to murder Kinderman's daughter. The murderous attempt is only thwarted by a priest who attempts an exorcism on the man in Cell 11 (Karras/the Gemini Killer). It goes wrong and the priest is all but slain. Kinderman arrives in time and is confronted by Hell in the form of the Gemini's many victims rising from the cracked open ground in the Gemini's cell, including Father Dwyer, crucified. Kinderman delivers a furious speech ("I believe in death, I believe in hate, I believe in pain, I believe in every form of ugliness...!") that either indicates he is tempted into submitting to Hell or is merely humouring the Gemini.

The priest who attempt the exorcism, however, is not yet dead, and he manages to briefly force the Gemini from the body of Karras. For a brief moment, the man in Cell 11 is wholly himself, Father Karras, and he begs Kinderman to shoot him before the Gemini can re-enter his body. Kinderman does so, blasting Karras to death, slaying both Karras and banishing the Gemini.

Many critics claimed that the ending of the movie was abrupt and strayed too far from the low-key conclusion to the novel. It is reported that the producers felt that the movie needed an exorcism to justify the title and the ending was therefore insterted. It is said that William Peter Blatty was unhappy with the eventual ending to the film.

External links

• The Exorcist III reviewed at pitofhorror.com - contains spoilers
• The Exorcist III reviewd at scifilm.org - contains spoilers