13 July 2016

THE EXORCIST and THE EXORCIST 3: A DOUBLE REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.




THE EXORCIST/THE EXORCIST 3- A DOUBLE REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

THE EXORCIST. 1973. DIRECTED BY WILLIAM FRIEDKIN. PRODUCED BY/SCREENPLAY BY WILLIAM PETER BLATTY. BASED ON THE BOOK 'THE EXORCIST' BY WILLIAM PETER BLATTY. MUSIC BY MIKE OLDFIELD.
STARRING LINDA BLAIR, ELLEN BURSTYN, LEE J. COBB, JASON MILLER, MAX VON SYDOW AND MERCEDES MCCAMBRIDGE.

THE EXORCIST 3. 1990. DIRECTED BY/SCREENPLAY BY WILLIAM PETER BLATTY. STARRING GEORGE C. SCOTT, JASON MILLER AND ED FLANDERS.

'THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU...'

I had no notion in the world of making THE EXORCIST the subject of my Halloween viewing last year (2015). I'd been keeping an unwatched copy of the film in my DVD collection for months, though purely on the understanding that I was too chicken to watch it and always would be. 

Then a visit to a charity shop on a gloriously sunny Halloween afternoon unexpectedly turned up a copy of the special 25th anniversary version for a euro. One euro! Glory be to God. I wouldn't be much of a collector of horror stuff if I left it behind.

I took it home and watched it straightaway, on Halloween afternoon with the curtains wide open and the sunlight streaming through the windows. Not, perhaps, the way it should be watched but hey, if it got me in front of that screen, what did that matter...?

It was as good as everyone said it was, and about a million times more scary. I know that some film critics consider THE EXORCIST to be the best film ever made, never mind the best horror film. Certainly in 2010, it was chosen by the Library Of Congress to be preserved as part of its National Film Registry as being 'culturally, historically or aesthetically significant,' which is a pretty big deal for a movie, I can tell you. But of course you probably already know.

Anyway, I don't know what motivated me to watch it so suddenly like that after years of shying away from it. Maybe I was emboldened (is that still a word in these modern times?) by the broad daylight and the sounds of hundreds of happy Halloween shoppers tramping up and down the streets outside my house in search of booze or monkey nuts or the perfect pumpkin.

Also, it wouldn't be nightfall for hours. I was as safe as houses, heh-heh-heh. Whatever the reason, I did it and I'm now going to share my findings with you. I bet you're all thrilled skinny about that...!

Director William Friedkin was up first with a nice informal chat about the film. Look at you, I thought disbelievingly, wearing your nice unthreatening cardigan, talking in your nice calm friendly voice about the film to come as if it WASN'T considered the scariest, most disturbing horror film ever made. I've heard how terrifying it is. I know, Mr. William Friedkin, I know...

Mind you, he never tried to deny it was scary, I'll give him that. He was just hoping that I, the viewer, would get out of the film what he and the film-makers had tried so sincerely to put into it all those years ago. In all honesty, I think I did, if pants-wetting terror was the aim of Friedkin and his minions. Snigger.

Based on true events but changed around a bit, it's the story of Regan MacNeil, a normal little American girl who becomes possessed by the demon Pazuzu, a nasty piece of work who makes the sweet, affectionate pretty twelve-year-old do and say the most unspeakably disgusting and inappropriate things.

Her devoted but understandably terrified mother Chris, an actress and single parent, eventually decides to have the child exorcised, after first going down the medical route and finding no help there. Well, you know what doctors are like. Every one you go to gives you a different diagnosis.

At first, I hated Father Damien Karras, the priest from the nearby church to whom Chris turns for help. I found him a wishy-washy, crisis-of-faith-having mope who allowed his elderly and infirm
mother to live in a rat-hole of a slum. He's a bad son, I thought. A terrible son, in fact. I sure-as-heck wouldn't want to be dependent on him in my twilight years.

The elderly Father Lankester Merrin, the priest who leads the actual exorcism and whom we first see in Iraq encountering a demon with whom he's successfully done battle before, seems much more kick-ass. And I'm sure he's a better son to his Mammy. Let's face it, pretty much anyone would be. This, however, was only what I thought after my first viewing of the film.

Subsequent viewings caused me to change my mind about Father Karras. In fact, I became quite attracted to him (he's so sexy and dark-haired, I bet his chest-hair would be jet-black and curly!) the more I watched the film and I began to feel more sympathetic towards him regarding his poor old Mum.

Of course he was gutted about her death and the place and manner in which she died. You can tell by the way in which he reacts to the demon's horrible taunting that he loved his mother dearly and would feel guilty about her death till the day he died. I was sorry I'd been so quick to judge him.

Over the years, I'd heard so much about this iconic horror film and seen so many clips and stills online that I was pretty much able to tick off the key scenes in my mind as the movie progressed. Here's the projectile-vomiting scene. Here's the grotesque head-spinning scene. Here's the (ahem) crucifix-being-used-for-a-naughty-purpose scene. Here's the levitation scene. Here's the giggling scene. There they all were, one after the other in all their grisly glory, each scene more frightening than the last.

Unfortunately, as I was watching the 25th anniversary version as opposed to 'THE VERSION YOU'VE NEVER SEEN,' I missed out on seeing the infamous 'Spider-Walk' scene, which I'd really been looking forward to.

Fortunately for me, however, it turns out that the unwatched DVD I'd been hoarding in my collection for months is in fact 'THE VERSION YOU'VE NEVER SEEN,' so as soon as I recover from this Halloween-afternoon shock-to-the-system, I'm going to try to watch this other version. Mind you, I can't say when that'll be. My recovery could take some time...!

(Since writing this review in the Autumn of 2015, I've watched the other slightly longer version and seen the 'Spider-Walk' scene and also, I'm certain, I've caught several more subliminal sightings of the demon Pazuzu. This version is ten minutes longer than the one I watched first and it has a few little extra scenes in it so I'd have to deem it the better version, by virtue of this fact.)

Needless to say, THE EXORCIST garnered all kinds of awards and plaudits and critical acclaim and you guys know all about these by now. There's not much I can add to what's been said about this fantastically ground-breaking piece of cinematic art except to say that I wish I'd thought of the idea first, haha. I'd be set for life.

I loved William Peter Blatty's novel too, by the way, but the film is miles better. Even so, I enjoyed the book. Reading it for the first time was like the first time ever I read Ira Levin's ROSEMARY'S BABY, Robert Bloch's PSYCHO or Peter Benchley's JAWS, my three favourite horror novels of all time.

I'm sad to have to say this, but we're unlikely to see this calibre of horror novel again in our lifetimes. These books were all made into some of the best films ever made, and not just horror films either, not that a horror film is some sort of second-class citizen of movies. It most certainly is not, as we horror aficionados know all too well.

Each one of the above books is a timeless horror classic. I only wish they hadn't stopped writing 'em. Think how different the world of film and literature would be if we had even one novel a year of this extraordinarily high quality to look forward to.

A special shout-out to the Make-Up Artist Dick Smith and the Special Effects people who were in charge of creating Regan's face in the various stages of possession and the disgusting pea-soup projectile vomit and all the blood and stuff. These guys should have been up for a ton of awards as well. I'm not clear why they weren't as their work on this film was surely groundbreaking.

I also loved the character of Lieutenant Kinderman. A shrewd cop, he has a human side too. A bit like Columbo. Remember Peter Falk as Columbo? 'Just one more thing...!' 

Anyway, I loved the way the Lieutenant tried to get both priests to go to the cinema with him because he gets 'free passes' and he hates going to the flicks alone. Aw, bless his buttons. I'd love to have a friend who got free movie passes. I'd go with him any time to see a free film.

THE EXORCIST 3 was actually directed by the writer, William Peter Blatty, and is a follow-on from the original film. I watched it at eleven o'clock at night as part of the Irish Film Institute's 2015 Horrorthon and I saw it before I saw the original.

It was probably for this reason that it didn't resonate as much with me as it might have done had I been watching it in the correct order. That's me, sadly. Always doing things arseways. I believe it's a typically Irish trait known as 'putting the cart before the horse...!'

Anyway, in this sequel we have Lieutenant Kinderman from the first film trying to solve a series of satanic murders that have their roots in what happened to poor little Regan MacNeil a decade and a half earlier. The film also seems to bypass the events that occurred in the second film in the series, 'EXORCIST 2: THE HERETIC.'

George C. Scott as Kinderman was nominated for a GOLDEN RASPBERRY AWARD FOR WORST ACTOR for his performance here but I think that's totally mean. I thought he was lovely and solid and huggable in this, if a wee bit hammy. Nothing wrong with a bit of ham though, especially if there's some nice cheese and a couple of slices of bread to go with it.

I also loved the friendship between Kinderman and the cuddly old grey-haired 'n' grizzly Father Dyer from the first film. The stuffed penguin on the windowsill made me cry buckets. Mopey old Father Damien Karras (whom, as I told you earlier, I now fancy) reprises his role from the original film but with a twist. A big fat demonic twist, haha. I still didn't like him that much, though he possibly has more balls this time round.

The dark, steep flight of special EXORCIST steps are back too, and they are flippin' terrifying. They played a huge part in the first film and they really should have a credit of their own, they're so memorable and evil. Can steps be evil? The answer is yes. Most definitely yes. Without a doubt.

I wasn't really scared stiff as such at any point during this film. Rather, I'd describe myself as having felt unsettled or disturbed as opposed to outright petrified. The film is creepy enough but, like most films, it couldn't hold a candle to the original movie for sheer terrifying-ness, if there is such a word.
Also, maybe if I'd seen the original film first, I wouldn't have felt such a sense of 'disconnection' to THE EXORCIST 3.

What I should probably do is to sit down and watch the two of 'em back-to-back in the right order. All in good time, folks. All in good time. Give my shattered nerves a chance to piece themselves back together...

(Subsequent viewings on my part of THE EXORCIST 3 have revealed it to be a horror classic in its own right. And the more I watch it, the scarier I find it becomes. Isn't that strange?)

If I may be less than positive for a moment, I'd just like to say that I initially found the murder of little Nurse Amy hilarious. In the space of a few seconds, she was slit from top to bottom, stuffed with rosary beads and stitched right back up without anyone spotting whodunnit. Mind you, that is one under-staffed and poorly-lit hospital. I wouldn't trust my loved ones to its tender mercies, that's for sure. Any more than I'd initially have sent my old Ma to the Damien Karras Retirement Home...!

When the words 'Ed Flanders' came up on the screen at the start of the film to signify the actor who played Father Dyer, the whole audience sniggered, probably because 'Ed Flanders' sounds a lot like 'Ned Flanders,' Homer Simpson's saintly moustachioed neighbourino in THE SIMPSONS. Oh and, by the way, cheesy sex symbol Fabio turns up briefly as an angel in Heaven. Hmmm. Say no more.

To return briefly to the first film, THE EXORCIST, it seems incredible that such a superb film, a horror masterpiece like this one, can be forty-three years old this year without seeming in any way outdated or irrelevant. To my mind, it can hold its own with anything that's being produced today.

To be honest, it makes most of the stuff being made today look like a sack of crap. Haha, no offence intended to any of the sacks of crap out there who might be reading this. But when you're good, you're good, and THE EXORCIST is good. In fact, it's more than good. It's great.
'What an excellent day for an exorcism...'

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

 You can contact Sandra at:


http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com







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