The Exorcist III

In Washington, Lieutenant Kinderman investigates murders committed by the method of a serial killer who died fifteen years earlier. The trail leads to the psychiatric ward of a hospital, where a patient has lain catatonic for years, and that patient has the face of Father Karras, who died falling down a flight of steps fifteen years ago. William Peter Blatty wrote and directed, from his own novel Legion. George C. Scott plays Kinderman and Brad Dourif plays the Gemini Killer. What exists is the producers' version. Morgan Creek was unhappy with Blatty's cut because there was no exorcism in the film. He had already changed the ending of his novel and still agreed to reshoot the climax to satisfy them. A new character called Father Morning was written in, Nicol Williamson performed a large exorcism in the part, and the reworked ending cost an extra 4 million dollars. There was a similar intervention in the casting. As first shot, Brad Dourif played both the Gemini Killer and the possessed Father Karras. After rewrites, Jason Miller from the original film was brought back for the Karras material; all of Dourif's scenes were reshot and his part shrank. Blatty spent years wanting his own cut reconstructed; Scream Factory eventually did it and the Legion version exists. Who it is for: viewers who like slow psychological horror and the scenes between Scott and Dourif. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a sequel. The film is far from the tone of the first Exorcist, and the exorcism was stitched on afterwards anyway.