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The
Exorcist III
Freddy Vs. Jason
____________________________________________________
The
Exorcist III (1990). Starring George C. Scott, Brad Dourif,
Jason Miller and Nicol Williamson. Directed and written by William
Peter Blatty, from his novel.
The Exorcist films have had an
uneven history at the box office. The first was a huge hit,
launching director William Friedkin firmly into the mainstream
(helped by having a previous hit, The French Connection). The second
film, by John Boorman, is widely regarded as an overblown and
underthought laugh-fest. It seemed to put the nail into the
franchise' coffin, but some years later the novelist and original
screenwriter of the first film, William Peter Blatty, wrote a book
called Legion. I haven't read the book, but from the evidence here,
it looks as though two things happened when it came time to make the
movie: Blatty said he wanted to direct, and Warner Bros said, okay,
but let's call it The Exorcist III.
I have no idea of the
production history behind this film, but based on what I've got on
hand (this DVD) this seems to have satisfied everyone, and the film
was made and released as The Exorcist III. I don't recall it hitting
the theatres in 1990 and I think made-for-video was a couple of years
off in the future, so it must have done something. On the other
hand, I picked it up at Wal-Mart for $5, so that Something must not
have been a whole lot of Something.
Anyway, the film at hand
here is very, very good-looking and, like the original Exorcist, pays
a lot of attention to the soundtrack, not just music but ambient
noise and weird, deep rumblings. It's also a pretty icky film,
though most of that is achieved through characters telling us in what
state they found a body, speculations on same, and the killer's
description of his methods. It leaves a lot to the imagination,
which in my case conjured up quite a bit. Your mileage may vary.
What was most striking about this described-rather-than-shown (with a
few very graphic exceptions—a priest peeling apart near the end
was pretty shocking) was how similar the film Seven also followed
this path...though with much greater commercial success.
Anyway,
like the first Exorcist, I delayed a long time before I watched this
one. Why? Well, I'm pretty easy to creep out, and the first film
did that pretty well (though I understood, and knew at the time, that
it was almost all done with the presentation of the film, and not the
content). And being creeped-out is not terribly enjoyable for me, to
be honest. Don't get me wrong, creep-out films tend to rank pretty
high on my list of Pretty High Ranking Films, but watching them can
be an uncomfortable experience, especially for the first time. Most
horror movies follow pretty well-worn paths...which is, in fact, part
of their appeal. They're more like a ride at a theme park—you
experience the thrills without being really in danger. Creep-Out
films don't do this—they want you to be uncomfortable. When
they succeed, you're really uncomfortable, and think about this stuff
for days. And if the film is good, you come back to it
again...you're drawn, almost against your will. (Well, of course,
read “I” for “you” and “I'm” for
“you're” and “my” for “your” but
you get the idea. Just trying to be inclusive!)
In order for me
to be comfortable with a Creep-Out film, I have to have watched it
at least once, so I know when and where the bad stuff happens. As
always, it's helpful to have a map if you want to know where you're
going. Otherwise you're too creeped out!
Other Creep-Out films,
if you're interested, would include The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the
original), Alien, The Blair Witch Project, The Haunting (the
original), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original) and the
previously mentioned Seven. There are others, of course, but right
now I'm distracted from thinking of them.
Anyway, we're talking
about The Exorcist III. So let's do that.
The first thing that
struck me was director Blatty's very good visual sense. So far as I
know, he's only directed one other film (The Ninth Configuration, AKA
Twinkle Twinkle Killer Kane, also from his novel). I saw an
interview with Blatty (with excerpts) on Tom Snyder's old show once
and thought it was kind of interesting, and I read the book though it
didn't stay with me much (other than the black guy who thought he was
Superman). In E3, he uses a lot of visual set pieces and quick cuts
to set the mood of a disoriented and fractured world. We're
introduced to our main character, Leutenant Kinderman (George C.
Scott). He has a nice home life (good), but of course has to
investigate gruesome murders (bad) and we get the idea that he's
pretty cynical about life. And there are a number of gruesome
murders in this film, all of people who have names (first, last or
middle) beginning with the letter K. Father Karras (Jason Miller,
who played Father Karras in the first film, and as you noticed, his
last name begins with K) was apparently killed at the end of the
first film, but he was brought back to life by “the Devil”
(no names, please!) who uses him as a container for the Gemini Killer
(Brad Dourif).
Now, if you're a big Brad Dourif fan, this is the
film for you. He gets to do what he does best, and he's great at it
as always. No, he'll never win an Oscar, but damn, he's good.
So,
I pretty much recommend that you see this film. Well worth it.
Problems with the film? Well, I wouldn't have written this if I
wasn't writing this, so...In the film, it does seem if everyone is
overly sarcastic. As an example, Doomed Father Dyer (hey, I warned
you about spoilers!) greets Leutenant Kinderman (who is late for a
screening of Its a Wonderful Life they were to attend together) with
“They've elected four Popes while I was waiting for you!”
That's the most glaring example, the one that made me say Geez these
people are sarcastic. Leutenant Kinderman gets in a lot of jabs too,
especially with his subordinates. (Don Gordon plays one of them.)
And as befits a film written and directed by a novelist, everyone in
it is well-read and quick with literary allusions—we open on
one scene with Kinderman lecturing his suborinates about Macbeth.
There are a number of shock scenes (always including False
Scares) which will...I guess in the old days, they'd say “which
will stay with you!” But here in the technical vastness of the
future, we can say, “which you'll want to rewind and watch
again!” Some of these are quite haunting. One shot in
particular of a white-robed figure following a young nurse was great,
very much, “Whoa, what was that? Rewind!”
In the end,
I'm happy to say, good triumphs over evil (yes, it's important to me,
I'm tired of these downer things which are supposed to be Deep and
hold Meaning for Us All), though not without cost and without
preventing another sequel. Or prequel, I understand there are two of
those in the works....
____________________________________________________
Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)
Starring
Robert Englund, Not Kane Hodder, various teens. Written by Damian
Shannon and Mark Swift. Directed by Ronny Yu.
I went into
this not expecting much, but as always an open mind is my best
friend. And it's not bad, not bad at all. Of course, the thing is,
it's pretty much all kinetics, style and art direction, but those are
well enough done to keep my interest up. Directory Ronny Yu, who
(previously) I knew as the director of one of the Chucky movies,
keeps things visually interesting and moving along nicely. What more
could you ask of a franchise horror movie?
As I imagine is usual,
there are number of death set-pieces which are set up and executed
with panache. Interestingly enough, among the teenage victims,
there's only one who's a total deserving-to-die jerk. The rest are,
dare I say it?, nicely rounded and sympathetic. I was sorry to see
some of them killed, but I have to warn you: don't pick any
favorites, the survivors are very, very few. The plot is rather
convoluted and hard to follow, as I suppose is necessitated in order
to brings Mssrs Kruger and Vorhees together, but it works.
It
seems Freddy can't kill anyone anymore, because no one remembers him
(friends of the victims of other films are locked away in an asylum)
and apparently he can't enter anyone's dreams unless they know about
him. Uh, the hell? Kind of makes the first movie the odd duck of
the fanchise, huh? Anyway, his plan is to resurrect Jason, plant him
on Elm Street, start him killing folks, and everyone will go, “Whoa,
the workings of a maniacal killer! Suddenly I'm remembering Freddy
Kruger!” No, it doesn't make total sense to me either but if
you want total sense you've probably rented the wrong DVD. Anyway,
Jason proves less than controllable (and gets some surprisingly
sympathetic scenes late in the show) and the two stars square off in Freddy's dream
world.
I'm not totally up on the Nightmare and Friday series...I
saw the first Nightmare on Elm Street and thought it was just okay, I
saw Friday the 13th Part III (in a theatre, in 3-D) and
thought there was some nicely inventive camera-work. I've seen bits
of Parts I and II on cable, years ago. So when I say the characters
are interesting and sympathetic, I've only got a tiny bit of
historical evidence on hand, most of in deteriorating memory. In
contrast, I still remember seeing My Bloody Valentine on cable, also
years ago, and when the assembled teens said, “Hey, let's party
in the old abandoned mine!” I actually said, out loud, to the
TV, “That's it, you all deserve to die!”
Never once
said that here.
The performances are all pretty good, I know I've
seen the Seems-Evil-But-Isn't-Really Dad somewhere before, and Robert
Englund is always fun as Freddy. If the character weren't so
dispicable, Englund-as-Kruger would be a good modern-day Vincent Price. (I
guess he did that, on TV, right? Freddy's Nightmares or something?)
The rest are all unknowns to me, but they're good.
There's a lot
of good genre-styled humor, and tons of atmosphere. And for this
not-really-a-fan of the franchises, it was a lot of fun. The fights
between our titular menaces even have some mordant humor in them, as
Freddy's attempts to kill Jason have some Gilligan's-Island-type
malfunctions to them, toward the end.
If you're a fan of these
things, I sure don't want to spoil this film for you. But then, I
bet you've already seen it, hm? And if you're not a fan, if you hate
the twin franchises that met here, well, it's a pretty enjoyable
movie on its own. Though I'm sure it's not the end of either
franchise....and yeah, accordingly, the very last shots are great!
I
wonder what else Ronny Yu has done?
Well, now the credits...Sean
Cunningham, who directed the first Friday film, produces here, but
Wes Craven gets a “based on characters created by”
credit, which is a shame as he wrote and directed the first Nightmare
film. I should think he'd get an Executive Producer name, but then,
maybe he doesn't own the characters. Of course, maybe he doesn't
want to be associated with horror movies anymore. Who knows?
Yaphet Kotto gets a special thanks? Huh? I recognize some of
the other names as actresses appearing in either franchise, but
Yaphet Kotto? Was he in one of these?
Anway, if you're a fan,
enjoy! And if you're not a fan, take the plunge. Just tell
yourself, It's only a movie.
____________________________________________________
Lost Voyage (2001) will be appearing as a full review shortly.