“And Jesus said to the man who was possessed, “what is your name?” and he answered “Legion. For we are many.”
When people recall The Exorcist franchise, they typically think of projectile vomiting, heads spinning, or perhaps the critical disaster that was Exorcist II: The Heretic. It's only relatively recently that the third instalment has been recognised as a classic in its own right. A brooding, literate, and deeply unsettling sequel, The Exorcist III manages to step out from the shadow of the greatest horror film ever made, casting a smaller one of its own. Part horror, part metaphysical detective story, its influence is clear in the unconventional horror of Hereditary, the imagery of The Empty Man, and more specifically the combination of detective story and horror that clearly influenced films like Seven and Longlegs.
The story follows Lt. Kinderman (a wonderfully shouty George C. Scott) investigating a string of grisly murders that bear the hallmarks of a long-dead serial killer, despite different fingerprints being found at each crime scene. What follows isn't a conventional thriller, but the story of a man confronting his own dwindling faith – echoing the inner conflict of Father Karras (Jason Miller) in the original film.
What makes The Exorcist III interesting is that it wasn't conceived as a conventional sequel. Author William Peter Blatty initially wanted to adapt his novel Legion, but the studio retroactively added “Exorcist” to the title. The result is something singular and surprisingly resonant: a lingering, metaphysical horror that plays with audience expectations in favour of something far more disquieting. It's a more cerebral approach than that of The Exorcist – there's an immediate emotional audiences were immediately invested in the story of a little girl being possessed, this one requires a bit more work on the auidiences part.
The film had a notoriously fraught production, with the studio demanding reshoots—most notably the ending. Blatty's original cut ended with an anticlimactic shooting, but after poor test screenings (which Blatty blamed on a stacked audience), the studio demanded a reshot ending, complete with over-the-top exorcism and a crowbarred in priest, Father Morning (Nicol Williamson).
Purists (Mark Kermode included) prefer the integrity of the original ending, and they're probably right – the almost operatic exorcism doesn't fit with the understated dread of the rest of the film. But then again, for all its tonal whiplash, there is some real catharsis in the bonkers ending, and it feels earned. That final plea from Karras still gives me chills. It gives closure to Kinderman and Karras' friendship, and is arguably a rare case where studio interference helped the film.
When you rewatch The Exorcist, it's not the sensational moments that stay in the mind – it's the hints of the uncanny that bleed into the grounded setting. The eerie “Can you help an old altar boy, Father?” line still sends a shiver up your spine. The Exorcist III is comprised almost entirely of this kind of dread. We don't witness a single murder. The horror arrives second-hand: in coldly clinical police reports or relayed gleefully by the Gemini Killer – who, in a suitably creepy workaround for the reshoots, is played by both Jason Miller (reprising his role as Karras) and Brad Dourif, giving one of the best, most intense performances of his career.
The horror is built from implication, disconcerting moments (like the fleeting shot of a statue of Jesus with an obscene rictus grin), and one of horror cinema's most effective jump scares. That hallway scene, with its long, wide take and silence stretched to breaking point, is a masterclass in anticipation and restraint. Blatty toys with the audience, holding the tension until the inevitable, shocking release.
Blatty's dialogue is verbose but precise, filled with theological musings and gallows humour. He creates a distinct visual language, with disorienting scene transitions often linked by a single word, suggesting some malevolent omniscient presence. Add in Barry De Vorzon's oppressive score, and the film starts to feel less like a horror movie and more like a possession.
It's only in recent years that Exorcist III has emerged as antecedent for a new subgenre of horror. Films that combine detective fiction with existential dread. Where evil spreads insidiously, like an idea; and where detectives don't save the day—they just survive long enough to understand something they wish they hadn't.
David Fincher's Seven is perhaps the clearest spiritual successor. Both films are a combination of grim police procedural and moral despair, centring on a detective trying to catch a killer whose crimes are steeped in religious symbolism. John Doe, like the Gemini Killer, is articulate, meticulous, and driven by a twisted philosophy, seeing his murders as necessary lessons.
The “Lust” murder from Seven, where Leland Orser breaks down in breathless panic, has a similar effect on Somerset (Morgan Freeman) as the scene where Kinderman details a particularly nasty murder of a child to Father Dyer (Ed Flanders). Both scenes paint horror with words, not images, and both linger on the reactions of the listener., both shaken to their core.
There are comparisons to be drawn between Kinderman and Seven's detectives too. All are essentially good men trying, and struggling, to believe in something. Kinderman's final speech to the Gemini killer – “I believe in slime and stink and every crawling, putrid thing…” – is the exhausted confession of a man who knows he's lost, but can't stop fighting. It's hard not to draw comparisons to Somerset's final line from Seven: “The world is a good place and worth fighting for – I agree with the second part.” Of course Mills (Brad Pitt) isn't able to be quite so lyrical – he ends the film utterly ruined, having shot a defenceless man, in much the same way Kinderman does in the original cut of Exorcist III. Both Kinderman and Mills end their respective films broken, and in the original cut at least, there is no doubt that Kinderman will be imprisoned for his actions.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa's hypnotic masterpiece Cure has a similarly bleak outlook. Detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) investigates a string of identical murders committed by unrelated perpetrators. Here, the film's antagonist is barely present, but his influence spreads like a virus. Evil in Cure is psychological rather than theological – but it moves in the same way as a possession. The difference between Takabe and Somerset is that Takabe lets the evil in, or perhaps it was there all along, and he simply harnesses it.
The closest modern analogue may be Osgood Perkins' Longlegs. An FBI profiler unravels a series of occult murders, uncovering in a cycle that traces back to her own childhood. Longlegs leans into atmosphere: droning sound design, uncanny set design, and an unshakeable sense of evil occupying every empty space. It's the kind of horror that creeps in sideways and fills you with dread. Had Blatty's full director's cut been released, it might have looked a lot like Longlegs: a slow descent into damnation, where protagonists sacrifice themselves to stop a horror that can't be undone.
All these films feel cut from the same cloth. They all demonstrate the capacity for cruelty that is as much a part of being a human being than anything supernatural, taking a very dim view on society. Jay Bauman from Red Letter Media summed the film up as “a film about a man having to accept the fact that the world is horrible, [and the] awful, evil things we do to each other.” Compare this with Somerset's disgust at the apathy that plagues the city, and Takabe's disturbing encounter with a banal salaryman at the drycleaners. All these films feature a grim procedural structure, oppressive atmospheres and share a core thesis: that systems of logic and law are insufficient against the ineffable. The protagonists are decidedly not positioned as heroes, but rather witnesses. They don't win. They survive. Just. Sometimes they debase themselves to stop something worse.
The Exorcist is a masterpiece, but Blatty's sequel has carved out a vivid legacy of its own. It helped lay the foundations for a kind of horror that uses grounded detective stories to explore more disturbing, theological territory. Where the line between demonic evil and human malevolence is paper-thin. Where you almost hope for the devil to turn up, if it means the evil is beyond human understanding.
