The Exorcist III (1990)

Episode 260, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: It’s time, Craig, for another request this week, this request comes from loyal listener, Adam who several times over perhaps three times in fact. Has requested The Exorcist Part Three. So Adam, this goes out to you, uh, I think we’ve done the Exorcist 2.

Before on this show, we’ve been shying away from the Exorcist. Like we shy away from all of these, uh, super classic films. Well, not all of them, but many of them. Right. But the exercise three, I remember from, I think I watched it in high school, came out in 1990. I remember getting together with friends. We would often rent movies and watch them at night over at somebody’s house on a Friday night or Saturday night.

And I’m pretty sure we popped in The Exorcist Part 3. The extent of my recollections of this film was one scene in particular being one of the scariest jump scares I’ve ever seen to this date even. And maybe a lot of people would say that. And then I do remember falling. I remember yeah. Dozing in and out of the movie and I’m not having very strong feelings about it.

I think I just remembered as being pretty scary. And now that I think about it probably was all based on that jump scare. Um, I was really excited to come back and revisit it because I forgot pretty much everything. Except for that scene. How about you, Craig? What’s your history with this

Craig: one? No, that I had seen it probably like you, I probably saw it when I was in high school or early in college.

I don’t know. I didn’t remember much about it, but you know, I do recall reading, um, a lot of flattering things about it. I mean, it was much better received than the extra SIS two, which in fairness is not very good. I mean, I don’t hate it. I don’t, yeah, I don’t hate it. I, you know, I liked that, uh, This, they continued the story of Reagan.

I was interested in that story, but it was lacking in a lot of ways. The writer and director of the source novel also wrote the source novel for this movie and directed this movie did not like the extras too at all, and, and wanted to distance himself and distance this movie from that. And so that actually was conceived as a film.

Uh, William, Peter Blatty, the writer wanted to make a sequel to the original film. Um, and he approached, I don’t know, a studio, some studios, William

Todd: Friedkin, the director. Of the original no,

Craig: no. This, the, the, the writer of this movie, I think,

Todd: I mean, William, Peter Blatty approached William Friedkin. Oh, okay.

Gotcha. For the sequel. Yeah. Who wasn’t interested apparently.

Craig: Well, at least not in this story. And so William, Peter Blatty went ahead and wrote it as a novel, entitled it Legion. And it is a sequel. It features several characters from the original. It, it does not follow, uh, Reagan’s story. The film ignores the CQL, the Exorcist to, but doesn’t directly contradict it either.

But anyway, the point is he wrote the novel and then. After he had written the novel, then there started to be some in, in, in the meantime, the extras two came out. Uh, bladdy hated it, but eventually he was given the option to make this movie. He wanted to simply title it Legion as he had titled his novel.

But the studio that, uh, picked it up was hesitant about that. They wanted the name recognition of the Exorcist. And so bladdy, uh, said, well, let’s call it the extra since 1990. Um, instead of the Exodus three, the studio initially said, okay. And they shot it under that title, but eventually they just went with, uh, the extra SIS three anyway, watching this movie again, I found that I really didn’t remember much of it.

And I imagine that part of the reason that I. Remember much of it is that this movie, I may be giving it a little bit too much credit here, but it’s kind of heady it’s, it’s very different than the first movie. And what we’re watching, what we watched is the theatrical cut and there was a lot of studio involvement in the theatrical cut.

The original cut was much. More closely adapted from the novel. And that was the deal that bladdy made with the studio. He said, I want to make it the way I want to make it in the studio. So that’s fine. You can make it your way, but we’re going to give it one preview. And if the preview doesn’t go well, then we’re going to do reshoots.

And bladdy said, okay, that’s fine. And, and so that’s, they did he filmed it the way that he wanted to, they did a preview, uh, bladdy in interviews seems to kind of suggest that the preview was kind of a hit job. Like they intentionally brought in an audience that they knew wouldn’t respond well, and they didn’t.

And so we had to do reshoots and they reshot it extensively. The original footage was thought to be lost. Forever. Uh, and it wasn’t until 2016, 2017, right before bladdy passed away, um, that they found the original footage and they recut it with varying video quality because the footage that they found was VHS, I think, um, and it wasn’t super great quality.

They, they put a disclaimer up before it, but the laddies directorial cut did come out before he passed away in, in 2017, I think. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen that. And I didn’t even realize all of that behind the scenes drama until I was watching this. And there were parts of it that were just a couple of parts in particular that were so oddly cut.

I’m like what? Yeah is happening. Right.

Todd: One part,

Craig: there was one part in particular that, uh, I thought. My internet had messed up and like jumped forward or something. It cut to what was clearly the end of a scene. And I rewound it to make sure that I hadn’t missed something and I hadn’t, and it just turned out that it was because they were cutting around footage.

Um, and so when I realized that there were these two different versions, of course, you and I are on opposite sides of the world. So I’m watching it, you know, the day before we’re going to be doing it, but that’s the middle of the night for you. And so. I texted you really quick. I’m like, dude, there are two versions and apparently they’re like vastly different.

So are we watching the same one? Do, do we watch different ones and talk about the differences? And when I had finished watching this cut, which is what we ended up going with, I texted you. And I said, you know what? I think they’re so different. I think it would be confusing if we watch the different versions.

So we both watched the theatrical cut and I have to say based on the descriptions of the director’s cut and based on my viewing of this one, I can’t say objectively, because I don’t think I’ve seen the director’s cut, but I think we made the right choice.

Todd: Yeah. It seems like it. Well, that seems to be the consensus online.

Most of what I’ve read at best says there’s not actually that much. Difference. That’s so significant. That really alters too much, except for the ending,

Craig: like the last third of the movie and a major recast, they inserted a whole new character, which does it

Todd: feels, feels like it a hundred percent. Yeah. He, he

Craig: feels spliced in it’s it’s bizarre, but another significant change this centers around a detective or a cop, whatever he is named Kinderman, who did appear in the original novel and in the original film, he’s recast here because the original actor had passed away.

Um, and he’s played by George C. Scott, uh, in this movie who is a renowned actor. I have to say, I always find him to be. Over the top.

Todd: Well, over the top of this movie, and especially in the beginning, it was almost to be distracting, right? He’s just this sort of like a disgruntled sort of seen it all angry and also upset kind of cop.

Who’s always got this witty. Snide comments to make and you know, never cracked a smile. My

Craig: wife’s mother is visiting father and Tuesday nights, she’s cooking as a carp. It’s a tasty fish. I have nothing against them, but because it’s supposedly filled with impurities, she buys it live. And for three days it’s been swimming up and down in my bathtub up and down, and I hate it.

I can’t stand the sight of it moving it’s guilt. You’re standing very close to me, father. You noticed

I haven’t had a bath for three days. I can’t go home until the is asleep because of, I see it swimming.

Well, not only that, but he goes from zero to 60 in like a split, like, like he just flips out.

Todd: He says the wrong word and suddenly screaming and holding his head. Right. It’s distracting. Actually

Craig: it is distracting, but I mean, to his credit, I mean, this is a, he’s a reputable actor. He’s done a lot. You know, big things and, and gotten a lot of acclaim.

So whatever we’ll excuse that. The other thing is though, he is investigating these murders that appear to follow the patterns of this serial killer, who was supposedly killed years before. But now all of a sudden these murders have come up and they have the same emo as the serial killer, the Gemini. And eventually he stumbles upon this patient in a mental ward of a hospital, the disturbed ward of a hospital who claims to be the Gemini killer.

And that character is played by, oh, help me out here. I can’t think of Brad, Brad, Dora, Brad Dorff, who is probably most famous at this point for voicing Chucky. And I love the Chucky movies and I love Brad Dorf in those movies, but this movie reminded me that Brad Doris is an exceptional. Yeah, he is

Todd: amazing.

It’s amazing.

Craig: It’s so good. And you know, you don’t think when you think of the Chucky movies, you don’t think of them for their outstanding acting, acting performances there, but you know, they’re fun, whatever. But, you know, I was reminded that my first exposure to Brad Dora was in one flew over the Cuckoo’s nest.

He played Billy Bibbet and he was, he was amazing and devastating. And that movie too, and his talent is just on full display here and in the original shoot, he played this character throughout, you know, it, it was just him when they did the reshoots, the studio wanted somebody from the original, an original cast member.

So, um, they got the other guy that you said, what was his name? John Jason Miller, who played father Charisse the Exorcist in the, in the first extra cyst. And they share the role, which sounds really strange, but actually I think it works really, really well. And, and supposedly they were going to have, um, Miller play the role.

Initially. They said he was unavailable later in an interview. Brad Doerr said that the truth of the matter was that he was an alcoholic and because of his alcoholism, he couldn’t memorize some of the lengthy monologues that, um, the Gemini killer slash Charisse has to deliver. So when they did the reshoots, they brought in Miller and he filmed some of the scenes with shorter dialogue and it just bounces back and forth.

Between the two of them. And that sounds so odd, but it worked for me. It really, it

Todd: really did. You did, although it did raise some questions, I’m still not exactly sure how to parse all that out as to what was sort of reality and what was not, because there’s another scene that was inserted after the director’s cut that.

I thought casts a little bit of that. A doubt on what’s going on there. I don’t know. I guess we can talk about it right. As we get, as we get through there, it’s, it’s a weird movie. And like you said, yourself, it’s especially. Bizarrely cut. I think I was reading up on something online or some Quip about it that mentioned that William Peter Blatty is a little reminiscent of David Lynch in this movie.

And I kind of have to agree because things get a little esoteric and strange, and these random cuts to things that don’t seem to match or these thematic elements, like there’s a red rose that kind of pops in and out that you, you know, you know, must be significant, but there’s not really. It’s it’s never settled for you.

You know, a lot of these little things. It’s interesting. I think William freakin in the original didn’t do much of that. He inserted some sort of subliminal shots, like, you know, couple frame flashes of demons and things and stuff in there. So this movie, I actually felt like this movie was much closer in tone, to be honest to the sequel, to the exercise too, than it was to the first one.

And the first reason I say that is that it’s not a very. It doesn’t appear to be a very straightforward plot. The very first Exorcist has a very straightforward, pretty linear plot with sort of a subplot involving the father Kara’s character, but it’s more of a thematic plot than anything else, just his brooding and what we, you know, kind of what’s going on inside of him.

The second movie, it goes in bizarre territory, right? It’s about

Craig: psychic stuff,

Todd: psychic stuff. And then we kind of go to Africa and like people like flying through the area to dream sequences, and then they kind of pop out of dream sequences and suddenly they’re reality again, but you’re not even sure, like if what you just saw was real, it it’s, it’s bizarre.

And it also gets comical. And also it’s just not very scary. Uh, there’s not a lot of horror. Happening in the exercise part too. And as I recall, there’s not even an exorcism happening in the exercise part too. And that was part of the issue when, with the first cut of this movie, which was based on his novel Legion and William, Peter Blatty was very insistent that, you know, he didn’t really want this to be a horror movie, right.

He wanted it to be based on the novel, which as the movie plays out in general, it’s kind of like a police procedural in a way with, with some supernatural elements to it, but nothing overtly horror and the bits that were added. One of the main things was an actual exorcism at the end because apparently I’m the secretary of one of the producers or somebody involved in the movie.

He was like, look, you’re, you’re calling it the Exorcist three and there’s no exorcism in there. And so they made him go back and alter the ending of the film to add that extra character. Uh, you know, as it’s basically another priest, that’s just very loosely and quickly referenced earlier in the film, we see a couple shots of him looking pensive and disturbed, and then you never see him again until the very end when he’s kind of mysteriously and unexplainably shows up.

Yeah. To, to perform an exorcism. And then the exorcism, it’s just so different in tone from the rest of the movie, it’s this special effects extravaganza. Uh, it’s almost like something out, a nightmare on Elm street, you know, and, uh, crazy. And it, it apparently costs like $4 million. No, it’s insane. Lido said, look, he’s like, I kind of went in there thinking, all right, I’m going to put lipstick on this pig.

You know, if they want me to do this extra bit, I’m going to make it look awesome. And. It’s okay. I mean, it’s, it’s perfectly fine. It’s an awesome kind of scene in another movie. But in this movie it just kind of comes out of left field. Although to be fair, you’re assaulted with a lot of out of left field things in this movie.

Anyway, anyway, just the tone of this. Is

Craig: different movie. It’s a freaking fever dream. Like there were parts of it when I was like, did I accidentally take some acid?

Okay. So we are, there are some scenes that are so bizarre. There’s one scene in particular in which Kinderman George C. Scott, I guess it’s a dream, but he like ends up in like, what looks like? Maybe it could thedral but it’s set up like, as like a triaged ward and like there’s all these angels, like in full angel, get up with the huge wings and stuff like ministering to people, but then like, There’s little people there and Fabio is there?

No,

Todd: it’s so weird. This happening drafting cameos in this film, like, oh, they’re cameos in this movie that are just like a two second shot of a guy and you’re just like, holy shit. That was lyric. Like sitting at a table, ordering something like, and again, the same thing in that fog, it’s like Fabio, and it’s just a

Craig: shot of him.

Like sitting there looking pretty like Fabio, like, like he’s posing for a cover of one of his romance novels or something. It’s like, what? What’s funny, what’s

Todd: happening. Like, it’s so bizarre as the director of fan, did he call in a favor? Like how did he get like a split second shot of this movie with barely mentioned, but it happens.

And that just adds to the surreal, distracting quality. Apparently Samuel Jackson is in that too. No, I didn’t catch. I know. I didn’t

Craig: see him. No, but there’s, there’s also another thing I have to admit that it pulled me out a little bit though. It shouldn’t have, but so many of the minor, minor characters in this movie, Incredibly recognizable B-list actors.

Like it seems like almost everybody you’re introduced to you’re like, oh, that guy, oh,

Todd: I don’t know their name, but you know, you’ve seen them before. Exactly.

Craig: So it was, it’s weird. It’s, it’s a weird movie. And honestly, about halfway through was when I texted you the first time and I’m like, dude, it doesn’t even make any sense.

And then by the time I got to the end, I ended up liking it. And, and that, that, that, that closing scene, the big exorcism at the end, it w it felt kind of in keeping with, um, the first movie in so much as, at this point, father care, the man Miller who played father Charisse in the original has, has taken the role.

Um, and they have him in makeup and the atmosphere. Is all very similar to what it looked like in the first movie, like his possessed persona is very reminiscent of what people look like, who are possessed, especially at the end of the first movie and, you know, atmospherically it’s very cold. And so there’s lots of fog and you can see their breath and the lighting is like, you know, in shades of blue and stuff.

Um, so I felt like it did tie well to the first movie, but you’re right throughout, it is just be in terms of being so odd. It is kind of more like the second movie. I really hadn’t thought about

Todd: that. I mean, be honest to the first movie gets a lot of credit for being really scary and it’s iconic and it’s got this cool theme, but it’s extremely exploitative.

I mean, there are parts that don’t withstand scrutiny. It’s absurd, uh, at a moment, you know, where Reagan’s head completely spins entirely. Right. And yeah, that’s just total horror movie. The ending, you know, is, is just kind of another special effects extravaganza floating and, you know, possession and the demon kind of shows up and there’s a face splashing up there.

We Revere this movie as being spooky, but you kind of forget that it has its moments too, where it’s a little hokey and crazy. And especially if you see like the director’s cut where apparently like there’s like she spider walking down the stairs. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, in that way, like the whole franchise, if you will, it doesn’t pretend to be this sort of deep psychological drama.

It just. Enough of that, that somehow it just feels a little more respectable than most, a lot of the other horror movies we watch, you know, I don’t know what to, what I’m trying to say here, but, uh, I guess it just, what I’m trying to say is it just got elements of all of it.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to say either because I will not, I will not speak ill of that movie.

You know, if people ask me what’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen, I’ll throw that one out. Cause I do. I do find that movie to be very scary, you know, and again, we’ve intentionally not talked about it. There’s so much to talk about. I mean, you know, uh, Linda Blair and the woman who’s very famous, but I can’t think of her name who played her mother were both severely injured because of the director.

Careless treatment of them. And, you know, they’re a bunch of people die. Like the movie is supposed to be cursed or whatever, if, if you haven’t, if you’re interested in that movie and you haven’t looked into it, read up on it. Cause there’s a lot of really fascinating things going on there. And, uh, they, they did an episode there on shutter.

There’s a series called I think it’s called cursed films or something like that. Um, and they did, I think the very first episode was on the extra cyst and there’s a lot of really fascinating stuff that’s going on there. This, you know, aside, aside from all the studio intervention and all that kind of stuff, you know, A whole lot of fascinating behind the scenes stuff.

It’s really more just about how it came together. Um, that’s so interesting.

Todd: The story is hard to follow for a while. Oh my gosh. I think maybe why you and I also ended up like appreciating it a little bit more by the time it was done is simply because at some point. In the movie, there’s just a long monologue that explains it.

And I mean, I might knock the film for that, but by God, by that time, I just wanted to get a sense on what was happening. And it’s, you know, Brad Dorff or in the Gemini killer character who eventually just spits out in this long monologue. Exactly. What’s going on. And by then, you’re like, okay, all this now that I’ve been seeing sorta makes sense.

There’s no way I think you would have without that. So there’s a real, like, there’s just a sense. I feel like the movie just builds a sense of, I don’t want to say wonder just confusion. And it’s just interesting enough to kind of keep you going along in that confusion, shoot all this random stuff at you, these random images, all these things are happening and you’re just looking, you’re trying to piece the mystery together.

You’re trying to puzzle it out, but it feels like the movies actually try to confuse you more. And then there’s that more. You know, I think three quarters of the way through where he just basically explains and what it is is apparently the Gemini killer was executed. I think, I think if I’m getting

Craig: this right electric chair

Todd: 15 years ago, at the same time that you know, this exorcism with Reagan happened.

And so AFAs father Keras fell down the stairs and died the devil,

Craig: like right Legion

Todd: reward or revenge or whatever for this exorcism happening and going away, he decides to stick the Gemini killers, spirit or essence as a demon. Now, whatever into father Keras, although father carries his body now is just jelly he’s brain dead and everything.

So it takes the next 15 years for this spirit to regenerate enough of his body that he can actually. Come to life and move about in the world because as he explains, like spirits need a human host in order to walk around through the movie. So you literally, father Cara says body. I mean, we don’t see this.

We just hear about it was real resurrected and ended up in a psych ward right now. Here’s where it’s weird. Right? Okay. He says that, you know, we need this human thing. So he spends all this time, regenerating, regenerating ends up in a psych ward. I’m not sure we know exactly how he ends up there. I think it might’ve been explained at any case.

He says he’s also a traveler. So now that I guess he’s in a completely regenerated body, he’s able to hop, hop around it, you know, which kinda doesn’t make sense anymore. Right. But anyway, he’s able to hop around any hops around to the older and more elderly people in the nearby psych ward so that these elderly people can go out and commit these crimes.

Right. That’s that? And it’s pretty silly. Yeah. It’s pretty silly. That’s why I say it’s kind of a lot like the exercise to almost as silly as the exercises to what? Yeah.

Craig: I mean, it’s, it’s just a matter of willing suspension of disbelief. Like it, it is silly because all these murders are happening and there are several brutal murders, a young boy, and, and just like in the original movie, you know, it’s not just murders.

It’s always in some way made to be profane. Um, this, this young boy that, that Kinderman actually knows because he’s part of like the police squad boys club or something he’s murdered in the beginning and his eyes are gouged out and he’s decapitated and his head is replaced with the broken off statue, head of Jesus, but it’s painted up like a minstrel show and he’s crucified on oars.

Like, so, you know, not only is it just brutal murder, but it’s also clearly intentionally like an affront to God or whatever. And then I don’t know, a priest, uh, is killed, um, while he’s doing confession. I liked that scene. It’s so bizarre. B I didn’t know, because this is before what you just explained was explained.

This priest is doing confession and it’s this little old lady’s voice. And then she starts saying these horrible murderous things that she’s done. And then her voice changes into this demonic voice. And then the first was that, wait, Tricia near candlestick park, I cut her throat and watched her bleed.

She bled a great deal. It’s a problem that I’m working on father, all this lady,

she kills him. Well, apparently as you just explained, that makes sense because he’s using these convalescence as conduits, like he’s, he’s inhabiting their bodies or whatever.

Todd: What I want to know is how were they getting out of the hospital? I don’t know. I know know knocking out and in the maximum security ward, but there’s, your heart are able to just like leave, you know, w unnoticed and then sneak back in somehow.

It’s just the magic of Satan. I guess when I was watching that scene with a confessional, I couldn’t stop thinking about hello, Mary Lou prom night, too,

which must’ve come out around the same time and also had an entertaining, uh, confessionals

Craig: then. Um, Kinderman is, uh, friends with this other priest named father Dyer and father Dyer is just kind of this affable guy. Um, I think another reason that the movie is a little bit confusing for me, and I would assume for some other audience people is that it is following.

The story of people who were involved in the first movie and the first scenario, but they were minor characters that like, I don’t remember.

Todd: And they’re played by completed by different

Craig: actors. So it’s like, oh, you know these people? No, not yet.

Aye. Remember how they were connected. Um, apparently Kinderman was like best friends with father Karrass who was the, the, the main or the younger, I guess excersice the one who ends up taking on. The demon taking, he invites the demon to come out of Reagan and into himself. And when the demon does that, then he throws himself down those infamous stairs, that staircase in Georgetown, which we see a couple of times, which my mom loves reminding me that she’s visited.

Anytime the Exorcist comes up, which is more than you would think,

Todd: oh, you and your family, I’m not surprised

Craig: I’ve been there. I seen those stairs. Yes, mam.

Todd: It’s one of the few contributions, I think, to the horror movie discussion at the Craig’s dinner table, the Higgins dinner table that she could

Craig: make.

Well, and my mom can’t remember any movie she’s ever seen. Like I like we’ll be talking about it. My mom will be like, I haven’t seen it. And my sister and I’d be like, yes, mom, you have you watched it with us? No, no, I didn’t. I haven’t seen it.

But, so, so, and, and so the whole movie, I mean, there’s, it’s long, it’s, it’s almost two hours. It’s an hour 50. Um, and it’s long and it’s a lot, you know, like you said, it’s much of a crime procedural, basically a lot of investigating, talking to different people, talking to the people at the hospital. I mean, the fact that he just stumbles upon this Gemini killer in the hospital, is he?

Yeah. Kind of silly and stupid too, but then there’s also always stuff. And I don’t remember this at all. And I was watching this with earbuds in, so I wonder how much I would have noticed had I not had the sound directly in my ears, but throughout the whole movie, there’s tons of just like demon breathing and demon roaring and demon chanting.

That’s just happening all around people. And like, they act like they don’t notice

Todd: well, it’s it’s I watched it on a big screen and I still notice some of that. So I think it was, you know, pretty heavy handed in there. But, but like you said, like it’s still in the background. I think the movie, if I was to, there was a point there’s kind of a chase scene toward the end where like he rushes home because it’s clear that like his family is in danger and there’s this core to kind of.

Almost tribal drum beating going on in the background. And it occurred to me like, yeah, there’s been a lot of this, like drones, meaning even just these Wong, uh, in the background that the whole movie may be subliminally at moments, cast a bit of a spell on you, you know, and that it adds a little bit of an extra tension to scenes that are all, ultimately don’t pay off or don’t really go anywhere or just confusing.

They’re all tied together, you know, by the sense that everything seems just a little off in a theorial. I don’t know if it works a hundred percent, but I think I can clearly see that, you know, as far as from a sound design perspective, I feel like William, Peter. And his crew were kind of going for this.

It sounded

Craig: cool. It was just kind of odd that like, it was just happening, but just for us, like the people involved, weren’t like, I kept thinking, how are they not hearing this? Because it’s so loud in my ears now, are they not noticing?

Todd: I feel it was meant to be just things like impressions coming and going.

Maybe, maybe coming in and out of the character’s thoughts or, or something like that, that maybe aren’t actually happening in real life. Although there’s one moment. There’s one moment where he, uh, is talking with, um, another person. Oh, God. What was his name? Con Canavan or something? I don’t know. Father cath.

Yeah. He’s um, he’s talking with him and father Canada just seems like a bit like kind of aloof to everything. Just maybe just a little bit drunk and weary and tired. He has this meeting with him in the office and then the clock stops and they look over and father cannon almost couldn’t care less.

Whereas. Just somewhat bemused by it. And then like the door kind of creeks open and things start to laugh.

Craig: It’s flash,

Todd: there’s hearing sounds and he gets up and father Canam and just, is just sitting at his desk, like whatever. And I’m going, what? What’s cool. Are they, they’re not reacting. Like people should react in this store.

Yeah.

Craig: And so it made me wonder, it made me wonder if Kendra, like, if it w if Kinderman was the only one who was noticing, like, not, not necessarily that it was in his mind, but that he was the only one, like it was targeted at him. So he was the only one who was kind of experiencing it, but you’re right. It is weird that the other character just sits in the background.

Like, doesn’t even say, why are you getting up and looking around? Like, he just. Sits there. And Kinderman goes out into the hallway and looks down the hallway and he doesn’t even see it, that we see this statue that looks like it was probably originally, you know, of some religious figure, but it looks like the joker from Batman and it’s holding this giant knife and it’s just such a bizarre image and nothing really comes of it.

It’s just strange imagery. Yeah, it

Todd: comes. And it goes. And what was that? Is that a real statue? Is it, was it an enchanted statue? Is, is it just this weird thing in his mind, but he wasn’t even there to see it. I didn’t get that. Right. But I feel like, I feel like sometimes he’s just throwing random stuff in here just to mess with our minds, just to put us on edge, you know,

Craig: is atmospheric.

I mean, I, I, I do like the atmosphere that it creates, it just. It’s so strange. It’s really bizarre. The, the Gemini killer kills people well in really specific ways, which I thought was interesting. First of all, he injects them with a paralytic, how he has all of this medical knowledge. I have no right,

Todd: or how this end manages to happen in all these circumstances

Craig: and how he just to get his hands on this powerful paralytic that he injects into people so that they are paralyzed, but conscious while they are being tortured and dismembered, which is nightmarish, especially since you consider that, I’m the first person that we know who was killed was a 12 year old boy.

Like that’s, that’s horrible. And like at one point, Brad Dora says that, well, he decapitates them and then he gouges their eyes out and then he always takes a finger. Cause he says, he’s a collector. He likes to keep some things. And he always carves the symbol of the Gemini into the other hand. The one that he didn’t take the finger from.

And then throughout the movie, he does various other things. There’s one character, there’s a nurse, which is the jump scare that you were talking about. Um, she gets killed and they say that he, he completely dissembled her. And then stuffed her with rosaries again, where do you get enough? Rosaries, just have a body full of them, but, um, full of rosaries and then sewed her back up.

So his emo is very gruesome and cruel. Uh, and, and that too adds to the atmosphere. I appreciate that. But beyond that, all of that stuff is, you know, most of it is stuff that we hear about off screen. We don’t really see. A ton of violence, you know, come to think of it. I feel like we really don’t see any, no

Todd: violence at all.

Yeah, actually you’re right. Except for the very end that that sequence we were talking about, that was kind of shot at the end. Yeah. There’s some gross and that’s why it’s so out of place really. I mean, let

Craig: part of it. Yeah. I mean, you can tell that he did what they wanted. They wanted some gore, they wanted it to be a horror movie.

And like you said, bladdy before he passed away, did interviews in which he said that he much preferred his ending and that he felt like the new ending recharacterized the whole film and, and completely changed the tone. But he also said. It is what it is. And if they were going to do that, if they were going to make those changes, I’m glad that I got to do it.

So he wasn’t like, it didn’t seem like he was super bitter about it. It was just kind of, you know, that’s Hollywood, it’s going to be done. They’re going to change it. At least it’s in my hands. And, and I liked the end, but, but what’s scarier to me than even these descriptions of all these horrible things that the killer has done is Brad Doris performance.

Finally, it worked first, a bit of the old succinylcholine to permit one, to work without, uh, annoying distractions. Then a three foot catheter threaded directly into the inferior vena cava.

Todd: Or

Craig: superior vena cava. It’s a matter of taste. I think don’t you and the tube moves through the vein under the crease of the arm, into the vein that leads to exactly into the heart.

And then you just hold up the legs and you squeeze the blood manually into the tube from the arms and the legs as a little shaking and pounding at the end for the drugs. It isn’t perfect. There’s a little blood left, I’m afraid, but regardless, the over all effect is us Tanisha. And isn’t that really?

What counts in the end? Yes, of course. Good show biz, Lieutenant the effect, and then. Off comes the head without spilling one single drop of blood. Now I call that showmanship Lieutenant. He’s just phenomenal from, from an actor’s perspective, his face, his voice, his, uh, motivation. I mean like just his delivery is just phenomenal and so much of what he does are these long.

And when I say long, probably not more than a couple of minutes. In a S in a shot in a movie, a couple of minutes is long. And for, just to be one person just talking and the camera on them for that long, just talking, um, that’s a long time and he is just captivating, frankly. Yeah. I was blown away, so

Todd: good.

And he’s in tears

Craig: half the time. And his nose is like snot coming out of his nose. Like it’s just raw rides. So good.

Todd: And, and bladdy does an interesting thing on occasion where he will switch to a first-person POV, which you don’t often see in movies. Um, I think it’s wind, his priest friend, uh, ends up in the hospital and the killer gets to his priest friend.

And he first walks in this whole sequence when he walks into the hospitals in first-person you just see people looking at you at the camera and he goes in and all that, I thought, oh, that is an interesting choice. Will he does this again to kind of shake things up during these long monologues? So Brad Dorf, isn’t just like delivering these long, like you said, no cut monologues towards the detective, but at some point that the camera view will switch and he’s delivering it straight.

Straight to the camera. It’s really captivating. And again, very talented for him to be able to do that. It’s it’s not hiding behind a Chucky doll that’s for sure. Right. It’s amazing. And then this doctor at the hospital, which I almost thought for a while was like fricking comic relief. Yeah. He was weird.

I didn’t get a super chain smoking.

Craig: Like a poster hung up in his office, in the hospital.

Todd: What’s all kinds of weird stuff on his, on the wall,

Craig: in the hospital, relics and idols and stuff. I had no idea what was going on here was supposed to be because of all those idols and things. I thought that maybe he was in on it with the Gemini guy or the demon or, well, he kind of was

Todd: right.

Well,

Craig: yes, only because he was being coerced, the demon or the Gemini killer, whatever. And that’s the other thing like the Gemini killer is definitely in there and Charisse is in there too. And when Karras kind of comes out, that’s when we see the other actor who also does a good job and it is nice to see a familiar face from the original movie.

Yeah. He he’s he’s. I mean, he doesn’t do a lot aside from sit there and be familiar, but there’s also like, like the demon is in there too, and, or a demon is in there too. And can also come out and talk. It it’s weird.

Todd: It’s weird, but you’re right. I mean, like, it’s kind of interesting, but then they flip. Okay.

For real quick, I just wanted to say the actor who played the doctor, I found out later is Scott Wilson who played Herschel on the walking dead. Oh,

Craig: I don’t watch that. So

Todd: it doesn’t mean anything to me. He doesn’t look at all like him, but I just, you know, I only know Herschel with the white hair and the beard and all that stuff.

So that was kind of interesting. No, but here’s the deal. So they, they bounce between Dorff and Karus. And at first when George C Scott’s character walks in there and sees this guy and, and is stunned by his face, um, the

Craig: scene, that’s the scene that I thought that there was something wrong because like, he’s talking to that doctor that you were talking about.

And he wants to see, he had been drawn to that guys to the gym and I killers cell, but we didn’t really see him. All we saw was somebody sitting in the dark and silhouette reciting death, be not proud by John Dunn, which was kind of weird, but then Kinderman wants to go back. So it’s like, he says he wants to go back, but then the very next thing you see is him coming back out of that cell freaked out.

Yeah. And you don’t have any idea what happened in there or why he’s freaked out? I mean, he explains it later. He says, you know, that the man sitting in there is so-and-so Karrass when he then does go back in and we actually see him at his father. But then while they’re talking in one moment, it’s father Charisse and then it cuts back to Kinderman and then it cuts back.

And then it’s Brad Dorf. Yeah. But Kinderman, doesn’t react at all. So I still don’t really understand this. I don’t know if Kinderman was always seeing Charisse and we were just seeing the Brad Dorf, Gemini killer guy. I don’t know. There’s another scene where after they talk pretty much every time after they talk at the end, the Gemini killer, like.

Tired and just immediately passes out. And there’s one scene where it’s, it’s Brad Dorff and he starts to go to sleep and he goes to sleep and then Kinderman looks at him again and it’s Karus and Kinderman goes up to him and says, Damien, cause that’s Kara says first name and Brad comes back out and just screams in his face.

Like, and it’s super scary and creepy, but I still don’t really get, I don’t understand if Kinderman was seeing him in both. Carnations or if that’s just us. I don’t, I have no idea

Todd: what’s going on is obviously he is Damien’s body because cause he’s retained. He explains that he explains that, but then he seized him as Doris character.

And then later he there’s a shot of him. It’s toward the end of the movie. He’s sitting in his kitchen and he’s going through some files and a book and all that and kisses his daughter goodnight. And he flips open one of the files. And it’s the file on, on, um, the Zodiac. I’m sorry, the Gemini killer,

Craig: who is based on the Zodiac killer.

Correct.

Todd: He flips open that file and boom there’s Doris face. So you can see that the face of the Gemini killer who was, you know, executed 15 years ago, That’s him. So at first that was a little confusing to me. And this may or may not have come before the big explanation. I think it might, I think it came before the big explanation of Kara says regenerated body.

So I was like, okay, wait a minute. Like, who is he seeing? And why? Like both of these people. You know, it’s, it’s not like he’s flipping between at that time. I was thinking, so it’s it. Can’t be like he’s flipping between the real one and the one he’s got in his mind, he’s literally flipping between the two people he has in his mind.

He knows he’s talking to the Gemini killer. So he’s seeing sometimes seeing him as the historical Gemini killer, but then he’s also in the body of father Cara. So sometimes he’s seeing him as father Charisse. And I think if I’m not mistaken, it’s the times in which he is more or less speaking as father Caerus or referring to the father Cara story, that he sees him as father Charisse.

And it’s definitely at the moments when he’s more Gemini killer that he sees him as bread Dorff. So bread Dorf is like the figure figure of his imagination. Sure. They’re the actual Gemini killer, but yeah, it’s so confusing. I mean, deliberately obviously to throw us off balance and, but also there’s, you know, clearly production reason for it.

Craig: Well, it, it works for me because. In the director’s cut. I can’t think of his name. Jason Miller, John Miller, whatever his name, the guy that played Charisse. He wasn’t in it at all. So it was always just Brad Dora. And had that been the case then I think I would have been confused as to why Kinderman thought it

Todd: was Karrass.

Yeah. Yes, exactly. And then the whole explanation of, you know, I took his body and regenerate it, it doesn’t make any freaking sense. Right. So if anything like this at least creates a reason for it, the newer version. Anyway, let’s, let’s give, I guess we’re kind of wrapping it up, like, so, you know, there’s just all this back and forth.

And then eventually the Gemini killer gets really, really angry at him and says, oh, you’ve just opened up a seat at the dance or something like that.

Craig: Yeah. You just delivered an invitation to the dance or something. The reason for that, and I did find this fascinating is because. Pretty much from their first meeting, the Gemini killer tells him I am the Gemini killer.

Now he doesn’t explain how that is until a little bit later, but he is adamant that Kinderman tell the press that the murders that are happening are Gemini murders. I feel like that’s very true life. A lot of these serial killers, they want the claim. That’s why so many of them leave clues or write into newspapers or leave notes for the police or whatever, you know, they the same way every time.

Right? They, they want the recognition and, and he keeps saying, tell them, and eventually he says, tell them, or you’ll, you’ll be sorry. And when a Kinderman refuses or something else insults him in some way, he says you just, uh, you know, issued an invitation to the dance and Kinderman is like, well, what does that mean?

And he doesn’t explain, but that’s also where he talks about, Kinderman says, how do you get out of here to do those things? And Brad Dorf in a very cheeky way says it’s, child’s play. Yeah.

They came out the year before this. So they had to know what they were doing. Then we’ll

Todd: cut to the little boy with freckles and red hair,

Craig: red hair. Right? Exactly. So the Gemini killer warns them or something. And then Kinderman thinks for some reason that he’s going to send somebody after that little boy.

But they burst into the little boys room and it’s just a nurse that they know that we’ve seen throughout. And so then he figures out somehow, I don’t remember how,

Todd: I don’t know how it didn’t make sense to me. They

Craig: killers is going after his daughter. There are so many bizarre things like, so it’s suggested like Kinderman after the Gemini killer says, oh, I have friends who helped me.

And Kinderman goes out into like, you know, the common room of this psych ward. And he’s looking around at all of these patients. And it’s, it’s almost as like he figures out and we’re supposed to figure out that somehow he’s utilizing them. Meanwhile, one of them is crawling around on the ceiling unnoticed.

Yeah. It’s just so bizarre. But another one of them, a woman kills a nurse. Takes her clothes and leaves the hospital and is in a car and Kinderman is trying to call home, but his wife’s on the phone, so he can’t get through. And so he’s racing home. Well, that nurse gets his house before he does, but he gets to the house and the wife opens the door and like, everything seems fine.

But then the wife’s like, what’s this nurse, it’s all about. He’s like, wait, what? And he goes in and it’s this patient who’s catatonic. And then I guess, psychically Brad, Doris says, it’s so easy to manipulate catatonic or it’s so easy to possess catatonic or something. And he says, I waited until you got here because I wanted you to see.

And the nurse picks up this giant medical sheers, which we’ve seen before. And puts them around the daughter’s neck, but the grandmother pulls her out of it like a millisecond before they

Todd: she’s got like cat-like reflexes, this woman to

Craig: be in the military. Yeah. Then this old lady is fighting with Kinderman, but all of a sudden it’s like, she’s not possessed anymore.

And the reason she’s not possessed is because this father morning who we’ve just randomly seen a couple of times, and we’ve been told, has presented, has done an exorcism before shows up in the Gemini killers cell and starts doing an exorcism. So it’s like the demon had to leave. Ladies body to deal with father morning.

And then that’s when we get this big exorcism scene, very reminiscent of the exorcism in the first movie. Um, except it’s it’s brief father morning starts doing the exorcism, but then the demon, I I’m assuming it’s the demon speaking at this point, he’s got yellow demonize in Kara says body throws morning, all around the room.

There are other effects with like fire and snakes and weird stuff that throws them all over the room, pins him up to the ceiling and then it’s like, he’s glued to the ceiling. So when he tries to pull away, like his skin rips off.

Todd: Yeah. That’s super gory for compared to what we’ve been seeing so far, it’s like, hell raiser.

And you know, I mean, it’s just, yeah. Again, like at eight, totally. Just so different from the rest of the movie. I think

Craig: give bladdy credit here because he said, oh, they want to cool exorcism. I can give them that. And he did, you know, it like, it’s, it’s a good, I mean, it gets kind of weird, but it’s interesting.

It’s it’s Shotwell. Well then Kinderman shows up out of nowhere. Like I guess he races back to the hospital, I guess always

Todd: racing to the hospital. I mean, she’s just always shows up there for one reason or

Craig: another. He gets back and he sees that morning is dead. And then he starts getting thrown around the room.

Todd: Well, he pulls out his gun to try to shoot him. You know, this is original. All he did was show up there, pull out his gun and shoot father Karras to basically, yeah, it says,

Craig: forgive me or something like that. Um, any, and he does say that line, but instead of shooting him, he gets thrown all around. He gets thrown up against the wall.

It looks like he’s going to get killed. The demon asks him, you know, have I helped your belief because he’s been Kinderman as a religious skeptic, blah, who cares. But then he delivers this big monologue about, I believe in disease and I believe in murder. And I believe in he had a, like, I don’t know, it’s kind of cheesy

Todd: bad stuff.

Yeah. Cause I’m a hard-boiled cop and I’ve seen all the bad

Craig: stuff. And I believe in you I guess. Um, but then father morning who he assumed was dead. Cause we saw him crumpled on the floor, grabs his crucifix and holds it up to the demon and says fight Damien, fight it. And apparently. Father Charisse is able to take control of his body momentarily and he yells to Kinderman shoot me, shoot me now do it now.

And so he does

like three times and then, yeah, that is pretty much it. I mean, he’s dead. And the very last scene we see. Kinderman and some other cop, I think standing over the grave, which was in the original cut, but came much earlier in the movie. Like they were exhuming, exhuming the

Todd: body. Yeah. You right. Or something.

Yeah. Finding somebody else in there. But between those two shots is a shot of the sun. And I was like, oh, it’s going to end on a shot of the sun. Because as I remember, that’s how the first Exorcist movie opens is a shot of a, of a sun out in the desert. And, uh, but no, it it’s, it goes to this, to this. I think the original, the director’s cut actually did end on the sun.

And I thought that was like a nice little bookend to the, to the series recognizable.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I forgot to mention that while Kinderman was pinned up to the wall a whole to hell.

No,

Todd: I don’t think so. By like, you know, 15 bolts of lightning striking it, it takes a while. For the, for that to manifest and he’s

Craig: creepy the height on it. I mean, they’re not demonic looking, but they’re like all made up and white and their hair is white. And at first it’s the young boy crucified the boy from the beginning, but then it’s father Charisse crucified.

But I think it’s all mind games from the demon or whatever. And then the only other thing we didn’t talk about that jump scare, but I kind of was, uh, saving it for the end. There’s one scene in the hospital where the camera is just positioned at the end of the hallway, shooting down the hallway. And there’s a little.

Business, not a lot of business, but there’s a nurse at the nurses station. And then there’s a guard posted and the nurse gets up to check on something like she heard a weird noise and it ends up being nothing. And she goes back to the station and then she hears another weird noise. And as she gets up to go check on it, like the guard, like it’s like the changing of the guard or something.

And so the guard walks away. And so the nurses on the left side of the screen investigating this weird noise, and then she opens the door, looks in, closes it, and she turns around to walk away and this robed figure walks up behind her. And there’s a scary sound.

this figure with those sheers walking right behind her. And it comes out seemingly of nowhere and it’s very quick and it’s very spooky imagery. And I feel like it’s an iconic. Scene. It

Todd: is. It’s brilliant.

Craig: It’s really good. And I think that part of what makes it so good as the stationary nature of the camera kind of from afar.

So the sudden movement seems so jarring and the reason I kind of saved this for the, and now you’re right, you said it was Adam who requested this, right? Yes. He’s requested this several times and we’ve entertained doing it several times. It’s just that something else has always come up when he requested it again.

Recently, the reason that I wanted to do it is because my partner and I recently watched the two seasons of the television series, the extra cyst, and we both. Really liked it. And Alan’s not a huge horror enthusiast. He’ll watch stuff because he knows, I like it. If it’s really bad, he’ll be mad about it for a minute.

He gets over it, but we both really, really liked the series. And if you are a fan of these movies, especially the first one, but, um, any of them really, um, I really think that you would enjoy that series. It’s streaming on Hulu. It acknowledges the event. Of the first movie, it doesn’t specifically acknowledge the events of any of the subsequent movies.

However, there are cool throwbacks to at least the first and third movie that I can remember, um, imagery, uh, stuff like that, throwbacks. And I don’t want to say too much about it because there are great. Twists and things that you don’t see coming. It’s got really good people in it. Um, Gina Davis is the lead in, in the first season and it basically follows these two priests much.

Like it was two priests, father Merrin, and father Charisse in the original. These are, you know, younger, newer priests, but they’re exorcists, we really, really liked it. And critically, it did really well. The critics were really kind to it. It just never found an audience. Um, and so it only lasted two seasons, but both seasons are solid.

Um, I really encourage people to check that

Todd: out. Yeah. I’m going to have to check that out myself too. I’m kind of curious, especially with such a rousing review from you. Like I said before, I feel like the movie is a. You know, it’s weird. I didn’t find it super scary except for just one or two moments found it really odd.

I found it very difficult to follow at first. And it would be the kind of movie, honestly, that I might’ve even stopped watching. About 30 minutes in, had I not been doing it for a podcast or had it not been titled the Exorcist part? You know, we’re just sheer curiosity alone kind of makes you want to.

Okay. Well, we’re going to have to see where this goes and how all this ties in because the original has such a pedigree that, uh, anything claiming to be a sequel by the same writer and director, uh, the same writer of the original now also as director is worth a lot. Yeah. I mean, I think, uh, can I recommend it to, I wouldn’t recommend to just anybody.

I probably wouldn’t even recommend it to most people I’d say, have you seen the original? If not, God, go watch it. Right. And then the rest of them only if you’re curious.

Craig: Yeah. Ultimately I ended up really enjoying it. I don’t think it’s an excellent movie, but I thought there was some really interesting stuff going on.

If nothing else, visually, it was interesting to watch. I did find George C Scott’s performance over the top. Uh, I didn’t love his portrayal of Kinderman, but

Todd: yeah. Apparently got nominated for a golden raspberry that year for worst actor.

Craig: Well, I can kind of see it. I think that this movie is worth watching for Brad Doris performance alone.

I mean, God, I I’m no expert, but I would go so far as to say that this is like a master class in performance. Like he is. So good. So I would recommend it on that alone, but, uh, I’m really glad we did it and I really appreciate the recommendation. Um, I’m glad we finally got around to it. I, I had a good time and I had a good time talking about it.

Todd: Well, thanks a lot, Adam, for your request and, uh, the rest of you out there as well. If you have any requests, please send them to us. You can find us online just by searching or two guys and a chainsaw podcast where we have a website, there’s a Facebook page and we have a Twitter feed. You can, you can reach us any one of those ways.

Let us know any requests that you’d like to do us to do in the future, as well as any comments about this episode or anything that we’ve said tonight until next time I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.