The Exorcist III

This third Exorcist flick is clearly the work of a director who knows a lot more about word processors than camera angles. It’s written and directed by William Peter Blatty, who penned the original Exorcist novel and who evidently has no visual sense whatsoever. In lieu of anything actually happening on screen, his characters stand around and describe really gross things to each other: ”She was slit down the middle, all her vital organs were removed, and then the killer stuffed her with other materials,” says hero George C. Scott, mouthing the kind of dialogue that typically substitutes for action here. Of course, such juicy lines are still preferable to the script’s frequent flights into philosophical discourse. ”Would a God who is good invent something like death?” asks Scott. Who cares, when the movie itself is so close to deathly? F