I’ll go to bat for Legion, but the rest? Uhh… no.
Right? Legion gets a pass for having Dourif chewing scenery, Scott absolutely in full phone-in mode, and the best jump scare scene. I dunno if I’d say it’s good, but it’s certainly interesting. The other two sequels though? They’re hot garbage.
Hey, Exorcist 3 had Patrick Ewing.
Exorcist 2 is bad. Like, astoundingly bad. Even Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy couldn’t get me through that movie.
Not as bad as Halloween Ends, but pretty bad!
I kind of appreciate how batshit insane it is, especially given that it is a movie that was ostensibly made as a sequel to The Exorcist. But definitely not good in any way.
(Also, not that it’s a career highlight, but I’m not sure I’d actually seen James Earl Jones as an onscreen presence before.)
I saw this last night. It’s really bad. I put it above 2/Heretic (really, there’s not much below Heretic that makes it to theaters) well below 3/Legion and the original, but I don’t know where to put it against Dominion/Beginning since that pair of movies is a weird semi-aborted slapdash project. Believer’s first half is kind of interesting and Leslie Odom Jr. is really good as the parent dealing with a child whose affliction defies science. All that good setup goes into the crapper once the shenanigans start.
David Gordon Green tries to modernize the core concept by opening it up to all faiths. There’s literally a scene where a group of leaders from a bunch of religions all come together to fight the demon. It’s as cheesy as it sounds. Remember the end of Volcano when everyone looks at each other covered in ash and realize that they all look the same so their racial issues don’t matter in the face of the crisis?
It’s that garbage, but during an exorcism.
Ellen Burstyn hopefully got a nice payday for her appearance because YIKES.
Kind of funny how Kermode and RLM seem to hit the same points, even down to referencing ‘Abby’, the blacksploitation Exorcist ripoff that I had completely forgotten ever existed.
She did ok:
Nice list.
I would add Tucker and Dale vs Evil, House (1977), and maybe The Frighteners.
I mean, there are a lot of bad movie aficionados who would argue Exorcist 2: Heretic is the 2nd worst bad movie of all time after Plan 9. And it’s a strong argument.
It’s just so batshit crazy bad and has no redeeming qualities outside of it’s batshit crazy badness spectacle (and that only appeals to a certain sort).
No surprise this is getting bad reviews, sadly.
I’ve never seen House, I should. Frighteners is a great choice, and should be on the list.
For reasons I’ve never been certain of I bounced off of Tucker and Dale. But it’s a great sub-genre example.
Absolutely. Like I said, I don’t think there are many worse movies that actually made it to a theater. Heretic is terrible. Even if you’re watching it with forewarning as some kind of academic exercise, it’s tough to get through. It’s boring and a disjointed mess.
I watch a ton of bad horror movies and nowadays anything worse than Heretic is shat out directly onto Tubi or Amazon Prime as a Gravitas Ventures title.
Exactly.
The Exorcist, if not for some serious lobbying (read: payola) from Warner Bros. was going to be an X Rating. Until the late 1980s and early 1990s when the the MPAA came up with a strict ratings formulae and codifications (how many “fucks” could be said, the exact timing and amount of an ass-crack or portion of a nipple that could be shown, etc.) to determine PG vs PG-13 vs R, it was kind of the wild west. Which was kind of amazing.
You could do things like have a 12 year old girl (playing an 11-year old) repeatedly ram a crucifix into a very anatomically sensitive place and pull an R. You could do stuff like have a 9 year old kid on a yellow inflatable raft get mauled into a bloody red froth by a shark and get a PG.
The only way to make a movie MORE “daring” in 2023 would be to submit a film treatment for a movie that no major, or even mid-major studio would greenlight, and one which would not be able to be submitted for ratings approval. (And possibly it would be a treatment for a film that would not be cleared for shooting in the US anymore.)
Or you just let Arnold write the scripts! Like he tried to do with Commando…
I wanted to cut off a guy’s arm and kill him with it. This wasn’t in the script. He would throw a knife at me, and after he missed, while his arm was still extended, I chop it off at the shoulder with a machete and beat him to death with it. Needless to say, I was asked by the head of the studio, Larry Gordon, to come to his office. And he said ‘What the fuck is the matter with you? Do you want to make money with this movie, or [be] an X-rated movie?’ I said, ‘You’re right.’ And he said, ‘Get the fuck out of my office.’
I’m pretty sure that happens in Deadly Prey.
Title was rather prescient!
WTF
Well, his Ouija sequel was actually pretty good. The man does have precedent.