It's true for both the movies and the books.Quoting Spun Lepton (view post)
I'd rate the book/movie Trilogy of Faith as follows:
The Ninth Configuration > Exorcist III/Legion > The Exorcist
However, seeing as how The Exorcist is a 5-star film and book, we're really just splitting hairs here.
I would hesitate to call Exorcist III a 5-star film. It's good, don't get me wrong, but I'd rate it closer to 3.5, maybe 4. The craftmanship of the original is impeccable. Father Karras's character arch is a thing of subtle beauty. I can't say the same for III.
I haven't read the books.
My YouTube Channel: Grim Street Grindhouse
My Top 100 Horror Movies OF ALL TIME.
I've only seen The Exorcist and The Ninth Configuration, both which are great movies although I think The Exorcist is better.
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Considering The Exorcist is in my top twenty films of all time, there's not a chance in hell I would agree with this.
Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:
Top Gun: Maverick - 8
Top Gun - 7
McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
Crimes of the Future - 8
Videodrome - 9
Valley Girl - 8
Summer of '42 - 7
In the Line of Fire - 8
Passenger 57 - 7
Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6
Well, The Ninth Configuration is in my top 10, so...
I'm surprised I'd never heard of this until now. I looked it up on IMDb. Hope it makes it to Netflix or something. Really curious.
My YouTube Channel: Grim Street Grindhouse
My Top 100 Horror Movies OF ALL TIME.
Absolutely brilliant movie, and shows what an amazing writer of comedy Blatty is (before the Exorcist, he was mainly known for his comedy and satire, and the New York Times once said that nobody writes funnier lines than William Peter Blatty). I'm pretty sure Netflix has it on DVD. I highly recommend the book as well, one of the best I've ever read (and I do prefer the reworked version as opposed to the original, Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane).
Blatty is just an all-around amazing author, and far too few people read his stuff.
So am I. I didn't even know it existed. Lucky for us:
[youtube]sZCcjzOeXlM[/youtube]
And Stacy Keach is in it. Awesome. I'm watching this tonight.
Thanks for the heads up, D_Davis.
It's funny to hear some of the old radio spots for the film as the studio desperately tried to portray the film as horror; even though it was Blatty's direct follow-up to The Exorcist, it is a sequel in theme only. I can only imagine the original audience's shock to find that the film from, and directed by, the author of The Exorcist was, in fact, more of a theological comedy/thriller.
He has since revisited the themes in Dimiter (although not nearly as successful here) and in Crazy (one of the best books I read last year). I get a lot out of these because Blatty and I have a lot in common regarding faith and religious beliefs; I consider Blatty a kindred spirit.
The commentary track on the DVD of The Ninth Configuration, featuring film critic and Blatty scholar Mark Kermode w/ William Peter Blatty, is fantastic.
There is also an interesting connection between the books of The Exorcist and The Ninth Configuration. There is a dinner scene in The Exorcist in which one of the characters is an astronaut. This takes place right at the beginning of Rag's possession, right before the astronaut is supposed to head into space for a mission. Rag's tells him that he's going to die in space, alone. This is again reflected in The Ninth Configuration's main character - an astronaut who is afraid to go to space because he is afraid to die there, because if there is no God then dieing alone in space would be to die utterly alone.
I got lucky and found a DVD copy of The Ninth Configuration at my local public library. I've only seen it once, though, and I believe that was back in 2008 or 2009.
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And everybody wants to be special here
They call your name out loud and clear
Here comes a regular
Call out your name
Here comes a regular
Am I the only one here today?
Just added Exorcist 2 and 3 to the top of my netflix queue. Never bothered with theses.
Don't even bother with 2. One of the worst films I've ever seen.
Can't be worse than Cabin Fever.
Way worse than Cabin Fever.
I can't back this statement.
Only because I only made it about ten minutes in.
“What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, er... an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks and that's all.”
I have alcohol. I also have Tucker and Dale. We'll see how this goes.
The Shrine, a low-budget Canadian horror flick (actually filmed not far from here, and by people from my town) has a couple of neat ideas but the execution is way off.
What begins as a Lovecraftian crazy-cult-town film turns into a possession film, and while the base concepts and little switcheroo it pulls on the audience are cool on paper, like I said above the execution is just too amateur to be effectively frightening or to be enjoyed as a quality film.
The cinematography lends the film a made-for-TV feel which does it no favors, particularly when the film's effects are so poorly rendered. I've not seen a more unconvincing fog in my life.
It's hard for me to completely dislike it when I thought it showed real promise at times, but the end result was the feeling of a wasted opportunity and half-wrought ideas.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
The Leopard Man is such a black, misanthropic film. 65 minutes of contempt for humanity. I like it.
This movie is awesome, and probably the earliest antecedent to the slasher film. It's crazy to imagine how this, I Walked With a Zombie (which I recall you're not a big fan of), The Seventh Victim, and the underrated Ghost Ship were all produced within the same year.
Letterboxd rating scale:
The Long Riders (Hill) ***
Furious 7 (Wan) **½
Hard Times (Hill) ****½
Another 48 Hrs. (Hill) ***
/48 Hrs./ (Hill) ***½
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (Besson) ***
/Unknown/ (Collet-Serra) ***½
Animal (Simmons) **
Let Me In was good, but there's really no comparison - the original is by far the superior film.
I was surprised how much the film simultaneously distanced itself from and embraced the original film's story and scenes. Overall the American film has a nearly identical base, which made it hard for Reeves' attempts at originality to ring true. It felt at times like he couldn't decide whether to do a Van Sant's Psycho type of exact remake, or to do his own thing with the material.
I was also not at all surprised that the...
[]
...was removed from the American film.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Woot. This might be my favorite Lewton-produced picture. Haunting and immersive, like all of the Lewton-Tourneur works, lovingly melancholic.
I found the American one to be much more visceral and violent then the Swedish one. Love them both.
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