The Laughing Dead (1989) What's So Funny About (Priest's Love And Aztec Resurrection)

I've seen movies with zombies. I've seen movies with mad scientists. I've seen movies with Priests that have lost their path. I've even seen movies where the Aztec people attempt to resurrect their culture. And I have seen plenty of movies where students on a field trip get menaced by any number of things. What I had never seen was a climax that boiled down to a basketball game that turns into a Ray Harryhausen style monster brawl, but that's just what The Laughing Dead delivered. Perhaps that's what happens when you get a Thai-American avant garde composer, poet,  and science fiction and horror novelist in the director's chair. Billed under a shortened version of his full name, Somtow Sucharitkul, in literary circles he would be known better as author S.P. Somtow. The first time director, writer, and star fashioned am intriguingly cheesy vision that both captured the flavor of early 80s horror fiction and the spirit of the cheapo horror feature. So come with me and let's have a few chuckles with The Laughing Dead.

Jug Face (2012) Is a Horror Movie, While Facejugs Is a Strip Club Activity

A Jughead is Archie's best friend who can't eat enough burgers, and a Jarhead is a nickname for a Marine. However, a Jug Face is something entirely different. The term generally refers to a tale of Appalachian pottery where an ugly face as sculpted into a jug that often contained moonshine or poison. In the instance of today's film, these same kinds of jugs are depicted as omens, and if your mug shows up on one, well, it's not a good thing. I actually got clued in on this movie by an artist friend of mine who specializes in making jug face pottery (and Goatse coffee mugs, best not to dwell on what that looks like), and it is my sincere hope that he never gets captured by a band of backwoods people who want to use him as their seer. Jug Face is at its core a backwoods thriller, but what it has to say about the dangers of blind devotion, well, it's a mixed message, but one I think doesn't get said often enough. So come with me while I explore whether Jugface had a good head on its shoulders or if it’s merely the pits. 

Mental Health Awareness Month: The Eleventh Commandment (1986)

Ronald Reagan once said that The Eleventh Commandment was, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”, but he got shot by a crazy person with a Jodi Foster fetish so what did he know. I say The Eleventh Commandment is, “Thou shalt not pass up a TV movie from the 80s.”, and, totally coincidentally, today’s film is a TV movie called The Eleventh Commandment. I don’t know what it is about Made-for-TV fare from the 70s and 80s that holds such an appeal to me, but it was a time when stars slummed it, often in groups, television could get away with a lot more wackiness in prime time, and the sub-Hollywood scripts take bizarre turns. Just look at Pray for the Wildcats or Secrets of a Married Man, and everyone knows the infamous weird of Bad Ronald. Today’s addition to Mental Health Awareness Month has some of the best of everything that a TV movie should have. It’s got an oddball celebrity star, a script straight out of freaky town, and a thick shellac of 80s cheese to glue it all together.

Deadly Doll's Choice: And God Spoke (1993)

So often in life, it's always Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, but for this month's movie swap, Emily and I have turned that all around. It's about to get all Jan, Jan, Jan. Quite accidentally on both our parts, we each chose a movie that featured everyone's flea powder allergic Brady, Eve Plumb in my case and Jennifer Cox, who played Jan in the Brady movie, for the Doll. In a way, they couldn't have been more different films, but they had more in common than just the middle child of Carol and Mike. For my pick, I chose the action farce Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury, a delightfully silly film starring Kevin Sorbo as the titular character. Head on over to The Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense to find out if Emily thought the Poolboy's waters were just fine or if it went off the deep end. For her choice, Emily picked a mockumentary from 1993 of Biblical proportions, ...And God Spoke. So in this beginning, let me say that this film might not movie heaven and Earth, but I saw it... And it was good...well, pretty good.

Deadly Doll's Choice: Joyful Noise (2012) Dolly, the Queen, and Me

When I agreed that I should go to see Joyful Noise as part of the ongoing swap series I have with Emily of the Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense, I might have been drinking. Okay, I was definitely drinking. When else would seeing a movie starring a Country singer, a Rapper turned actress, and a plot grounded in gospel music sound like a good idea? From my hazy recollection, the answer to that is about 5 or 6 beers in. At any rate, while my decision was clouded by alcohol, my viewing experience was done in an unmercifully sober state. Heading out on January 19th, Dolly Parton's 65th birthday, I made my way across town to the slowest theater, pitched up in the back row directly under the projector, and experienced the film called Joyful Noise. Well, first off, they didn't call it Astounding Vision for a reason. It's not the kind of film I would pick out to see on a big screen, but, while I didn't become moved by the spirit, I might have just enjoyed myself a bit more than I expected.

Deadly Doll's Choice: The End of the Line (2007)

When Emily suggested the 2007 Canadian horror film The End of the Line for our monthly swap, I accepted the challenge  but when I checked the flick out and found this staring back from the Netflix screen.....

it did not inspire overwhelming confidence on my part. The Entertainment Today blurb, "Does for Subways what Jaws did for Oceans" went a long way to further my impression of The End of the Line as some kind of subway dwelling creatures (similar to Jarad, but Canadian so I assume there would be copious amount of Maple Ham involved) flick. In the end, there was a kind of monster in subway, in fact, in the whole world, but not the kind that I expected at all. Speaking of expectation, I have to wonder what Emily will think of the film I picked for her, the 1985 Chris Lambert film Subway. Hopefully, she loved spending some time with Luc Besson's action crime film set in the Parisian Metro. So make sure you all stop in over at the Deadly Doll's House to find out what she thought of my pick. Now back to the matter at hand. While only marginally better than the DVD box art that Netflix shows for The End of the Line, the theatrical poster actually gives a little clue to what the film actually is.

Karen (Ilona Elkin) is a nurse working at a psychiatric hospital who begins to have strange visions of eyeless stalkers coming for her, and boarding the nearly deserted subway does little to ease her nerves. She gets harassed by a bleached blonde weirdo, but thankfully runs into fellow traveler, Mike (Nicolas Wright), a nice guy who keeps her company when the train makes an emergency stop. However, the stop is no real emergency. It is the beginning of a massacre. A religious group, expecting doomsday to roll around any time now, has taken to slaughtering unbelievers in an attempt to save their wayward souls. Karen and Mike soon find themselves banded together with a small group of survivors as they attempt to escape the subway system. The closer they get to freedom, the more apparent it is that the doomsday cult has spread much further than the underground tunnels, and the end times might well be neigh.

For the first thirty minutes of The End of the Line, I was still fairly convinced that the big bad were going to turn out to be a monster. Even after the first few of the zealots with their terribly inconvenient looking cross knives show up, I still suspected they were rounding up meat for some kind of monsters. I suppose the subway setting just planted Midnight Meat Train in my mind and wouldn’t let go. I have to admit though the first act, which also suffers from some confusingly placed time jumps, was barely registering with me. Then it took the hard turn into a religious based horror where the evil became the knife toting members of the Church of Hope who were intent on cleansing the world. With the uniforms that brought to mind both Nazi Brown shirts and bike riding Mormons at the same time and a collection of blank stares plastered across their faces, they become a faceless killing machine intent on carrying out their divinely inspired mission.

I would be kind of remiss if I talked about this film and didn’t mention the current doomsday cult prediction going around. According to some schools of Christian thought (note I said some), the clock is up on the world in only nine days. That’s right folks. You’ve only got until May 21 until the whole tribulation kicks off, and then by December the whole shebang will wrap up for good. There are a whole lot of reasons I’m not worried about the end of the world. For one, I’m not someone who’s looking forward to the world ending. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m having a good time. Secondly, there’s been someone saying the world is going to end since the world began. If it hasn’t happened so far, then it’s not got a great chance to happening now, but in a day and age when people on both sides of religion and politics are getting more radicalized, I have to wonder how preposterous the events detailed in The End of the Line really are. After all, there was no sign in the film of an actual Rapture; it was men killing men because of what some other man said about a book that was written long, long ago.

Director Maurice Devereaux has only made four films in his fifteen years as a filmmaker, but despite The End of the Line’s floundering first act, once the film gets going, it really gets there. Working from his own script, The End of the Line explicitly points out the dangers of zealotry without making grand or pejorative statements, and it was clearly a subject that Devereaux felt strongly about. Working with many of the same crew that had made his previous three films, the film feels assured even during the moments were timing seems a bit shaky. There are also a good many moments of graphic violence, and while they are used for jump scares in the beginning of the film, the blood really flows in the third act. Watching the film left me a bit paranoid around the edges, but my gore-hound cravings were more than satisfied.

The only real downside to the film is the cast. While I thought many of the actors were solid, no one really ever stepped up to become an individual. While watching I kept trying to catch people’s names, but more often than not my notes are littered with annotations such as “hero guy”, “medic girl”, “anime chick”, and “consistently stabbed guy” (seriously how does someone get so repeatively stabbed so often). There wasn’t a one of them that I disliked, but I couldn’t honestly say I was rooting for anyone. Well that is except for “anime chick” who I really wanted to bash “creepy blonde guy” to death with a hammer. I never caught “creepy blonde guy‘s” name either (I think it was Patrick as played by Robin Wilcock.), but he was the standout performance among the entire cast. I do have to also mention the wonderfully played, emotionality complex scene where the group of survivors is confronted by two young followers of The Church of Hope.

Having both the antagonists and protagonists feel anonymous gave the whole picture a feel as if the players were symbolic of the general, happy, normal masses and the faceless, anti-other. I don’t want to diminish any actor’s performance because on average they were all good. The question is this. Was the decision to relieve the characters of all but the most present back-story and base character traits a conscious decision or did the actors just fail to define themselves? No matter if the answer is that I enjoy The End of the Line because of its delicate crafting or in spite of its terrible flaws, there is always the chance I liked the film far more than I should because I agree with the film makers political and religious stances. I’d rather think I enjoyed an original take on a horror premise that went in a completely different direction from what I expected. In any event, this month I definitely have to thank Emily, that Deadliest of Deadly Dolls, for her pick, and I can’t wait to see what she has in store for me next month. (If you know, we’re all not busy being tribulated upon.)

Bugg Rating

Thanksgiving with Alejandro: The Holy Mountain (1973)

Hello everyone. Thanks for coming back for the third course of Thanksgiving with Alejandro. While Fando y Lis was a collection of impenetrable images which Jowderowky learned to temper with traditional plot points in El Topo, The Holy Mountain (1973) may well be the director’s artistic high point, but as far as clarity of vision, it might have been a step back. Thankfully, for me, the subject matter kept me entirely enthralled in the proceedings. Well, not entirely, but we’ll get to that later. Where El Topo had been brought to the film market thanks to Beatles manager Allen Klein, this time Alejandro made his film directly for Klein, a decision that lead him to make the most expensive Mexican film production in the English language. The Holy Mountain is a film, but it is also a spiritual journey that even thirty seven years later allows the viewer to join cast an cast and crew on their spiritual journey.

Unlike Fando y Lis, which I found hard to synopsize, and El Topo, which was easily summed up, The Holy Mountain has a deceptively simple plot that wouldn’t take more than a single sentence to explain. The alchemist (Jowderowky) assembles representatives from each for the solar system’s planets and together they go on a journey into the spirit. All this is to ignore the opening scenes of the Christ-like thief (Horacio Salnas) as he finds the business of religion, survives being a false idol, and get thrown out of a church that doesn’t recognize his divinity. It is also not to bother to explain about the seven other companions that join the thief and the alchemist, all of which represent various decadent aspects of their world.  A cosmetician, a millionaire, a toy weapon manufacturer, and an art dealer all become part of this group, but after delving into their stories, the film changes. As The Holy Mountain winds down to a conclusion, Jowderowky brings his visual film into reality and gives us a peek into a very real spiritual catharsis.

To prepare for the film, Alejandro spent a week with no sleep studying with a Zen master. His crew of actors lived communally, breaking themselves down and preparing for the film’s dramatic cinema verite denouement. Unfortunately, for all their spiritual undertaking, the last third of the film is the portion that works the least. Jowderowky breaks out a feast of symbols and images to begin his spiritual epic, delighting in mixing Judeo-Christian imagery with Tarot, Buddhism, and the mystic teachings of the Kabbalah. He draws from a rich color palettes filling up the screen with a depth that requires more than one viewing to really take in everything he and (for the third consecutive film) cinematographer Rafael Corkidi achieved. However in the last third when Alejandro brings it back to the real world, the movie falters stumbling toward an unsatisfying meta end.

Other than the director who once again took a central role in his own film, the rest of the cast was made up with actors who were unknown to an American audience or non-actors. However, once of the best stories surrounding The Holy Mountain was who was almost cast in the role of The Thief. After seeing El Topo and reading the script for Holy Mountain, Beatle George Harrison had a meeting with Jowderowky about taking on the role. Harrison had one small problem though. The scene in which the Alchemist would bathe out The Thief’s anus. Later the director would regret not taking it out and casting a star who would have certainly gotten his film huge exposure, but at the time, he declined to change his script and Harrison, not interested in getting his ass scrubbed on a 50 ft screen, opted out of the part. So it appears that while you can’t buy me love, you also can’t pay enough money to get a Beatle to show off his soapy ring piece.

Speaking of musicians (that is what we were speaking of, right?), one of the real improvements over his first two films was Jowderowky’s choice of soundtrack.  Hiring avant guarde funk/fusion/jazz musician Don Cherry, the score springs to life with an urgency and a pop sensibility that was missing in his other features. He may be inundating you with bizarre images, but you were going to be tapping your foot as well. The sound effects in the film were equally impressive as they were improvised by Gonzalo Gavira whose work so impressed William Friedkin that he was hired onto the Foley team assembled for The Exorcist.

I’ve stayed away from injecting my personal religious opinion into this review of The Holy Mountain, but I will say that even as an atheist I found both Jowderowky’s indictment of organized religion and quest for spiritual awakening to be compelling themes. I also think that the film could be many things for many people. Depending on the viewers’ background there are many layers of understanding and symbology waiting to impact upon personal experience, and perhaps the only way to completely decode the film would be to spend a lifetime as a divinity scholar of some sort. While El Topo is still the most successful of the Jowderowky films I have watched, The Holy Mountain is a film I could see myself taking pains to explore. Perhaps that is part of my spiritual journey, and that’s something that Alejandro would surely understand.

Next week, it’s Thanksgiving, and that means the final installment of Thanksgiving with Alejandro. So after you eat your fill of turkey, come read about the last film I’ll be covering Santa Sangre (1989).

Bugg Rating

The Church (1989): Some of That Old, Old,Old Time Religion

Hey folks, I’m finally back to talk about a movie, and what better way to kick back off than with another thrilling installment of Once Upon a Time in Italy. I’ve been told by lots of folks that when they need to get reinvigorated they go to church. Now, I’m not a church going fellow, but when it comes to Michelle Sovai’s 1989 film La chiesa or The Church, I’m a member of the congregation for sure. Of the two Sovai films that I’ve seen, Stage Fright and Cemetery Man, I thought the prior was middling and the latter a work of a master. So I was genuinely excited to see one of the films he made between the two, but before I pass judgment on this one, let me tell you a little of what it’s about.

Back in the Middle Ages, the Teutonic knights, who were supposed to protect travelers to the Holy Land, decided to take their job very seriously. They went around and killed and pillaged anywhere that they thought might house witches or Satan worshipers. After one particularly nasty slaughter, in order to contain the evil, the Knights constructed a special church over the presumed heretic’s burial ground. They even had the architect build in a failsafe system should the evil ever get out. That’s a good thing because in the present day the greedy new librarian, Evan (Tomas Arana), has managed to break open the seal thinking it will be full of Middle Ages treasure. Instead, the spirits of the vengeful dead pour out to punish the inhabitants of the church. With the Church sealed up by the fail-safe, it is left to visiting priest Father Gus (Hugh Quarshie) and a young girl named Lotte (Asia Argento) to defeat the angry demons.

Speaking of demons, The Church was originally intended to be Demons 3, a follow up to the Lamburto Bava's two films. Instead, Sovai wanted to take the film in another direction and away from what he called “schlock pizza cinema”. The script seems almost to have been written by committee with eight writers credited including Lamburto Bava, Sovai, Dario Argento, and Demons scribe Franco Ferrini. Sovai intended his film to address the issues of religious oppression, the lingering impact of the Nazis, and other deeper issues. The problem is with a miasma of ideas floating around and scenes like a fellow jack hammering himself to death those larger ideas take a backseat to good old fashioned Italian horror. Now I’m not saying that is a bad thing. Anyone who watches Italian horror can tell you that narrative is not the strong suit, but it was frustrating to be able to tell that the director had something to say that was so obfuscated by the film itself to render it nearly incomprehensible.

Thankfully, missing the deeper meaning of Sovai’s film will not hinder your enjoyment of the flick. The director creates a great atmosphere, and Gothic churches are creepy to begin with so he had a head start. There are many moments of great imagery, and the special effects are actually quite good. There’s a monster makeup scene in the film that looks nearly flawless, and for a late ‘80’s Italian film, that’s saying something. One place it did come up short was in the musical department where tunes by Goblin and Keith Emerson both sounded like re-hashes of better, older material. The Church also features a partial score by Phillip Glass, the avant-garde composer, but even those compositions brought little to the film.

Instead The Church relies on Sovai’s eye and some solid acting. The best acting in the picture comes from Hugh Quarshie, an actor many will be familiar with from his work on 1990’s Nightbreed and in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Quarshie’s performance was very intense, but he seemed likable. The only time I thought it had gotten a little out of hand was in one scene where the poor fellow was dripping so much sweat that I thought he was going to start his on eco-system. Tomas Arana, who went on to appear in Gladiator, was a despicable little fop, and that’s exactly what he was intended to be. Asia Argento, daughter of Dario, also turns in what might be her best performance as the young girl Lotte. I’ve never seen her in anything else I particularly liked though, but in her recent films, Asia's looks make up for her acting chops. The Church also features Italy’s whipping boy, Giovanni Lamburto Radice as a Priest, and it probably goes without saying that he gets it and gets it good

The Church was not quite the answer to my prayers, but if they passed around the collection plate, I would surely throw in a couple of bucks for the effort. Perhaps with a repeated viewing the message of the film might become clearer, but if not at least there’s still demonic things humping chicks and a girl who rips her own face off, so it won’t be a total loss. As far as Sovai’s films go, this one is right in the middle chronologically and ratings wise of the other films I’ve reviewed. If you’re looking for his best work, then check out Cemetery Man, but if you’ve seen that and enjoy Sovai’s stylish camera work and solid effects, then you should pull up a pew and have a seat with The Church.

Bugg Rating

The Exorcist III (1990): Some of That Old Time Religion

Hello folks. It’s Monday and only a week from today the Halloween Top 13: The Sequel will be beginning. That’s why I’m taking this time to remind you all that I’m still looking for people to send in lists of their favorite sequels. I would really like to have one for each day, so I hope that if you’ve thought about participating, but haven’t yet, that you consider making a list. So what do you need to do? List as many, or as few, of your favorite sequels, feel free to expound on them if you’d like, and send them off to thelightningbug@charter.net before Sunday, October 18th. I hope you all decide to participate, and I look forward to seeing what sequels you folks love.

Now onto the task at hand. Since I wanted to remind everyone that the sequels were coming, I thought I would take a look at a sequel that I’d never seen. Everyone knows William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, and many people have sat through John Boorman’s laughable sequel, The Exorcist II: The Heretic. So when 1990 rolled around and another sequel was released, this time helmed by Exorcist author William Peter Blatty, there was plenty of skepticism. Blatty had not even intended for his movie to be a sequel to Friedkin’s film (partially because the brand had gotten so trashed with part two). The script he brought to the studio was an adaptation of his 1983 novel Legion. A story with some connection to his previous demonic tale, but it could stand on its own. The studio seemed interested, but after filming was completed they made Blatty do re-shoots to further connect the film to the 1975 original.

Blatty’s script, like the novel, find’s its main character in Lt. Kinderman (George C. Scott), a police detective who was once a friend of Father Karras, the priest that committed suicide to kill the demon in the original Exorcist film.. As the film opens, Kinderman has plans to attend a screening of It’s a Wonderful Life with another former friend of Karras, Father Dyer (Ed Flanders), but the detective’s mind is on his own troubles. The night before a young man was killed in a style reminiscent of The Gemini Killer, a serial murderer executed some fifteen years previous. The killings continue as a priest is killed, and then Father Dyer meets the same fate. Kinderman finally gets a clue in the form of a man who has been kept in confinement in a hospital for fifteen years. The man bears a striking resemblance to Father Karras, but also to the long dead killer. He claims to be the source of the murders, but it seems impossible to Kinderman that a man locked away could commit such crimes. The Lieutenant will soon learn that the culprit of the crimes is more than a mere man, and the case of young Regan MacNeil holds the clues to unravel the mystery.

I watched this film not expecting very much, but I do love me some George C. Scott. I mean no one, NO ONE, can yell at people like Mr. Scott. There’s something about how gruff and aggressive his tone can become that has made films like Hardcore, The Bank Shot, and his version of The Christmas Carol classics in my mind. George C. did not disappoint in Exorcist III at all. Not only does he get to yell at quite a few folks, he also gets some genuinely funny lines. That’s right there’s humor in this film, and not the unintentional kind that made Exorcist II: The Heretic an absolute mess. Lt. Kinderman has that balance of gruff old coot and gentle soul that Scott excelled at capturing on film. I really doubt that any other actor could have made the role as touching and humorous while still remaining a badass.

The most fascinating role in the film has to be Patient X/The Gemini Killer. This role was dramatically changed from the original script as the producers felt there should be an appearance by one of the cast of the original film. Jason Miller, who played Father Karras, returns as Patient X who claims to be The Gemini Killer, and that is how he is billed in the credits. Meanwhile, Brad Dorif is credited as The Gemini Killer, and the look of the hospitalized crazy drifts back and forth between these two men. While this was at the behest of the producers, I think it works great in this flick. It gives the mystery man more of a schizophrenic look, and once you learn the truth of his character, it makes perfect sense in the frame of the film. There’s also one classic part where Dorif is playing the part. When he’s asked how he escapes to do the killings he replies, “It’s child’s play.”, and the scene shifts to show a red headed child. As Dorif provided the voice of Chucky, the murderous doll with the carrot top in Child's Play, I found this quite funny.

Exorcist III also provides a fair amount of cool cameo appearances too. While Larry King and C. Everett Koop can be glimpsed briefly in one scene, the really cool cameos come by way of Kinderman’s dream sequence. Scott’s character dreams of Limbo, a train depot populated by the dead and angels assigning passage for them. Fabio, yes, that Fabio, can be seen as the camera pans by him in all his blonde glory making the sequence all the more surreal, but it doesn’t end there. You get Sam Jackson for a moment, but he’s hard to spot even though he had a line. It threw me off completely because his dialog was looped in post-production by another actor. Yet the best cameo, at least my favorite, comes from The Hoya Destroya Patrick Ewing. The NY Knick center was once the star player at Georgetown University, where the film was set, and his simple brief depiction as the Angel of Death made me stop and think about how creepy he really looked. Plus what other center could block your shot and send you off to meet your maker, not many. Also those with a sharp eye (like my lovely wife) might recognize the altar boy at the beginning of the film. It's a blink and you miss him moment, but this film was the third role for Kevin Corrigan who would go on to co-star in the TV show Grounded For Life as well as film roles in Steal This Movie, The Departed, and Pineapple Express.

While Scott, Miller, Dorif, and the cameos did much to keep the film brimming with surprises, it really didn’t need much help. Exorcist III is chock full of a lot of genuinely eerie shots, and at least one jump scare that almost got me, a hardened horror fan, to jump out of my seat. Gerry Fisher, who had also handled the cinematography of Blatty’s first film, The Ninth Configuration, did an excellent job swinging the film from oppressive supernatural tones to the lighter, more humorous moments. The climatic moments of the film are a coupe de gras with the camera telling as much of the story as the actors. The score by Barry De Vorzon pulls from Steve Boeddeker’s 1973 work for the original film, but not to the point of imitation. De Vorzon, who had previously worked on Night of the Creeps and The Ninth Configuration, did with his score what the whole film aims to do, take a cue from the original and then expand upon the idea.

To sum this film up, I have to say that I have no idea why films with a religious horror theme work for me. As a devout atheist you would think that I would discount devils and demons and intervening priests as wholesale nonsense, but when these events occur in the film world, I roll with it. If I can accept my screen being filled with zombies, vampires, werewolves, and the like, then there is surely room for a few demons in there as well. So I love The Exorcist, and to a lesser degree, I loved this film as well. I’m glad I have this one a chance as it gave me a new part of the Exorcist saga to actually enjoy (don’t get me started on Dominion or The Beginning). So if you’re looking for a good sequel, this is one to catch. Don’t expect it to live up to the original’s standards, but take it as an extension of the story, another tale from that cinematic world. And if I can’t get to you to watch this flick, maybe the power of Christ can compel you. (Sorry, had to do it.)

Bugg Rating

This trailer contains footage that was cut from Blatty's final film. It contains part of the intended climax as The Gemini Killer's head morphs.


I found a clip which contains my favorite little moment in the film. It may not seem like much out of context, but it actually built the tension so well that it made me jump. Check it out.