Review of The Exorcist III

Not only is The Exorcist III the only true sequel to The Exorcist but it might just be one of the greatest sequels to a horror movie ever made. It still shocks me how underappreciated it is though i understand that a lot of people probably avoided after the terrible The Exorcist II: The Heretic which undid all the good work of Blatty and Friedkin. A real shame because Exorcist III (actually based on Blatty's own "Legion") is the movie we should have gotten all along. Thankfully, the movie allows you to ignore anything that happened in part two by following...

George C. Scott as Lt. Kindermann. He's downright amazing and remains one of my favorite roles of all time. Brad Dourif is downright chilling as our main antagonist. Certainly more so than Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal who won the Oscar that year.
Tense, brilliantly scripted,chock full of excellent character work and performances, and downright, genuinely scary....it's a movie that doesn't make the mistake of copying the formula of it's predecessor but bravely carves a unique place for itself while still expounding on the world it exists in and it's characters. Also noteworthy as one of the few times studio interference helped the movie. There is a director's cut that alters some of the material from the theatrical cut and aims it more in line with the book. Though worth a watch for cinephiles it becomes evident that tying the movie more to the roots of the series resulted in a better product. Theatrical cut reigns supreme.