Exorcist

[eazye]

I'm interested to see some opinions on all the movies.The first and original one is obviously a classic, I've watched it quite a few times and I always enjoy it.Not really scary to me but a great movie

I knew the second one would be garbage, due to Blatty's absence but I still had some faith in it, mainly because of Richard Burton whose performance in 1984 I admired.But he didn't save it.Linda Blair's titties were gold tho, big ups to not wearing a bra throughout the movie

The third movie fucking surprised me.I LOVED IT!The creepy sounds and the absence of music at times were genuisly placed, performances were great and one scene really managed to freak me out.And the story was really captivating.Overall a great movie

The Beginning was entertaining at best.I'm about to watch Dominion now, will see how is it

[Bananas]

Exorcist 3 was made beautiful in its extensive post production phase, where the true artists are. I was also extremely surprised and impressed by this sequel. It was intentionally funnier than the previous sequel which in my mind forgave it through a little gentle poking fun at.

The first and third are my favorite of course, I haven't seen any of the prequels but with this thread I am excited to again revisit this series.

[eazye]

Props man, that's what I was talking about

I peeped Dominion yesterday, it tells basically the same story The Beginning does in a more dramatic fashion, it even uses some of the same actors.Not a bad movie imo.

[JohnnyL]

IMO...

The original "Exorcist" (both the original cut and "The Version You've Never Seen Before") are classics.

The second Exorcist movie, Exorcist II: The Heretic, was total crap (which surprised me a bit considering they retained Max Von Sydow as Father Merrin and Linda Blair as Regan, and also had James Earl Jones and Richard Burton in somewhat interesting roles).  I could overlook some of the more far-fetched elements to this movie, but it still doesn't change the problem that the overall movie was just boring. One interesting fact about this movie is that it received such a bad reception at it's premeir that the director actually released a re-cut version of the movie almost immediately.  By most accounts, re-cutting it didn't help and both versions are hated by most. lol

Exercist III, in my opinion, was damn good.  I thought it was well acted and genuinely creepy.  If only "Exorcist II" had managed to be half as creepy.  I actually like "Exorcist III" so much, I'm not sure which I consider to be the better movie, the original "Exorcist" or part III.  Great performances by George C. Scott and Brad Dourif.

"Exorcist: The Beginning" - This was actually the re-shot version of "Dominion," but the first version that was released to theaters.  I liked this pretty well.  I thought Stellan Skarsgard did an admirable job of portraying a young Father Merrin.  There were certain elements that I preferred in the "Dominion" version, but overall, I like this version better.

"Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist" - This is the Paul Schrader version, before it was re-shot/re-cut into the "Beginning" version by Renny Harlin.  Many people prefer this version, but I actually thought Harlin's was a little more effectively scary.  This is definitely the more subtle version, and there is a lot to like about this one.  I just prefer the other.  It is pretty interesting though, to see how a studio will take a movie and change it into basically an entirely different movie in an attempt to make it appeal to a wider audience, which is pretty much what happened to this movie.   

[eazye]

Damn, interesting info about Beginning and Dominion man, never knew it went down that way.I preferred Dominion because Stelan's Father Merrin there, in my eyes, resembled Max Von Sydow's Merrin from the original more.In the Beginning he was the typical Hollywood protagonist.I can't say Beginning didn't keep me interested, but overall it just isn't the better version to me

I completely agree about the Heretic.And the more I think about Legion the more I admire it.I watched an interview yesterday with a man that did work on both the original and Legion and he said that the original version of Legion was shot by Blatty with just Brad Dourif, without Jason Miller and had a diff ending but the studio didn't like it and he had to re-shoot it, removing the now infamous head scene (parts of which could be seen in one of the Exorcist III trailers in youtube)

[JohnnyL]

Damn, interesting info about Beginning and Dominion man, never knew it went down that way.I preferred Dominion because Stelan's Father Merrin there, in my eyes, resembled Max Von Sydow's Merrin from the original more.In the Beginning he was the typical Hollywood protagonist.I can't say Beginning didn't keep me interested, but overall it just isn't the better version to me

I completely agree about the Heretic.And the more I think about Legion the more I admire it.I watched an interview yesterday with a man that did work on both the original and Legion and he said that the original version of Legion was shot by Blatty with just Brad Dourif, without Jason Miller and had a diff ending but the studio didn't like it and he had to re-shoot it, removing the now infamous head scene (parts of which could be seen in one of the Exorcist III trailers in youtube)

 Interesting.  It seems like this franchise has a complicated history of having to deal with re-shoots/cuts.  I was happy that they made both versions of the prequel ( "Dominion" and "Exorcist: The Beginning") available for people to see on video.  Considering they did the same thing with "Exorcist" and "Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen Before," I wonder if they'll ever consider releasing that alternate version to Exorcist III that you mentioned.  I really only watched "Exorcist II: The Heretic" all the way through, once.  But I personally have no interest in revisiting either version of that.  I'd love to check out any new/unreleased material from any of the other entries in the series though.  

[eazye]

well I've heard Blatty plans to release the original version of Legion but there are problems with locating the actual footage in the studio, some even say it's lost.I hope that it surfaces someday in the near future, since Blatty's quite old.

And yeah, I was kind of interested in locating the re-cut version of the Heretic but I don't think it would save it, plus it exists only on VHS (from what I could gather)

Oh and here's the site I've read most of the stuff, it's pretty interesting

http://legion.theninthconfiguration.com/