Before starting the review, let me say a couple of things - I watched the first The Exorcist properly only after seeing this movie, and I have not seen Exorcist II: The Heretic.  But I had enough of an idea of the original film to understand this in proper context.

This movie focuses on two characters we saw at the end of the original Exorcist film - Lt. Kinderman and Father Dyer.  Here, George C. Scott stars as investigator Bill Kinderman, who is trying to figure out some particularly gruesome killings.  The strange thing is that the murderer, whoever he is, appears to be following the EXACT modus operandi of The Gemini Killer, a serial murderer who was executed fifteen years ago.  As Bill tries to solve the mystery, nasty, seemingly supernatural events take place.  And then, Bill meets Patient X.

Patient X is one of the inmates in the "violent ward" of the hospital where Bill is searching for clues.  Curiously, he has the exact same face as that of Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller), the priest who was responsible for the exorcism in the first movie.  But this is not an ordinary human - Father Karras' body is possessed with the soul of The Gemini Killer (Brad Dourif in a chilling performance).  You see, the devil wasn't too pleased when the exorcism happened fifteen years ago.  The Gemini was executed at that same time when Father Karras committed suicide.  The devil was apparently impressed with The Gemini Killer's work and so he allowed him to possess the body of Father Karras!  And he's continuing his killings even when he's locked in a cell.  Finally, Bill and Father Morning (Nicol Williamson) who appears at the end of the movie, must save Father Karras' tormented soul.

I found The Exorcist III: Legion (a.k.a. William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III) to be an intense, scary movie, which absorbingly built up to it's conclusion.  The characters were also all interesting to me.  The ending of the movie seemed sort of misplaced when compared to the rest of the movie (Father Morning's character was suddenly introduced without proper development!) - I later learnt that this was added on during post-production.  Anyway, despite that, I consider this a worthy sequel to an excellent horror movie.

Running Time: 110 minutes | Country: US | Genre: Horror