10 Best Horror Movies Turning 30 In 2020
4. The Exorcist III
William Peter Blatty's novel Legion was released in 1983 and was decidedly not a direct sequel to the Exorcist, while still retaining characters from that initial story. When the time came to produce another sequel to the original horror after the disastrous Exorcist II: The Heretic, the producers returned to Blatty and set about adapting this novel into a straight sequel. While the two stories had to be jury rigged to fit together, the result is a surprisingly strong follow up to what is arguably the greatest horror movie of all time.
The Exorcist III features demons and crossovers, the return of Damien Karras (though here referred to as Patient X) and, of course, an exorcism - one that had not been present in the original novel. It contains one of the best jump scare horrors committed to film, a feat that has almost eclipsed the movie itself in notoriety.
While it was not a box office smash, this film is one that deserves to be remembered in the Exorcist. In another series, it could just have been a forgettable spooky mystery which says a bit about the genre itself. There is enough contained in this film to be remembered all these years later and yet we still only truly remember it for its namesake.
The performances are solid, the setting is grim and the payoff is worth the effort. It may not be the sequel that audiences wanted but it was more than capable of carrying the torch.