10 Horror Movies That Scrapped INSANE Kills
4. The Decapitated Priest Holds His Own Head - The Exorcist III
Early on in The Exorcist III, a priest is brutally murdered in a church inside of his own confessional, though director and Exorcist author William Peter Blatty opts to shy away from showing the precise circumstances of the man's demise.
We only see the aftermath, where the confessional is covered in blood, and Lt. Kinderman (George C. Scott) inspects the corpse underneath a white sheet. As viewers we don't ever see more than a bloody hand, and are merely told that the priest was decapitated.
But rare promotional materials for the film confirm that a more violent version of the scene was indeed filmed, with the priest even being shown holding his own severed head in his hands while sitting in the confessional.
It's never been confirmed why this was excised, but given that Blatty fought hard against Fox over the film's final cut - Blatty favouring a more restrained, artful horror, while the studio wanted accessible schlock - Blatty may well have felt it was simply too much.