At one point John Carpenter had been attached to direct, but backed out when it became clear that Blatty had his own ideas as to how the film should be directed. He also found himself in the director’s chair. Eventually interest in another Exorcist sequel waxed again in Hollywood and Blatty found himself in the position of turning a book based on a screenplay back into a screenplay again.

Blatty eventually turned the idea into a successful book, Legion, which topped bestseller lists in 1983. It was originally intended to be a film with William Friedkin once again returning as director, but ‘creative differences’ between the two men quickly scuttled the project. William Peter Blatty came up with the original story after The Heretic bombed. Legion treats Exorcist II as if it didn’t exist, which is probably for the best. I think that’s the only thing that could have encouraged me to watch the film after the mess that was Exorcist II: The Heretic. I think at the time the film came out I was fascinated by serial killers and the whole Gemini Killer angle drew me in where the possession aspect wouldn’t have. While I didn’t appreciate the original Exorcist for a very long time I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Exorcist III: Legion (which I’m just going to call Legion – mostly – for the rest of this). ” The whole world is a homicide victim, Father.” Probably should go without saying, but there are bound to be spoilers galore.Įnough rules talk! Let’s get to the first movie.Creature Feature is the staple, and we’ll see what we can come up with for the others (last year I did Random Hammer Dracula Movies on a bargain DVD and yet another Bigfoot Double Feature.)

The only exception is if I get an itching for a particular film and I don’t currently have access – I’ll plan around when I can rent/borrow/buy it. I’ll decide that day what I’ll watch (and I’ll take recommendations under consideration).

It’s got to be a horror movie (straight sci-fi, thrillers and mysteries are generally out, though rules are made to be broken).

And then I try and write up some rambling, barely coherent post about it.

I try and watch a movie a day, but I might not get to write it up for a day or two.

There ARE a few rules I try and follow, which are:

It’s way to get me to watch more horror and write more at the same time. For the last several years I’ve done 31 Days, 31 Horror Movies as a sort of personal horror film festival. I like to treat the whole month as one long Halloween and that includes watching horror movies.

Legion william peter blatty review