THE PODCAST ON HAUNTED HILL EPISODE 167 - THE EXORCIST 2 AND THE EXORCIST 3

The podcast on Haunted Hill will contain spoilers and swearing.

I am the devil, and I am here to do the devil's work. I saw this when I come. And be one of us.

Hello, and welcome to the podcast on Haunted Hill, episode 167. I am Gav.

Sexy heaven, I am Dan.

I again paused, because I was like, oh fuck, I think I got a number wrong.

No, you did it right.

Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, non-gendered ghouls, ghoulies, things, things that come out in the cold season.

If this is your first time.

Windigo, snowy thing, snowy, the snow monster, a bumble snowman.

Just welcome one and all.

Santa Claus will soon be coming down your chimney, delivering you presents of happiness and joy.

Well, if you are a regular listener, then you'll understand what's going on.

Sackloads.

So as Gab says, if you're a regular listener, welcome back. If you're a new listener, welcome front. And if you're just someone who pops in now and again, sideways, up, down, come around the side.

Sneak in wherever you can, that's what I say.

If there's a window open, pop on in. We are the podcast on Haunted Hill. This is 167.

We are ridiculously cheap with our humor. But yes, go on, carry on.

This is... We've jiggled a few things around because we were out without technology for a month. Well, Gav was. The world hates him. The electronic world does not like Gav at the moment. Even today, he had a problem.

Almost. It didn't happen. I kept texting saying, we're going to turn your power off. But it'll be back on at 4.30. And I was like, all right, OK. And then it's like, we're all going to text. We could turn it off later. And then they text me again saying, don't worry. We could do it another day. What? Stop doing that.

It's because you keep talking about AI. And so the government is listening and it knows that you...

Government been listening for ages.

But we jiggled things around. This one is still in schedule, but our next few episodes will be moved around a bit because Christmas, as Gav said, is really coming in fast. So this is still what we scheduled. This is an episode where we're taking a look at two sequels.

Oh, my God. I've just seen Exorcist II has 3.8 out of 10.

Yeah.

I didn't realize it was so low.

Well, there we go. We're recovering Exorcist II, The Heretic from 1977 and Exorcist III. There's no the in that one, just Exorcist III. Oh, no, it is The Exorcist III. That's right. It's the number two that doesn't have the the. It's just Exorcist II. And that's from 1990.

It was supposed to be just called Legion, wasn't it? But they were like, no, no, come on. Let's just make everyone go to watch it at the cinema.

Well, there's a lot to talk about with both of them because they're both kind of... The third one is quite loved in the horror community.

Almost directed by John Carpenter.

Indeed. You're ruining my trivia. But that's fine because it's your show as well. Yeah, the third one is quite loved in the horror community.

I edit it as well so I could just chop, I could literally just chop anything I want. I could actually turn your words around and make you sound like any sort of person I'd like. So you be careful what you say. Never mess with the editor.

The third one is loved mainly because of one specific scene, but also because of a few little bits and bobs that go on in it. But it is still a little bit of a mess of ideas, but quite loved in the horror community. And the second one is one that you just don't really hear people talk about. It was absolutely bombed. There's a lot of backstory to the making of it and the mess that was going on behind the scenes and the alcoholism and stuff like that. However, my card is slightly showing it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll talk about it. It's my first viewing of it, so.

Oh wow. Oh my God. I didn't know that.

So I didn't come in there with it. I came in here and everyone's saying how bad it was, but I know bad films. This isn't a bad film. This is still a well produced film in some departments, not all departments, you know.

Yeah. Well, that's what we're covering. So we're probably never going to cover any other Exorcist movies. Let's be honest, they're not worth covering. But I feel that these two are. So we covered the first one many, many moons ago.

Yeah, because it's part four and five. Five is a remix of four, supposedly. So it's like.

I've seen them both.

OK.

Barely.

I have kind of seen them, but it's just a vague thing in my mind.

And I haven't seen the newest one with two girls, which I can't remember the name of it now. Exorcist Believer or something like that. Something like that.

I don't know. Yeah, and that was slated. That was by David Gordon Green, wasn't it?

David Gordon Green, who's apparently, well, I think you told me they're going to continue to make Exorcist films.

Well, the studio spent a hell of a lot of money acquiring the rights to the name and the franchise, so essentially, basically, you know, if you're putting your name on it, you're the same reason they did for Exorcist III. It's a reason to get people in a seat. So it's a validated reason, they think, because it's already got ticket sales because of the name Exorcist. Unfortunately, they fucked up royally and probably didn't really think about it.

Hey, do you need someone to take up the Lovett franchise and then sort of make a really shit weird re-think of it?

We do live in a very fast social media. So if you have a bunch of horror fans even just start saying, oh, it's bad, blah, blah, blah, that might trickle out into the mainstream, which might not be horror fans, but they might get wind of, oh, I heard that was pretty shit. So, oh, OK, let's not watch that. It's easy as that.

Well, I've got a good segue there to start off with what we've been watching, because, well, a double segue, if you're ready for a double segue.

Oh, that sounds like a position.

Are you ready for my double segue?

Are you ready for the double segue?

So, part A of my segue is The Exorcist II was a turkey in the box office, and David Gordon-Green should have stuck to what he knows, which is comedy, in my opinion. So, well, here's my segue. I watched a film related to turkeys where the director seems to have come back to doing what he was good at originally. I'm talking about Thanksgiving by Eli Roth.

Oh, yes, yes. It's fun, isn't it?

I had an absolute fucking blast with it.

Yeah, it's the dude that loves... He grew up on 80s horror films, and it's his favorite, I think, 80s slashers, that Italian one, Pieces, you know? And he loves that sort of stuff, so like him making that nowadays as well, and we kind of need it, don't we?

Oh, I was feeling a bit down. It was Thanksgiving Day, not that we really celebrate it in the UK, and I thought, ah, I know what I'll watch this afternoon. I just feel like watching that. I watched it and I wasn't disappointed. I actually gave it seven out of 10 on my first period. That might come down when I watch it and pick it apart a little bit, but I thought it was funny. It was original, but also was a nice homage to the 80s and some of the 90s stuff we were getting.

I did. I knew who the killer was.

Did you see that? I didn't know it was going to be that.

Only because of... Oh, I don't want to say it if you haven't seen it. Only just because of who the actors were and stuff. I kind of guessed from that, really.

But it was a really fun movie, and it made me hopeful that Eli Roth... Because I do like Eli, and I didn't mind the green inferno, and some of the stuff he's done has been like...

Eli Roth's fine, absolutely is. I've always, for the first time ever, saw him when he did his little, like filmed it on his phone or whatever, years ago for Cabin Fever premiere. I didn't even know what the movie was or anything. You just go to Fight Fest, you sit down. The same as any film festival. You don't know what you're going to watch, and then you sit down, watch the film, and he has a little introduction card. And I was like, this dude loves fucking horror.

Oh my god.

Like a series, he's producing it.

I just don't know if we need it.

I don't know, I'd probably be up for it. I do like the hostel idea. I love that, you know.

Well, before I go and let you talk about what you've been watching, I double-billed Thanksgiving, and I highly recommend it for anyone who hasn't seen it. You know, don't expect it to change the game, but it's just fun and fun callback. But on the same day, so Thanksgiving, I also watched a movie which is related to that theme, and that is Black Friday, which is...

It's brilliant.

Got Devon Sawyer and Bruce Campbell.

Oh no, sorry, I was thinking Black Christmas in my head.

No, no, no. Devon Sawyer, it's got Michael Jai White, it's got Bruce Campbell, and a few other people that you might recognize in it. And essentially, it's a bit like Intruder. It's like a comedy version of The Mist, is another way of describing it. Basically, a bunch of employees get trapped in a toy shop they work in on Black Friday when there's a riot outside for people trying to get in to get the cheap deals. But there are zombies slash aliens, and it's practical effects.

Yeah, I watched it before, I wasn't-

It was a lot of fun. It didn't take itself seriously. It knew exactly what it was from the opening. And for that, I was just like, great, this is exactly what I need. So that was a great double bill for me on Thanksgiving.

I think it started off strong for me, that film. And then just because I really did it like, you know, I like the- There's a film like Intruder, which was in Bruce Campbell camp a long time ago, one of the filmmakers that he works with, which is the same-

That's why I said it, it's like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do like that sort of idea in this, but yeah, and I like the practical effects in Bruce Campbell, but then something about it, I don't know, half a film went there. I don't know, whatever reason, just-

The glue that held it together for me was the writing, because it was genuinely quite funny. And although it was a bit cheap and cheerful at times, the delivery of everybody in it, everybody just seemed to be having a good time. So, that was that for me. But that was the first couple of things I've been watching, Gav. What else, what have you been watching?

Well, it hasn't been long since we recorded, but over the weekend, I just was just with the kids, but wasn't with the kids, because they're starting to get to the age they don't really need me. I'm just there for food or lifts or something like that, you know.

Yep, or money.

So I was just sitting in the living room waiting, like a butler, waiting. Ding, ding! Yes, sir, what is it you require? I'm hungry! Okay, sir. That's basically my life's apparent nowadays.

Now I need a lift, Mr. Uber Daddy.

I have the internet. I don't need a father, but the internet cannot produce the food. Well, it can. Well, actually, it can do everything, but I don't have the money. Anyway, so I watched a movie which kind of reminded me of American Wealth in Paris and Hostel, funny enough, which was Euro Trip.

Oh, God.

Yeah, I kind of watched that. And I was like, I've never seen this before, because I was always like, I'm not going to watch this shit. But it gets to that point nowadays, which takes me on to my next film. Get to that point nowadays where Amazon produces all these, you're basically in the free video shop sitting in your pants at home, you know, and any of the videos, yeah, you pay a subscription, but any of the videos are essentially free. You can just pick them up and watch them.

And even if they're not, it's like £1.99, £2.99 to rent sometimes.

Or even if you have to rent them, but there's so many libraries are so huge. I've got Paramount at the moment as well, because my mum wanted to watch Yellowstone, so she could watch that. And yeah, so you come across this, you're like, you're a stripper, it's like, it's going to be crap. But nowadays, I kind of wouldn't mind a raunchy comedy thing from early 2000, because it's not going to be so bloody woke and they might say some shit which should make me laugh, do you know what I mean?

It was one that came out around sort of the speed.

It was that time of those sort of thrillers. Yeah.

Yeah, action and thrillers, but something happening.

You know, with Ray Liotta being passed on nowadays, nowadays, now, find it moving and then watch that again. I love because I love aeroplane thrillers. I like that contained thing in this space, space in the air, which is just works really well. And then find it with Ray Liotta made it even better. So I'll watch that. So I actually kind of recommend it. If you kind of like your revenge aeroplane type films.

And it's a 90s well, so you know what you're getting. It's got that 90s taste to it.

I really quite enjoyed it, to be honest with you. Yeah. I haven't seen a huge amount.

I honestly haven't seen that movie since the VHS rental days.

I was, I'm going to say check it out.

Cause you know what? I've added it to my watch list now you tell me. Yeah.

You know what you're getting. It's nothing amazing, but at the same time it had me going. And the lead woman in it, she was great, but I've never seen her in anything or ever again. So it's kind of like, if she had been like, if it'd been like Sharon Stone, something like that. Do you know what I mean? I think that movie might be more renowned or more known or something, but yeah. That's my recommend. If you're into those sorts of films.

Well, here's a don't recommend for me.

Okay. You like most things. What's that?

I'm a big Mike Flanagan fan.

Yeah.

And he does generally always like score point or bullseye with what he does.

You know, it definitely is. I haven't seen all the TV series, but most of them pretty good.

And I've heard all his movies as well. You know, they're all pretty good. But I've heard, you know, you got to check out this new one. He's done a prequel to Ouija. It's called Ouija, Origin Of Evil. And it's a bit old now. It's like 2016.

I've seen it. I can't really remember it totally.

It's fucking awful.

I didn't like it. I remember not disliking it, I think.

I mean, okay. So I gave Ouija one out of 10.

Ouija!

When it came up on Netflix, I thought, have I even seen that? And I checked, I'd rated it one out of 10. So I thought, well, I'll go and I'll check out this new one. Cause it was said, we're leaving Netflix in the next three days. And I thought, oh, I better check it out. Cause I haven't seen that one. I've heard it's good. And it's my plan again. I gave it a three out of 10. I was, it was so by the numbers. It was painful.

Oh, that's a shame.

Yeah. So I won't recommend that. However, there is a movie that we've talked about a lot on this show. And I bought it. Cause Alice said to me, Dan, I want to watch The Substance. And I said, I'm buying it right now.

Yeah, of course you did. Yeah.

So I bought it digitally.

Yeah.

We sat down and we watched it. And I thought, this is probably going to go down a little bit on my second watch. I actually liked it even more on my second watch.

Oh, good.

Alice, she gives it nine out of 10.

Oh, okay. Good.

She's like, it's one of the best films I've ever seen. Not even horror. She said it's one of the best films she's ever seen.

Yeah, yeah.

She said it's-

It works on many levels apart from just horror, doesn't it?

Her words are, this is one of the most stylish films I've ever seen, like the choices made in like angles, you know, colors, costumes, sets. It's amazing. She got some of the references too, like the shiny stuff. She took away from it. It was a sort of a moral, if you will, on motherhood in that it's a commentary on the relationship between mother and daughter.

Italian films have been influenced for her, from the look of the substance, because of how vibrant the colors are and just the way stylish Italy is with the cinema back in the 70s and back in the day.

So, Alice, nine out of 10. I keep it as a 10 out of 10 film and maintain it is my favorite horror film of this side of 2000. And it's still my favorite body horror film since like The Fly or The Society or something. Fantastic.

I look forward to watching it again. I haven't yet. I had such a great experience with it when I was in the cinema.

It was great watching it with Alice because I was also looking at her, watching reactions to certain scenes. You know, she was getting very upset at some part, but only emotionally as in like when it got sad. But then there were scenes where she literally like jumped out of her seat at some of the gore. So it was great to watch it with her.

Yeah, great film. Really is.

Really is, honestly. And if you haven't seen it, guys, we've talked about it almost every episode since it came out.

I couldn't believe it. When I first saw it and I got in, no one had seen it. That was the worst thing. I was like, oh God, this movie, but no one's seen it. It doesn't come out for like next month. Oh my God.

But I quite like that it's still a little bit underground because it reminds me of, the reason I love it, it reminds me of why I love horror. Because I want it to be shocking and daring and push the boundaries. But also back in the day when we were kids, unless you had like Fangoria magazine and stuff, not really many people had seen some of these films because there was like no internet. So it was like, oh, my friend's seen a movie called Texas Chainsaw Musky.

Fair enough. Yeah, it's a very good film. It's funny because I'm at Mount Gaw, they got away with in that film where we're now the MPAA and the British Broad Film Classification. They're a little bit more lax nowadays with the Gaw. Obviously in the 80s they were a bit and then all of a sudden it kind of something happened and then they weren't very like sensitized with the Gaw and stuff like that. And it wasn't. But we're coming back to again now where films can get out there. No problem.

Well, it started in the early 2000s in my opinion with the French extreme horror films, The New Wave and then thanks to Eli Roth and the body horror stuff. Sorry, the torture porn stuff and that.

It took a while though for the classifications to drop it because but remember Hatchet 2 was pulled from the cinemas on its day of release. Because they released it un-rated. Adam Green is very unhappy about that, as you can imagine. And so they were still hot on censorship. But it did look like at some studios, Lo could get away with it. It's a bit like really because it was either money or, you know, whatever. Anyway, but we're back to the point now.

Yeah. And I think, guys, we are going to be covering it probably next year, 2025, because we normally wait till movies are out for a year or for a few years. And we generally cover classics or, I mean, just because something's new, it doesn't mean it can't be a classic. And I think that substance is a classic in the making.

As soon as I watch it, I know it's a classic.

But it'll be fun to cover a brand new movie. So I think we'll probably be covering that. So watch this space. Last thing I watched or started watching, and you're going to be really cross with me about this.

Probably not.

You might be. A lot of people will be, because everyone's, you know, everyone, we've all got friends, hey, have you started watching this new series? Have you started watching this? Have you started watching this? No, I haven't seen Dexter. I haven't seen Game of Thrones. I haven't seen Breaking Bad, Medical Sword. I haven't seen any of those. I'll hold my hands up.

Breaking Bad is worth it.

But what have I done to myself? I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the beginning, haven't I?

Yeah, but that's fine. The other day, I started watching all of One Foot in the Graves again.

Can't help it. It's so comforting.

That's why Hollywood struggled to put films out in the movies that do make money. Generally, I'll see sequels and stuff which we know of because it's comforting.

Yeah. So I've gone right back to the beginning because they're all on Disney Plus Season 1. I absolutely love Buffy. It's a shame that Joss Whedon is such a horrible bastard now that I know all of that. But I'm removing the artist from the art and watching the fun.

It comes down to, because I was thinking about this recently, it was something else, and it comes down to, because we still watch Polanski films and things. But it comes down, I think, to the, I guess, the crime and the situation. I don't know, because Polanski wasn't exactly good having sex with a young, underage girl who is taking photos of. So that's really shit still. That's a really rubbish thing to have happened. So, I don't know, but I still like some of his films.

In my opinion, with any crime, really, whether it's abuse, underage, or rape, or whether it's murder, whatever the artist has done, in my opinion, this is me personally, nobody else, I will always give it a year or two or three of not touching that person's art, whether you're Kevin Spacey, whether you're Michael Jackson, whether whoever. And I know Michael Jackson has never been convicted, and he's obviously dead now, but, and then slowly I feel comfortable.

I don't do that, because it's almost like, it's not, I'm not saying it is, it's almost like putting your head in the sand and just letting it sweep over and go, that's okay, I'll go back to it now. I think I'll still probably keep my stance on the person.

Yep. So it felt weird watching American Beauty, but it's such an incredible film, that actually you just kind of look at him as his character rather than, and although I think some of that has been turned around now, and he actually has been shown to be quite innocent, Kevin Spacey.

Oh, I thought you were going to say Weinstein. And Miramax is obviously Miriam and Max, which is Weinstein's mom and dad. So you can't then go, you have to go, right, I'm not going to watch Tarantino movies because Miriam Weinstein produced it.

Yeah, or Eli Roth.

So how far do you go with it? So at some point you can just watch, it depends, if it's like a really, I guess it's like a, if it's like really bad, then yeah, fuck that. Which is, I suppose Jimmy Teller didn't reproduce, I suppose he was on top of the pops and things like that.

Even Jeebus Creepers, I will go back and watch the first Jeebus Creepers.

And the second one, they're both very good films. And yeah, and that dude, he actually went to prison for it, not saying that that makes it any better, but he did spend, he did the crime, he did the time. So does that, does that give you a break in public eyes or does that not? And I guess it doesn't because people still like, you still fucking did it.

And Michael Jackson made some absolutely amazing songs.

And again, though, that still isn't verified that he did or didn't, so we can't, you know, it's not really, it's not a good example, I don't think, so much of Jackson. It's really hard though, and then you get, I don't know, say, Marilyn Manson all of a sudden was one, all of a sudden after what was going on with him, here's all pictures of him turning to a Christian or something.

And now, Conor McGregor. Everyone suddenly is disowning Conor McGregor as he's a rapist.

Marilyn Manson recently just brought out a new album and stuff. So, he still has his core, I think so, and the same way he's brought a new music video. So, he's still going to have core fans. Well, he hasn't been arrested for anything.

I tell you what, I don't think anybody's going to be getting P. Diddy's greatest hits in their stock in this Christmas.

But then there's someone like P. Diddy, which, you know, and that whole thing goes, we're not going to, we're not going to go to Trolls next year, but that's going to be a massive thing, which I don't know, most people get paid off and we never hear about all the terrible, terrible people in the world, unfortunately, or fortunately, I don't know.

We'll see. We shall see.

Anyway, Merry Christmas.

Hey, it's not Christmas yet, come on. This is Exorcism episode. So let's get our holy water and our crosses.

Merry Exorcism.

I like what you did there. Thank you.

Well, should we fucking have a trailer? Can we have a fucking trailer, Giza?

All right, sunshine, fuck me, let's get to my fucking trailer.

Let's have a fucking trailer.

Imagine if Danny Dyer turned up in one of the Exorcist films. Well, I hear you got a fucking demon child upstairs, have you?

Show me where he is, I'll fucking have him.

I'll fucking have him. Come here, sunshine.

Come here, fucking, I'll show you a fucking bunch of fools.

He's like, I've got my holy water and my cross, and if none of that works, I'll just fucking nut the bastard, won't I?

I do love him in Severance when he's tripping out and says, are you looking at my winky? You are. He goes, no, I'm not looking at your winky. You are looking at it.

Again, with AI, one day we will see Danny Dyer in an Exorcist film.

There's so many movies which I can't wait to just go, type in Danny Glover.

Danny Glover?

Oh yeah, type in, just type in loads of different names and just like go, a partnership with, and they're basically, you know, in Die Hard, but they're the gang.

And then they get sent back in time to the Wild West.

What, Benny Hill leading the gang in Die Hard?

And Bruce Lee is the baddie. Love it. AI. Talk about it too much though, because Gav will get the government cutting him off again from the grid.

Yeah, the thing is though, I'm not completely against AI, that's the thing. I'm just letting everyone know it's coming big, it's coming hard and it's coming strong.

Wow, and that is his chat line. Let's get into a trailer for Exorcist II.

Slip it in. Let's go.

Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Max Fonsido, James Earl Jones, Exorcist II, The Heretic.

The Exorcist II, The Heretic, 1977, the year I was born. It doesn't say that, that's what I'm saying. Rated X, X, X, X, for X-y. 157 minutes, a teenage girl once possessed by a demon finds out it still lurks within her. Meanwhile, a priest investigates the death of the girl's exorcist. So, yeah, essentially that's Ternus there. There still is a demon and a kid, like from the first one. And we've also got some investigation going on. The exorcist girl's exorcist dies.

And part of why I do have a soft spot for these movies is...

I thought you were saying sausage.

It's part of the reason I love sausages. No, part of the reason I do have a soft spot for these movies is because, as I've said before, I do love it when there's like a church, a secret church group, you know, that does the investigating and does the exorcisms and all that kind of stuff, a bit like, you know, those Dan Brang books as well.

Yeah, I was going to say that. And in quite a lot of time, you do find there's a lot of those, these sort of, well, they are religious films, are investigations, actually. Yeah, there's quite a lot of them, actually. In the name of the roses, Sean Connery's investigating a murder going on. There's a lot of these movies.

The third Exorcist movie, which we'll get to later in this episode, is a bit more like Seven as well, because there's a serial killer being investigated. It's kind of got that. This one is a bit more of just a someone's trying to figure out whether or not this is real or not. Who is this girl? He's like, I'm going to really suspect something's going on with her. Interesting. Before we get into it, though.

We need to talk about everything else around it.

Yeah. I mean, this was your first viewing without any spoiling or thought.

Well, I didn't realize it was John Borman. Obviously, we know him from the deliverance directing.

Yeah.

British director. I didn't realize it's him. So I was like, okay, all right, fair enough. But I heard it's bad. I didn't notice the IMDB score. Maybe I did and just ignored it because I've heard it so bad. But like we said, we still got, you know, it's still got the camera and the lenses and the lighting packages. They're all our favorite classic 70s films used. So we've got like a look at everything, too, which gives us like a wealth, especially me and Dan Bourne in the 70s.

Yeah, 78s, sorry.

Oh, yeah. So like it gives us a feeling back of nostalgia, definitely. It's a shame that, so what happened with the film really is, I've come to believe you could probably tell me more about this than everyone else, but it's more like the director wanted to go a different route. It's a real hard thing. It's kind of like going back into the fucking, which we had this discussion last time, the Halloween sequences and franchise, where it's like the first movies are fucking bomb.

Yeah, it's a lightning in a bottle, isn't it, with the first film.

First Halloween movie. The big ones up there, these two are up there of the big films for what they did and what they changed and how they came across and how shocking, but how classily done. Both of them, really. And so it's one of those things like Halloween II had to come after Halloween I. They sort of rushed that through. I like Halloween II myself, but it wasn't really, you know, it's a different league step down, really, from a masterful hands of a filmmaker of John Carpenter.

French Connection.

French Connection. And, and he just goes and makes that movie, and it becomes a massive, massive hit. It was doing things like, you know, saying cunt and a child masturbating with a cross. That's pretty fucking wild.

Well, it was at a time when, in the 70s, where classy directors suddenly decided, I'm going to try making a horror, you know, like Polanski, Richard Donner, Groceries Baby, Richard Donner, the Omen, you know, I'm going to make a horror. And because they haven't got any...

And you have John Carton, Mark Ralph London, Landis, John Landis.

Because they're not really thinking about, I've been making these horror films. I know the Blueprints. They're just throwing, I'm going to make what I normally make, which is a very classy, well-acted film. I'm going to do it in my way. And it's the 70s as well. It is 70s sheen to it as well.

I love it. It's at a point when it's, yeah, in the 70s, you haven't got a whole thing going on. There's not like a whole, like, there wasn't an over flooding of the market.

No one expected a franchise.

VHS players weren't out yet. So it was still, horror was still, it was there in the zeitgeist. And horror saved Universal, the Universal Horror Monsters saved that whole studio at one point. So you can never really turn away from it because it always does make money. And they know that. They just don't want to represent it and say the Oscars and things like that or look at it. And that was said, this is in like a classy thing.

He's another example of that.

Exactly. So these people are just the filmmakers doing the film that they could do to the best that they can with their crew and their vision and their producers and the money they've got, the way they've always done every film. But they're just stepping, okay, we're done, just done. Comedy, okay, we're going to do horror. Next after that, I'm doing a military movie. And just as they do it, but they still do that, still stepping. So that first film was fucking big. It was a bad, bad boy.

But he just wanted it. He wanted it to be called The Heretic. But the studio and some of the producers.

Part three as well.

Yeah. And the studio wanted it to be called. Now we've got to make sure people know it's an Exorcist film. So we've got to call it The Exorcist II. And he's like, all right, what can we call it? The Exorcist II, The Heretic, you know? And there was a lot of, as you as our listeners know, I love the making, the stuff that goes on behind the scenes with certain films. Even if it's a bad film, sometimes I can forgive it if I understand what's going on.

Linda Blair.

Thank you. She didn't want anything to do with it. You know, a lot of the people just were like, we're not coming back. We've done it. What do you mean? Because sequels weren't really a thing, but they kind of got talked into it. Linda Blair had a massive cocaine habit at this point in her life.

So she would have only been like when they were offering her, she would have, because she was 17 when they shot it. So she was probably like 16, 15, 16 when they touted it to her. So she was in a coke addict then. But then again, Drew Bramall was partying away once she was young.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and people can go and do what they want to do.

They can pull it back.

But these are, there was some interesting behind the scene tippets I just wanted to give before we get into breaking down the film, which probably not explain and not even excuse this, but to me, this is a classy mess. It's how I described this film because it's got 70s class to it, but it is a bit of a mess of ideas and you can kind of feel it. But also I kind of enjoy this film. I really do.

I did, didn't he? Just envisioned the idea for like 10 minutes, then didn't want to do it.

The woman that played Reagan's mother, Eileen Bernstein from the beginning was like, I am nothing to do with it. And they tried everything to get her in this movie and she didn't want to do with it. In fact, I believe there's a woman in this that looks like her and she was originally cast as a replacement for her, but then they realized she'd be better as a different character altogether.

Yeah. Well, Richard Burton was a very well-known actor. So this is like it's when we get like Gregory Peck in The Omen, and stuff like that. Richard Burton was known for Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? Spike came in for the cult. It's a lot of classic, classic old school movies and very well-known name as well. Like no name around households. Household name, that's what I'm trying to say. But yeah, in loads of stuff, so it does bring it another sense of class.

And in fact, Linda Blair said, Richard Bruton is something of a surrogate dad to her or a mentor. He helped her with her acting and made her become a better actor. And he looked after her on set as well.

Max von Sydow, coming back again. It's great that they made him look so old in the first one.

It is.

And that helps this because he looks young in this. There's no problem for it because he was young.

And I think everybody forgets it. Darth Vader is in this movie. You know, James.

Strange role.

Yeah, strange role. But again, I kind of like the ideas in this. But the problem is, there's a lot of ideas, but a lot of them don't really have an ending. You don't really understand what the idea was about. It's just kind of thrown into the mix. Apparently, the opening night, people rioted because they didn't like the movie so much, and they chased the limousine down the street full of executives.

Well, apparently, the producers turned up, and they sent the limo drivers off to get takeaways. They could go and get your food, but we don't need you for the moment. We're going to the cinema, I'll just be here when the film ends. And they're in there, and within 10 minutes, everybody, because I was thinking I was watching it, knowing this beforehand, watching the film going, because I hadn't seen it.

Apparently, what people don't like about this film is the introduction of science. So apparently, the moment that they put those headsets on to do the sort of synchronization, that's where a lot of people either laugh or walked out or thought it was ridiculous. I kind of, I didn't really care about that. It's a 70s movie, whatever, you know, Star Wars came out the same year as this.

But they chased the, the fans got up and chased the producers out. Like, like, like it was Frankenstein's Monster, and they had pitchforks and burning fucking bits of wood.

Yeah. There are a lot of fans of this movie in Hollywood, though. Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino both absolutely love this film and really champion it, which is strange. But yeah, they think it's great. But that's Tarantino and Scorsese for you.

That's the thing, though, just because somebody's good at doing something doesn't mean we should always listen to what they say about something else.

John Borman said, I think this goes back to what you were asking me earlier. Yeah, he wanted it to be a much more upbeat, positive film. He didn't really want the sort of...

And this was kind of like going, right, so no, no, what was the other film that did that? You carry on.

But it was the studio and the producers that made him put more and more and more horror stuff into it, to the point that he didn't even know, he didn't even understand some of his own plot points. And you can kind of feel that, like with the locusts and stuff like that. Like Linda Blair still says to this day, I still don't understand what the symbolism behind all the insects was.

I did like a lot of those trippy locust shots and stuff, sequences, I actually kind of like them.

And I will, as a side note, say, what I like about Exorcist II and III is they are kind of like, if you just sit down and let them wash over you, they're like a bit of a weird nightmare of random visuals and sounds, do you know what I mean?

I couldn't tell you if someone said to me, I was like, what was Exorcist II about? I'll be like, and I'll be able to start coming up with some stuff, and then they'll have this light and I can like, think, mind things and stuff. But I'd really be stuck where the next one, part three, I could say, well, and I could go into it and explain to you. So this one is, I don't know if in script form, it just wasn't there or there's rewrites, which always happens.

Well, I can explain a little bit about the writing. So Linda Blair said in interviews that the first script that was ever written for The Exorcist II was incredible. And a lot of people that have seen it said that. But John Borman wanted to rewrite the script from the start and incorporate some other ideas. He then realized he bent off more than he could chew. So then producers stepped in to help him out a little bit.

And sometimes there is films that you won't even know about that's had this problem and the script is being written on set. The writers there on set writing changes there and then. And actors are performing for ages beforehand, rehearsing certain stuff, and all of a sudden it's changing, which is throwing them off. Sometimes, though, you won't know about it. There are certain films that that's happened to, where it's just come out really well, and stuff's happening on the set.

Another problem behind the things was James Earl Jones, being a stage actor, very theatrical. He refused to do more than a couple of takes, and they asked him to re-dub some of his lines, because some of it's filmed outdoors and stuff, and he wouldn't do any of that. He was like, oh, no, my first take was fantastic. Well, not like that, you know.

Yeah, but like, for fuck's sake, he's in, you're in movie world, though, now. You're not on a stage, so you need to do it, because the camera, I would have been like, sorry, camera's out of focus. I say get him to do it.

Yeah, we've talked about Linda Blair's substance abuse, but also Richard Burton was a massive alcoholic and struggled occasionally to sort of...

Yeah.

I think he had to read some of his lines off of cards in some of the scenes because he was a bit too pissed to kind of...

Apparently, he had what they classed as wet brain, which sounds horrible when he got so drunk that he just can't remember and do like long monologues anymore.

No, I think that's actually in the Exorcist III.

Oh, shit, yes, you're right. Yeah, sorry. It's another alcoholic in another Exorcist film.

There is another. We'll get to that, though. But no, you're right. But Richard Burton did struggle. And you're right, there are Q.Kaiji's in the third one as well for one of the characters, which we'll get to. And as we all know, there is a weird scene at the end of the Exorcist II, which we are going to cover in a minute, where Reagan tries to seduce Richard Burton. And apparently, initially, the studio were like, it's got to be a full on sex scene. And she was 17 or 18 at the time.

And weirdly, I kind of missed it. I didn't see it, because I knew that happened because I saw the trivia.

Yeah.

Should we get into it?

Yeah, I just wanted to see if there's anything else worth mentioning behind this thing. I think that was all my... Uh, yeah, that's all my- So that's just a little bit of what's going on behind the scenes, so that when we start talking about this movie, you guys, if you haven't seen it or if you have seen it, but it's not been out for a long time, you might understand a little bit about why sometimes it's a little bit- It goes- jumps from one bit to another and feels a bit strange.

I wonder if this was a film like- I love having Sarah with me watching movies, because I get confused, listeners. I know you can't believe that and you go, no way does he get confused and get things muddled up. Yep, I do. So Sarah is great, guys. Sarah, what the fuck's going on? And she explains to me, oh, and da-da-da. Recently, I said to her, it might not been this, I don't know, we've been watching random stuff recently. I was watching a movie of her and I was, what's going on?

Excuse me.

I like the red font. Starts with a nice big red font with X's too. I quite like that. It's just very old school.

We should also mention, they didn't want to reuse Cheap Bit Of Bells. So who's called this movie?

Who is it?

Ennio?

Oh, it's Ennio Morricone? Yeah, that's it. We do have that going on for it as well. And actually, there is a little bit of Cheap Bit Of Bells in this. They use just a little part of it and then it goes into Ennio. And actually, the way he did it was like, that's Les's morn. That's the role I like to make films with. And I think that's really best way of doing it. So he did that really well, actually.

And Ennio is kind of a bit of a rogue as well, because he knew there were some African themes in this. He just went off on one and did like mainly like African Tribal score, which kind of doesn't match some of this, but also makes it work.

I might have to check out the score alone on Spotify. Just have a little listen to it.

Yeah. Well, OK, we'll get into this then, like you said. So we start off with an African score playing. It's got a great score throughout this. And we can see there's a missionary church with a possessed girl in the church and a priest is doing... An exorcism, of course. So we're straight into an exorcism on this one, unlike the third one, where we have to wait till the end for an exorcism.

And they didn't want to do an exorcism anyway, but we'll get into that later.

It's all tacked on. So he starts the exorcism and, oh, my God, this child catches fire.

Yep.

And burns to death. Dead. And that is the opening scene of this film, really, a child burning demonic child.

Roasted and crispy. Chuck on the seasoning.

Wow. And then we cut to Reagan doing some tap dancing.

Older Reagan.

Yes. So she's about, well, she's about 17 in this. She's tapping away.

She's tapping. She actually learned a bit of tap dancing for it as well.

She did. You've done your research. Well done, Gavin. Yeah, she thought it would be ridiculous and didn't want to do it because she'd rather have spent her time getting high. But she's glad she did it because it gave her an understanding of the character.

Personally, I think she's got high and tap dance her ass off.

Imagine cocaine tapping.

It'd be tap dance tunnel.

What does that mean?

Like tunnel vision.

Oh, OK. Just tapping away.

Yeah.

Wearing a hole in the ground.

You got to stop, Regan. I can't stop. The devil's got my tap feet going.

And Regan, obviously, when she was younger, had this awful experience in Washington where she was possessed by the devil or Pazuzu. And she's now kind of everyone thinks she's forgotten about it, but she's going to this center for kids that need help.

Just finished my cup of tea, my exorcist mug.

Yes, well done.

Thank you.

So she's in this place where there's like deaf kids, autistic kids, and lots of doctors helping all these kids, you know, to overcome. So it's a bit futuristic, just like you get, and I love that about the 70s, where they're like, we've got a special hospital, all these futuristic gadgets that are going to help kids who are deaf or autistic or have been possessed.

And this lady was going to play, they really thought, originally thought about Carsten for her Reagan's mum, because she looks really like Reagan's mum. So when it comes in, she was like, oh, it's Reagan's mum. I was like, no, it's not. She goes, yeah, it's not, it's a different person. I looked up and I was like, yeah, it's a different person. It's like, you'd think they might have gone, should we not confuse the audience and just get a totally different looking woman? That might be better.

Yeah. The only other person who returns other than Max Wonsido is Kitty Wynn, who played Sharon, her mum's, Reagan's mum's assistant, and she's in this quite a lot. So there is a connection there.

But yes, weird choice. They should just recast her, I feel.

She says to her, I've got this new machine called the Synchronizer Reagan. What we did, we both put on these Ritmaranis headsets. And basically, we go into this dream, and I can help you understand all your bad dreams. And she's like, oh, no, don't worry about it. I don't want to do any of that. We know that eventually Reagan will cave in, and that's fine. So that's our little introduction to Reagan and where she's at. She's grown up, she's a cocaine tap dancer.

Religious touchings.

I know the cloth, the touching cloth. But yeah, basically, if you don't... He gives him the guilt treat. He says, you are a soldier of Christ. And this is your mission. You've got to go out and figure out what happened to Father Merrin and fix the church's reputation. So, Father Lamont agrees.

Oh, fuck it. Go on, then.

Oh, go on, then. I'm not doing anything else. He goes to visit the Children's Center and he meets Regan's doctor. He says, I'd really like to speak to Regan.

He does.

Three people died. You know, I think it's important. And the doctor blocks him.

He says, no, because they obviously know who Regan is. She's obviously like a she's a big, big popular hit amongst the world. I imagine.

Oh, the masturbating child. Yeah, that one. Oh, the one with the spinning head.

The one that spat, the one that puked up loads and floated above their fucking bed and shit.

Have you seen what she does going down the stairs backwards? Then she pisses all over the floor. Yeah, that one.

Yeah, to be fair, Dan, I can piss all over the floor.

Yeah, but can you walk downstairs backwards during the crowd walk and then do it?

Daisy can.

I'd like to see you try.

Daisy can do the do that walk. She's weird.

But down the stairs.

Not downstairs. I'm not going to ask her to do that. She'd be breaking stuff.

Yeah. So the Dr. Tusken says, look, I don't want you to speak to her because.

Dr. Tusken, the walrus.

You may trigger some kind of PTSD. She may even become suicidal if you talk to her about this. I'm trying to gently hypnotize her and figure out what happened. But I don't think it's a good idea. And he says, well, look, the church won't take no for an answer.

Yeah, regardless whatever you say, fucking jog on.

And he says, you know, some say evil, what some call evil. No, she says what some people call evil, others call a mental illness. So they argue about the difference between a mental illness and evil. So it's quite progressive, this film, in some ways.

Yeah, it's bringing out to the outside world like that and into asking that question and saying like, you know, something, sometimes people aren't evil because they're mentally challenged or whatever.

Something you cover on your other podcast.

Yeah, we have to go into these things and think about it and dissect people and why they do stuff. And is it a product of environment or mental capacity?

Because you're not forgiving somebody for a crime. You just understand why they've done it.

It's good to see why things go wrong. And then that's how we can, going forward, we can make changes and hopefully people can take away stuff from that and, you know.

Well, almost like she knows, Reagan enters the room. Hello, who's this? Oh, I'm Father Lamont.

High Strangers Podcast is the other show.

That's the other show. And she says, oh, why don't you, I'd like to be hypnotized now. So she's being quite provocative. And I do think it's like Pazusa is talking, is guiding her because she says, I'd like to be hypnotized and I'd like to do it in front of Father Lamont, if that's all right. And the doctor's like, oh, look, we'll do it tomorrow. We'll do the hypnotism tomorrow. Maybe he can come for that. I'm not sure. So she's almost provoking him.

Totally, I don't really catch on to that.

Yeah, so we get a little weird scene where Reagan pretends to bend a spoon. We meet Sharon, so her mum is apparently away working. Well, she didn't want to return for the sequel. So she's left her assistant Sharon to look after Reagan. And it's Hypnocism Time.

Hypnotime.

Hypnotime, baby. So Reagan gets on her headpiece and Lamont is there. Father Lamont is there.

I really like the sequence of the lights. So do I. With the lights and you kind of start to go, because it's like, whoop, whoop, whoop. These lights flashing.

Describe the light in the sand.

Well, yeah, it's like a rounded room. They've both got headsets looking at each other. So it's quite peaceful and quiet. And then they both got a big light bulb next to them. And it's just a whoop and a whoop whoop whoop whoop sound going on. And they're just really looking back and forth and saying stuff to each other. And you start to go into like into it as well, absorbed into it.

I started finding myself feeling quite relaxed.

I felt really relaxed. I was like, I could watch the rest of the films like this. I could do this, actually. It's a small review, but yeah.

But this is the bit where people thought it was utterly ridiculous because they didn't introduce some science into the spiritual and the supernatural.

I feel like this feels more like a daytime TV movie, though, almost.

I know what you mean.

It's not like the big cinema thing. I remember back in the day, it would be like the only way to watch a movie would have been the cinema anyway, I guess. But like, I know it was TV, obviously, so you could have had it as a TV movie, I suppose. But like, when you go to cinemas, it's a big event. So I guess people got very emotional when the big event wasn't the thing that they anticipated.

Chasing limousines. Her eyes were all back in her head. Father Lamont was wearing a headpiece as well. And she says, bring Father Lamont down to your level as well, where you are in your dreams. So she does this voice and she's like, can you find me? Father, can you find me? And he's like, yes, very good. And so it's very like cheesy when I say it like that. But it's because it's a 70s flick. It's done quite well.

It does though. Start today superimposed Father and Reagan when she was actually possessed when she was in the first movie clips from the first movie. They superimpose on top.

It wasn't clips. It wasn't. It was.

Oh, did they re shoot some stuff?

She refused to wear the makeup. So they had to find a double who would wear the makeup. So any time.

But it's supposed to be in clips. So yeah, it wasn't. Yeah. And they superimpose on top. And it looks really cool because just a whole you already been by pulled into this world and you're kind of like, oh, this is quite relaxing. My now she says, this is quite relaxing. And then all of a sudden he just gets a superimposed bit. So you kind of just a real nice way of doing it. So I got to give my hands up for that. So it's pretty good.

Well, he asks her about Washington.

Yeah, I don't know what they talk about, though, but visually I was enjoying it.

Go to the bedroom, your bedroom in Washington. What do you see? Do you remember what you saw? I'm in your bedroom with you. Can you tell me about Father Marin? What did he say to you? And then suddenly the doctor is, she cannot come out of her hypnosis. So the assistant who's also in the room, the priest and Reagan who comes out of the hypnosis, they're all like, oh my God, they can't wake her up. And they're sort of trying to wake her up, trying to wake her up.

There's some good effects and stuff in this.

Yeah, Reagan's face blends in and then they wake Dr. Tusken up and she remembers nothing about it. And that's kind of that scene really. So, yeah, we got this, the gateway in to the demon here is the hypnosis. And they may have already awakened it now by doing this strange bit of hypnosis science with her. But there we go. So that's that little scene. Reagan starts drawing, she goes off and she starts drawing a picture of fire, a face with fire on it, I think she draws, doesn't she?

Yeah.

Go on.

I was going to say, you don't want children. Like, what are you drawing then? Oh, it's you and you're on fire. That's not good.

This is you with a knife in your head, Daddy. Sometimes Jack will say, and I know all kids go through this and he's picked up from nursery. But sometimes I'll say things like, right, I'm going to put you in the bin, like joking around, like, you know, I'm going to throw your shoes away. Or we just joke around. And the other day he just went, I'm going to cut off your head. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, okay. Wow. Hide the knives.

I don't remember.

A fire. There is a box with a doll in it on fire randomly. And he stands up trying to put the fire out and she sees him with the four flames around him, just like Regan drew upstairs moments earlier. So they managed to put the fire out. Everybody gets evacuated from the hospital. He's a bit of a hero because he's put the fire out. But he says to her, the picture was a warning. Regan drew a warning. I think the demon is all in here.

And we still got a strange dream to Africa coming up. It happens in my notes before going into the second hypnosis.

Yeah, you're probably right.

I was just going to say very quickly then, there's a strange dream to Africa, and it's kind of like a locust or fake locust. It's the front of the actual camera almost, it seems like, and it just the camera just was on the, just having a piggyback with a locust, and you got any Omar Khony score going on. And it's like, what's going on? But I'm kind of enjoying it.

Very 70s again. Yeah. Drugs were strong in the 70s.

And then then then they're at the building which she's staying in, Linda Blair staying in, and she's out on the roof. And why on earth, who on earth constructed this to put a safety barrier with gaps in it?

This is one of my notes as well. So yeah, let's get to that. So Reagan's in bed. She hears a voice when she's in bed saying, let's go flying. And this is where she dreams of, where she's flying.

Basically makes a sleep walk.

But she sees Father Merrin as well there though. So it's almost like she's seeing a vision of him back in the day when he was at a missionary tribe performing exorcisms and stuff in Africa. So she's got a connection with him because obviously she accidentally killed him when she was possessed. And you're right, she's on a balcony. Yeah.

Did the builder go like, Terry, Terry, it's lunchtime. Have you finished all those barriers on that roof? Because it's very, very serious. Like someone could fall off there. So it needs to be all connected. Have you done it? But it is lunchtime. Yeah, it's all done. Are you sure? Are you not just saying that because it's lunchtime? Nope. Terry, nope, it's fine. It's all done. Terry didn't do it or Terry left gaps. Random gaps.

To paint the picture for you all, Reagan's mom obviously is quite high up in Hollywood. She's an exec or something. So she's got this penthouse apartment in New York. And it is like top floor, like 30th floor, 50th floor, whatever it is. And Reagan sleepwalks out of bed during this dream. And when she gets to the edge, she goes outside onto the balcony. And there's basically these railings all around with glass underneath them. But there's two gaps missing.

Yeah.

And she just balances on the edge of it.

Yeah.

And this is what Gav's talking about. Now, apparently, that was exactly how the building was. And Borman said he was very concerned about shooting this thing, because they didn't really have much safety equipment. They just let Linda Blair balance quite close to the edge. And she said she was genuinely terrified in that scene. She was 17! What the fuck?

Yeah, somebody's filmmaking there.

Jesus Christ.

So, hypnosis with the father. Father's going to go in with Reagan, like a duo, like Abbott-Gastello or Lauren Hardy or the two Monies.

Sharon, before that, Sharon goes to Washington. She leaves Reagan on her own. She's leaving her on her own for a few days.

Sounds like a porn movie.

Which one? Sharon goes to Washington. Because she's been called there to meet Father Lamont on The Steps, the famous steps that the priest flies out of at the end of the SS and falls down and breaks his neck. And she goes there. She doesn't want to go back in the house. Apparently, Kitty Wynn, who played Sharon, genuinely had PTSD about that first film and didn't really want to go to some of the sets they'd recreated.

Duh, duh, duh, duh.

So they have more visions of Father Meren in Africa, and they have visions of this boy who had powers. He was some kind of a healer. He kept locusts away from his tribe and his tribe's crops.

Is that James or Jones?

When he was a boy, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And a big bug swarm starts coming over the boy, gets those demon eyes and he actually says, I am Pazzozo.

Is that the one that looks like Grace Jones in Vamp?

With the yellow eyes.

Yeah, one of them looks like Grace Jones in Vamp.

Maybe. It's quite good.

It was after they've climbed up that big rock face, I think is who they find up at the top there.

Yeah, because to get to the church.

There's some crazy shit they're doing. So what the fuck? It's extreme.

The church is like on top of a mountain, basically, isn't it? You've got to climb up a little canyon.

It's crazy. Who goes to church? Oh, it's Sunday Church. Come on, get the climbing rope.

So in this dream, Reagan says to Father Lamont, call me by my dream name. And he says, what is your dream name? She says, call me Pazuzu. That's my dream name. So he has to call her Pazuzu. And he sort of explains when he comes out of it, Pazuzu was the sort of the Lord of the Heir, the Demon of the Heirs. And Sharon tells, so later on when they've come out of it, Sharon tells Tusken that Reagan is missing. She's gone missing now. Where could she be? She's vanished.

Yeah, it makes it easier to deal with.

Indeed, and easier to explain as well. The demon says to Lamont, I can show you where the boy is. And then this is where you get the crazy flying locust and it goes to James Earl Jones in a leopard costume who roars at the camera.

I've got a leopard costume like that.

Trippy. And that was where I kind of forgot and he was in it until he roared at me.

I actually don't have a costume like that, surprisingly. But when I was on the holiday of Sarah, we were just looking around the shops. I found a bloody fancy dress shop. Well, it's a charity shop, but upstairs is a fancy dress shop and they're selling stuff. So I bought myself...

Oh, my God.

I bought myself a Union Jack. Not Union Jack. American flag. So stars and stripes and both legs. Kind of like pants you'd wear if you're a wrestler.

Like, I'm not a fan of those back in the day.

Like, Lycra trousers. But they're American flag Lycra trousers. Three quid.

Sounds like what Vanilla Ice used to wear.

Yeah, possibly. I've got the skinniest little legs though, so I don't know how I wear it. You can't even see my bum in them. Not like I'm doing them for people to see my bum.

Well, this point of the film now is where you start to feel that there are too many writers, because now we've got this plot about James Earl Jones, who was that boy, when he was a boy, he was a healer and he was possessed, but obviously he's not anymore. And the priest now says, Father Lamont now says, I know that the boy is still alive, and I think he's a healer and he has answers about Pazuzu, and I need to go and find him in Africa.

It's all quite confusing. I don't know.

Hmm. And Lamont certainly thinks that Regan has some kind of power, but he thinks the demon is preventing her from her full potential.

Well, we must get the demons out of Regan.

So they go to a museum, and Lamont and Regan happen to bump into each other there. They talk about ESP, and he said, Father Merrin believed in a world mind like insects, where in the future, and this is your AI now, Gav, in the future, Father Merrin believed that everybody would be of the same mind, and we'd all think the same and know what everybody else was feeling and thinking.

I was thinking the other day about AI and robots, because we all probably have our own personal little robot, powered AI robot, which probably will be the case. But I was thinking for people like autistic, people who need, like my eldest autistic, who need prompting to get dressed, prompting to even eat food, prompting to open the curtains, there's all these things that they need doing, so they need someone there to do it. But if they had a little robot, AI robot, they could help people.

That's like Megan, which I don't think you've seen yet.

I haven't seen it, no, so I shall. I shall because I'm fascinated by this whole thing. And it is going to happen, regardless of what everyone thinks, even if you think I'm mad.

Because Megan, the robot, is produced by a woman who makes toys, but she makes a companion, and it happens to be that her niece is orphaned. This isn't a spoiler, it's the beginning of the film.

So give her some company.

So she gives her this, and it learns, and it understands what she needs. It says like, you can do it, get out of bed. Do you want to hear one of your mum's stories? So she's there to help her cope with the grief of her parents and be a companion and a friend, but it all goes too far. Yeah, so you should definitely check out Megan. I think you'd get a lot out of it. It all gets a bit weird now, whether in the museum, and Reagan says, oh, that's the village where Pazuzu is.

Well, I say, what do you remember? She remembers everything.

And she says, his name is Kokomu. And he says, right, I'll go and find him. So Father Lamont goes to the head of the church, and he's like, right, I know that you don't really want me to do the case anymore, and you're kind of getting me to drop it. But I need you to fly me to Africa. So he just wants a cheeky little holiday.

And the church like, he's basically saying at the church, if I bring back receipts, will the church get these receipts and pay me back?

Father Lamont, just doing the end of year finances. What's this trip to Africa that you've got on your?

No, I told you about that, no you didn't, I did. You were busy, but you said yes, did I?

Yeah. Did we? What was it to do with? Pazuzu, I don't remember anything. You remember?

You're climbing up rock, what? Climb up cliff faces, looking for dealings.

I asked you to investigate Father Merrin's death, not going on a two week holiday to Africa. What are you up to?

Yeah, can't do that anymore.

No. No. Well, he asked the church and he's denied, like I say, but it goes anyway, so fuck it, because he's like Indiana Jones. He climbs the canyon, he finds the church at the top of this mountain. And now this is a really trippy scene as well.

James L. Jones in a bloody locust costume.

And you've got all these people dancing around, worshipping, and you kind of feel like it's like, it's like when you're at a party and you're way too high and everyone else is kind of like dancing around.

It's all weird and it's like spitting out the fruit and walking over spiked things and just, anyway, Mark Honeyscore and just, what's going on? What is all this?

Yeah, because you think, when he finds James Earl Jones, and it turns out that this is all a dream, but when he finds James Earl Jones, I assumed it was a coal pit, like a hot coals for it to walk over. And then he steps into it and it's black liquid with spikes in it that goes up through his foot. Yeah.

And then it kind of turns into like, not a David Attenborough-narrated film documentary, but turns into a James Earl Jones-narrated locust documentary almost.

Yeah, because he snaps out of it and he goes, hello, I'm Professor Kokomu.

I'm just standing here in a doctor costume.

And it's James Earl Jones, but this time he's in a very sort of nice suit and he's a professor who's studying insects. And basically he's wiping out locusts by training certain locusts to emit a different frequency so that they don't attack crops and wipe out villages. And so it's all very clever. But again, this is an exorcist from what on earth is all this doing in it?

Yeah, if you were sitting there going, great fucking, I can't wait for another child possessed tied to a bed and just all that shit gets me brilliant. So they go, well, what is this with James Earl Jones dressed as a locust? What's going on?

It's pretty weird, isn't it? Yeah. It goes off on a bit of a walk around.

Was it critically slammed? I'm going to look.

Yeah, absolutely slammed.

You carry on, I'm going to look.

Absolutely slammed. But when he does step on the spike, Regan does feel his pain, so she's kind of like connected to him now, psychically, because of the hypno machine. So she has a bit of a fit while she's tap dancing. And they sedate her, lie down, go to sleep. All good. Not a problem. Back in Africa, Father Lamont is asking about the Mud City. It's all very weird. He learns about Pazuzu again. Kokomu explains to him, yeah, I was possessed, but don't worry about any of that now.

Yeah, yeah, I can't, there's no way I can help you.

But anyway, let's skip all of that and jump to, Regan has gone missing. We can't find her anywhere. Father Lamont finds her at the museum. And he says, I find Kokomu. That's great. Okay. And he says, come with me. We're going to go to a CD hotel room together. So Father Lamont takes his 17 year old.

That's what every 17 year old girl wants to hear.

From a priest.

From a priest.

So they go to the CD hotel room, and they've got the hypno machine that Regan stole. They get their headsets on.

I've got a hip machine. I turn it on and it makes me hip.

Ro-hypno.

It doesn't make me like Ro-hypno.

They go under the hypnosis, and they get some more flashbacks about Regan and Father Maren, and this time Kokomu is in there as well. And Father Maren actually says in this dream state, he says to Father Lamont, I need you to do what I couldn't do. I need you to finally rid her of this demon and fight this demon, I couldn't quite do it. Meanwhile, Sharon and Dr. Tusken have trapped them down to this seedy hotel, which sounds really fucking dodgy.

He's in like, he's comatose now. He's just like standing up there, and she's just like, are you all right, Father? You all right, Father? And he's just like, fuck it, I'm out of here.

Well, he just starts walking and walking and walking.

And she just follows him.

She follows him. They get on a train. Yeah. Someone thinks she's trying to steal from him.

Yeah, because she has to get his wallet, and then he just looks at the ticket warden going along. So she's like, oh, God, come on, we've got to get some money. Father, Father, what's wrong? He's just staring out the window. So then he comes along, sees her, her hand in her pocket, and he's like, oh, you've stolen from her. So he just looks and says, she's mine.

I know. Well, she phones Sharon and says, look, we've run away. Basically, I don't know what's going on, but I'm following him. We're on a bus and a train and a plane, and we're going, we're going to Washington. And they're like, no, no, no, don't go with him, Reagan. And she's like, well, I'm going. Sorry, I'm going.

When he's on the train, he's saying his power's getting stronger, and he says he could do anything. And he looks at the sky, where there's like this aeroplane going by, and it's where the doctor and the other lady are in it or something.

Yeah, they're in the plane, and suddenly the turbulence starts to shake.

Yeah. And this bit was kind of all right, because there's a couple of bits which are all right in there.

Yeah, because you don't know whether or not that is definitely the demon.

It's really weird. I thought there was something behind me, then. There wasn't. It's because we're doing The Exorcist, isn't it?

But Sharon and Dr. Tuskin are trying their best to get to Washington in time to stop Regan from going back to the house. But they keep coming across car crashes and plane crashes and lightning and turbulence. It's almost like Pazuzu is controlling the elements to stop them from getting there. At one point, they see someone who's badly injured and the doctor's like, well, I'm a fucking doctor, so I'm going to have to go and help him, aren't I?

That's really cool here, but I think they're using polished styrene with just a fan. Instead of locusts, so yeah, it's just polished styrene and carbon.

You don't think they had a locust wrangler on set?

Well, probably did.

If it's the 70s, who knows?

There's wranglers for everything in the 70s.

Give these locusts loads of cocaine and send them out.

Let them go.

Now, there's a really cool scene now where Sharon and Dr. Tusken are in a taxi, which swerves and crashes into the front of the house from the first movie. Now, it's all going on now. Reagan finds Father Lamont comatose, and he's pointing to the bedroom door.

Considering there's a movie, which was just really fucking just going along, just going along, all of a sudden, it's like, what the hell?

Car crashes, planes.

But the thing is, it's too little, too late almost, you know what I mean? It's just such a strange tone to just flip it so full on. Must be like producers' notes.

And then there's two Reagans now, which is never really explained whether one's a vision or not. And Father Lamont shakes the evil Reagan very violently. And Kokomu speaks to him through the good Reagan, says, come on, snap out of it. He hugs her. Then he strangles the bad Reagan. We see a swarm of locusts approach Washington. Great. Sharon's still burning outside. Dr. Tuskin leaves her to burn. She's trying to get in the house to save Reagan.

The house cracks.

The house starts opening and ripping apart.

And that forms a massive gap, which looks really fantastic. But why is all this pushed into this end like this? Why didn't you give some of this to the audience at the beginning?

Apparently, she nearly died, Linda Blair, because they didn't keep that scene in. But when she falls into the hole, she actually fell into the hole and the bed almost slid on top of her. And a crew member jumped in and saved her before she got crushed. Father-in-law Paul's The Evil Regan's Heart out. And by the way, guys, while all this is going on, there's a swarm of locusts buzzing around the whole house as well.

Is this when Regan embodies James O'Jones and starts doing a lasso over her head? An imaginary lasso?

Yeah.

That's my last note, because the film must end soon. I was just like, OK.

Then her heart gets ripped out. The bowed-leap Regan's heart gets ripped out. The darkness goes away. Father Lamont is alive. The house is destroyed. Regan watches him walk away. And Sharon, I've got my note says Sharon is barbecue. Because she's being cradled by Dr. Tusken and she dies. Is Regan OK? Yeah, she's OK. Oh, good. She's dead. She dies. So that's another character from the first movie Dead. Yeah, we did it. We did it. They all hug and Father Lamont says, Look, the cops are on the way.

Give it a go.

So what we got here then, we got a load of dead locusts. We got a woman who's burned to death, a taxi smashed into the front of the house. The house has been ripped apart. Yeah. OK, great. Then there's a dead, a heart been ripped out of a demonic girl. Got that as well. All right. OK. So what the fuck happened? How are you going to explain that?

Yeah, you can't. How do you explain it to the insurance company?

Act of God, or not. Act of Pazuzu.

Act of Devil.

But that's the end, although we do end with our favourite sound effect from this film, the hypno strobe. The warm, warm, warm. Yeah, that was quite good. And I put here the end in brackets. Ah, the 70s.

Yeah, it's one of those things. I've never seen this movie. That's the first time I watched it, and I'm never going to watch it again.

But, you've got to admit, there's some good things in there.

I appreciate little parts here and there. At times, there's good stuff, because you've got to remember, though, the people making it are people that know how to make films.

So, this is the third time I've seen it, and I didn't really remember the first time I watched it. The second time I watched it, I think I was just in a grumpy mood. But I'm actually going to give this, I think I'll give this a five out of ten. Let me check.

I'll probably give it a four.

Yeah, five. It's right bang in the middle. I would never rush back to it, but if it was on the horror channel and I was sitting around, I'd put it on because I definitely like 60% of this film. In fact, no, I definitely like about 80% of this film, but it's so muddled up and there's plot points in there that are like from other films almost, it feels like.

Squirrel, pigger.

I'll fly you. They just don't do anything to me when we're in the woods.

He's one of the crew members. He's the one that came up with that, because he didn't know what to say.

I'm actually, because I'm on the fence of this, I'm actually going to give this a slight thumbs up. In that, if you haven't ever seen it, possibly check it out, because it is a wonderful ride, but you won't really think about it after you've seen it. You'll just be confused.

I don't know. Maybe if you're a complete horror fan, and you have to do these things, and it is in the canon of the franchise, which is, it starts with the Exorcist. But I'm not a big fan of the first Exorcist, just because movies of exorcisms don't really, it's not my bag, really. That's all. I can still watch it and understand it as a very well-crafted film.

But I do think what helps-

I'm gonna say no to this. My thumbs down.

I think what might help people to appreciate this, who've already seen it or never seen it, is there's some crazy backstory to it, to the making of it as well. And that shouldn't be, you know, it shouldn't be about that. It shouldn't be like, what paints did he use to make the painting there?

I don't think that that's enough to deliver enough if you're gonna watch this movie, you have to watch it, see how that turned out of all that backstory. I don't think that's enough to make more on it, if that's your only reason.

But I thought of you twice watching this. One, because I do now remember that you said you'd never seen it, and I was wondering what you think. And secondly, I was thinking he is gonna be fucking confused because I don't know what's going on after this one.

This might have been the movie that, like I said, Sarah's been, I don't know, I was like, no! What do you mean? I felt like I was in space, floating away from the spaceship, my line had been cut. Don't say that. I don't know what's going on. If you don't, I definitely don't. And I was supposed to be reviewing the bloody movie.

The first director that was sought after to direct this, do you know who it was?

Oh yeah, John Gupta. Yeah, I said that earlier.

No, that was the third one.

William Friedkin, presumably.

No, Stanley Kubrick. They really wanted Stanley Kubrick to do this, and he considered it and turned it down.

Imagine. Just imagine. So John Borman said, imagine if there's only one franchise, so is Exorcist franchise, and each one is directed by a powerhouse. Imagine that.

But the second they gave John Borman the script, they said, you've got to make this more graphic, more horrific than the first one. And he didn't want to.

But then that's their choice of getting him to direct it. Why didn't you go for someone else?

It's just interesting to. Stanley Kubrick could have, you know.

Yeah, but I don't. Stanley Kubrick is not going to do this. He would do no way in hell. He would have said yes. And why did they want Stanley Kubrick? The man that gets people to do 130 takes when as.

Because The Shining hadn't even come out yet.

Who was it? I think it's Richard, alien director.

Oh, Ridley Scott.

I think it's Ridley Scott. It was like, if you need to do more than four or five, it was, if you need to do more than four or five takes, you don't know what you're doing. And I kind of believe it in a way. If you're totally set up and you've rehearsed, you know. So someone like Stanley Kubrick, because he was, I hated this, when I looked into it more recently, he would actually tell the actors what he wanted. He felt like eventually it will become clear and they will get there.

Also, John Borman had to take a month off while they were making it. So there's a month where he wasn't directing, because he had a serious lung infection.

Yeah, they got someone else coming in, didn't they?

But the funny thing was the lung infection, they thought he had some kind of malaria from the mosquitoes in Africa. Turns out he had an STD. Yeah, so he had to tell his wife that he'd been being a naughty boy.

Been shagging our locals, Mrs. So yeah, you wouldn't want Stanley Kubrick to do it, because it costs too much money because he takes it on.

One director, I think, that could have done something with this.

He wouldn't have said yes anyway.

There's a director, I think, that could have done something with this, which might sound weird, but hear me out, because of all the African scenery and all that kind of stuff. Someone like Oliver Stone might have been, might have done something interesting.

No, Oliver Stone would have fucking put his little spin on it and it could have either been good, but it could have also been fucking not good.

Let's be honest, the demon would have been played by Marlon Brando.

Yeah, I hate his doors movie. It's such a horrible portrayal of Jim Morrison.

Yeah, but that's the Exorcist II The Heretic from 1977. It is universally hated. I don't think it deserves all of that hate. I do think it's worth the shot.

I don't think it deserves hate at all. It's not, you know, it's still got some stuff going for it, but I'm not recommending it unless you're a real completist, like Daniel here.

Well, I'm not even a completist. I just love to see, you know, I just really like to experience things, even if they're awful sometimes.

You are a completist. Anyway, OCD. I can see a little fella over there.

Oh, here he is. Billy Murray. What are you up to today?

Silly Billy.

My mother does not do that in hell.

How dare you?

Do you know what he just said to me?

Yeah, he's been drinking again.

That is from the first Exorcist film. We're covering two and three today.

I like the fact that he's got his own drinking brand now and he tries to come on trying to promote it, cleaning glasses and getting all drunk. And we're not going to start saying, why, what have you been drinking? It's just like a little show. I'm not going to feed your ducks. Do you know what I'm saying, Bill?

He said to me that his biggest regret was not taking the bartender's role in The Shining. I don't think you were off with that, Bill.

You weren't off with it, Bill.

Although I can see you doing it, Bill. I can see you doing it.

Yeah. I think around that time, you were probably on a plane Caddyshack, actually. So, you know.

Stripes. All right. Well, Bill, do you want to do what you've come all the way to the UK to do, like you do for every episode and lead us into World Of The Strange?

I still can't believe that Patreon money can still pay for his air flight every time.

That's great.

Anyway, here we go.

Yes, it is Word of the Exorcism. I've got a list of some of the more famous exorcisms that have been reported and actually noted down historically. Just a little spiel on a bit of a few of them here and there, some of them a bit more interesting than others. Thought you might appreciate that, because it's something the church doesn't like to talk about, but it definitely doesn't really happen as much now.

No.

But I think linked similarly to the witch trials, I think if somebody has a mental health condition, they were just a priest was brought in to torture them to death. Yeah. But hey, that's the church. So I'll start with the very first ever recorded exorcism on paper.

Okay.

1778 in Bristol.

Oh, local.

England. That's my town, my city.

First one.

First recorded one. It says one of the first recorded. So the church didn't have a record of this shit. But yeah, it was 1778, an English tailor called George Lucans, not George Lucas, was behaving oddly and started speaking in strange voices and making inhuman noises and started singing hymns backwards.

He wasn't pissed, was he?

No. They held a ceremony in Bristol's Temple Church, which I know, where seven priests held him down and commanded the demons who had taken over his soul to leave once and for all. And that's all that's really recorded, really. It wasn't very much, but like I said, it was one of the very first recorded exisms and it had a happy ending because he lived and was fine. And like some of the people I'm going to talk about in a minute, spoiler alert, but I just thought it was interesting.

You find it strange that they did record it because you'd think maybe they just wouldn't bother recording it if they want to keep it out of the church. But at the same time, saying that this stuff happens is saying that there is a devil and that's good, that justifies us having a god.

Very true. Very true. I think that quite often, I think if the church admitted there was evil out there, I mean, because it talks about the evils all the time, but if it actually evidenced it, people would believe more in God because they'd want the good.

Yeah.

But hey, well, the next one I've got on my list is from 1842, so we're going up in the years now, in Germany, the person, a woman was called Gottlieb in Dittus, her name was. Okay. They noticed some strange goings on in her home. She was 28. She said, I think my house is haunted, but when they went to visit her, she was slipping in and out of a trance where she would talk in strange voices, the local pastor came over to do an exorcism on her and she became violent.

Back in L.

During which time she vomited glass, she vomited nails, she spat blood at people.

Okay.

And after two years, she woke up one day and said, The demon's gone. Jesus is the victor.

Yeah, I wish there had been video cameras at this point.

I want to see them spitting up nails.

I want to see this glass and nails. I don't believe that in the slightest, but okay.

Again, it's 1842. We didn't really have any way of recording it back then.

Hey, Bob, what happened? I've got to tell Frank, who's got to tell Sid, and then Eric's going to write down what happened. What happened? Nothing really. She spat up a bit of blood. All right. Spat up a bit of blood. Nails. Spat nails up and glass. Glass and nails. Glass and nails. Eric's written it. It's done.

I've written it down with my quill.

I can't change it. I've just carved it into stone. I can't just go and do a change. It's not like Tipex for stone, is it?

Yeah. Okay. So onto the next one then. One of the, another sort of big ones was in 1906 in South Africa, a lady called Clara Germana Sealy, 16 year old girl. And somebody overheard her making a pact with the devil one night and they were concerned that she'd become a demon worshipper. So they started checking up on her and she started acting erratically. She started ripping off her clothes whenever anyone would come in to see her. I know some women like that.

I reckon she was probably just doing her own thing and they just started having a look at her. And she's like, hey, look at her now, mate. Right then.

Take your clothes off, have a little look. She started growling and speaking in different tongues.

She was just getting horny.

Apparently she had superhuman strength as well. Horny. They performed multiple exorcisms on her over the course of a year from 1906 to 1907. Apparently Holy Water actually made her skin blister. And apparently 170 people witnessed her levitate off the floor.

How many?

170.

How many is there? I saw this. 170 of us. Right. I've counted. That's correct. We all saw it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Write that down, Eric, in stone.

And apparently the day where the demon left her body and she was cured, the village was hit with a disgusting, noxious smell of me thing.

I was going to say, is this a disgusting smell? What? Like farts, basically.

So I think she had trapped wind for a year.

I reckon it was fine. She was angry.

Really bad trapped wind.

It took a year and then that was the demon was the wind.

Yeah. And everyone was like, oh, bloody hell, that stank.

But I think I feel better. You know, I don't know what the stink is. You've had trapped wind. I remember when I thought I had a heart attack, thought I was having a heart attack and found out it was all the food I and the bottle of wine I drank. When Eve went to the doctor's, they wired me up everything. I swear I was having a heart attack. They explained everything. I consumed it the night before. It went right. It's wind.

I've had trapped wind before.

But so bad, though, that it's so bad that it makes you feel like you've got a heart attack.

I couldn't move for about 10 minutes.

Something's wrong. Something's wrong.

And then I just sort of moved in a particular way and let out like a lion's roar or a fart. And just instantly was like, oh my God.

It's weird, isn't it? How painful it can be. So we're saying then that's debunked trapped wind.

That's debunked trapped wind, guys. You heard it here first. Bill Murray's nodding. He agrees.

He agrees. No, we don't want to see or hear or smell your trapped wind. Thank you, Bill.

Thank you. 1949 now, let's move up. This is the story that inspired the actual Exorcist novel. It was a boy, though, as we know, in the actual real event. The boy was called Roland Doe, a 13-year-old boy. And this is all recorded, obviously. You know, it's been noted down and reported on. Apparently, it all started with him mourning the loss of one of his aunties. And then he began seeing and hearing strange things.

It's bed time!

When they left, he brutally murdered his wife.

Yeah, it's all right. He's all right.

Are you sure?

Yeah, we've got two thirds of the exorcism done, love. We'll be back in the morning, finish up, then we'll tidy up and be on our way.

Just like when they're building a new wall in your garden. Yeah, but there's a great big hole and my dog's going to go.

Yeah, you're right. We've put some cardboard there. It'll be fine. Be back in the morning, finish it, love.

And you're sure my husband won't kill me overnight?

No, no. He's all right, love. Don't worry about it. See you in the morning.

Well, he killed her and he got off of it, girl. He didn't have to go to prison or anything because Madness. The defense's argument was the exorcism had driven him insane.

Insanity, please. Okay.

Funny enough, a year after the movie, The Exorcist came out.

Oh, wow.

Interesting. 1976. Annalise Michel.

What did she have to?

She was in Germany. This is the film, The Exorcism Of Emily Rose. Now that is based on this. So her story ended in a murder as well, but this time it was the girl that did the murdering, the possessed girl. The German woman's demonic possession was actually an undiagnosed brain disorder, possibly epilepsy, schizophrenia, or both. And this is what I said to you back then, you know, it was, oh, they've got something wrong with them. Must be demons. Kill them. Yeah. Just like the witches.

Wow.

And they ended up going to prison for murder.

Yeah.

But that is, if there are anyone seeing The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, which I remember being not a bad film.

It's a long time ago now.

Well, we're getting up to almost up to date now. 1990, same year as The Exorcist III came out. Reverend James LaBarre had three exorcisms to deal with that year. Busy boy that year.

Yeah, right.

They come around once every 50 years normally. He's like, oh, you got three coming up this year. Three? Yeah.

Fucking hell.

All right. So they're all sanctioned by the Archbishop of New York, the Cardinal John O'Connor and the Vatican. So basically, you've got to do them. You haven't got a choice. One of them was the exorcism of a Florida teenager, only known as Gina, which was televised on the ABC network in 1991. So you might be able to find this out, though I haven't tried yet.

It's almost a bit like a film that came out recently.

Yeah, an interview with the Late Night With The Devil. Apparently, she was strapped to the chair, she screamed in people's faces, she barked, she spoke in languages she shouldn't know. And when the reverend pressed across into her face and told her the demons to leave, she passed out. And in the end, they gave her antipsychotic drugs and realized she had a very, very bad mental health disease.

I don't mean to laugh.

And they televised that.

Yeah.

And only televised it in 91. It's not like this was in the 60s.

Yeah. Yeah. We're still kind of wild west with television and stuff then, aren't we?

2003.

Okay.

Autistic boy. Here we go. Oh, this isn't going to be a good one. An eight-year-old autistic boy called Terrence was killed during an exorcism.

Shit.

That was intended to drive out the evil spirits causing his condition. His condition was, sadly, it was autism. The official cause of death is...

Who did this then? Some fucking backward fucking place which has no brain capacity at all. Because why on earth did they not realize it's mental health?

Yeah, this is only 21 years ago. CNN reported the official cause of death was mechanical asphyxia due to external chest compression, which basically means he was suffocated. So they were kind of sitting on his chest.

Oh my god.

Well, they did the exorcism, an eight-year-old boy. And again, the reverend went to prison for homicide. Good. So we're seeing a bit of a pattern here. There was another one in 2005, another one in 2010. And the most recent one was 2015 reported on. So I'll jump to that one. That's the last one now. The exorcism of Laura. Again, they don't often like to mention names. This was in Argentina. Twenty-two-year-old woman named Laura was exorcised by Bishop Manuel Acuna.

It doesn't mean she's possessed by the devil though.

She screamed profanities. After many, many, many days, the exorcism ended as the evil spirits left her. And she was then catatonic for the rest of her life. So I think she may have just given us a brain damage while a priest was screaming at her from the Bible.

Yeah, quite possibly.

Yeah, Gav, what are your thoughts on? I know we've touched on like the witch trials and stuff like that.

Yeah.

It does seem like a very medieval thing, doesn't it?

Yeah, it's a strange thing. And what we know now with people's mental health and stuff, it's quite hard to go, oh, obviously, it's the devil because we're ready. Do we have proof that the devil exists? But then again, obviously, we do. It's the same with a lot of things. You do all these things. We do have sometimes pretty good evidence sometimes of some stuff. And nowadays you do have a lot more video and audio stuff.

And isn't it funny how since we've got, all got a camera phone in our pocket, these sort of things are not really...

We should be able to see it by now if it's true.

Because, you know, imagine, I'm sure there is a found footage exorcism movie out there, you know, a bit like Wreck, where a crew are like, oh great, we're going to go and follow this exorcism now, you know, and, you know, imagine that. That would, that should have happened by now. But it hasn't, because I don't think they're real. I think they're just like the witch trials, where unfortunately, a group of people are singled out because they're different, and that's it.

Yeah, totally.

So Bill, if you've got anything to say, Bill, on this before we stop talking about sucking cocks.

You are not, I don't know about that. You are not Exorcist, Bill. That wasn't an Exorcist. That was Ghostbusters. That wasn't an Exorcist. He's got a wet brain himself. Right, speaking of wet brain, let's get on to Exorcist part three.

Bill, show us the exit.

That's all the time we've got for this week on World Of The Strange.

Next week, though, give me iron. Hairless Pets.

Seventeen years ago, an extraordinary motion picture touched our most profound, nameless fears.

Do you dare walk these steps again?

Satan grows stronger. You believe in possession, Father? He has found a haven. Come to take a little blood from your father. He has taken possession. A boy had been crucified. His web widens. I've just never seen anything like this in 20 years. Inside this cell, The killer drove an ingot into each of his eyes and cut off his head. Inside, a man. Who are you? I am no one. A man we thought had died 17 years ago. He is inside with us.

He will never get away!

This time, you're going to lose. The real terror is back. George C. Scott in William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III.

Exorcist III, from 1990. A police lieutenant uncovers more than he bargained for. Scott. As his investigation of a series of murders which have all the hallmarks of the deceased Gemini serial killer, lead him to question the patients of a psychiatric ward. Directed by William Peter Blatty.

Who, if you don't know, was the writer of the books of the films.

The very first Exorcist movie. And he had a bit of a hand in the second one, but not very much. And then he wrote a book called Legion, which was a direct sequel to the Exorcist, kind of ignored the Exorcist II film. And wanted this to be called just Legion, but the studio exec said, hell no.

And you're going to put in an exorcism. It's not like Michael Caine or something, because he's an executive producer.

Yeah. So again, bit of a backstory with this one before we get into it. If you don't mind, bit of trivia thrown at us here and there as well. Firstly, this is quite a loved film in the horror community.

Yeah. I'm a, I'm a, I've seen all the films. This is the one I would go to.

And that description, that synopsis I just read, could be almost Seven Sonnets Of The Lambs.

It's because it's not really an exorcist movie. That's why it's called Legion is what the book was. And it's kind of, yeah, there is linkage, obviously, but, you know, it wasn't supposed to have an exorcism in it, and they wanted that in it, and tied the name on it as well. Otherwise, it would have just been called Legion. And I think that's probably why I kind of like it. It's not really, the focus isn't on that. Where the first movie is a great, I think it's a brilliant movie, the first one.

And he replaced the character from the first Exorcist movie who'd unfortunately passed away.

I've never seen Patton. He was Patton.

Yeah, I've never seen that either. But yeah, so he replaced that character from the first Exorcist movie and did a bloody good job. And this film again had a lot of tampering behind the scenes. Like Gav's just said, there was no exorcism in the book. And so the studio made them add this scene, this whole ending in really, with an exorcism. And you can feel that the plot threads that lead up to that are kind of just inserted to get to that end scene. There was no point of it.

But are these available in HD or is it some fucking tap together from, you know?

I think it was released in theaters for like some event. So it's probably out there.

It's probably all a bit of a process. Do you know what I mean? Like the cable cut of Nightbreed came out and it's just like it's fucking flips into more VHS territory shots. Do you know what I mean? One of the Wicker Man versions was where they had found footage and as soon as it comes on, you're like, oh, God.

I totally. And the explanation for the criticism here is, sorry, the explanation and the criticism here of why this movie feels a bit strained and muddled again is because he put pressure on him to not only be the writer and the screenwriter, but also the director. So he was putting a lot of pressure on himself to try and turn his book from page to screen exactly, word for word. And as we know, it's very hard to do that. A book is a book and a film is a film.

Yeah, and his voice was dubbed.

Yeah, weird.

I was like, no, fuck this guy. He's not going anywhere.

Oh, yeah. What happened next? So, yeah, and also Fabio, the Italian model, is in this as an angel.

I don't know who the fuck this Fabio person was. It comes on. Sarah goes, Fabio. I thought she was saying, oh, it looks like a pop group from the 80s called Fabio. I had no idea what Fabio, what's a Fabio?

He was a very big 90s model.

See, I didn't know any of this. And she said, I was a model. Really? How do I not know a Fabio? Who is this? Anyway, I feel like I'm in some Mandela effect thing going on here. Everyone knows I don't or something. We also have got Grand L. Bush, which sounds like an old woman who's a porn star. I got a Grand Old Bush, but Grand L. Bush, and he was, who I even said was in fucking, as an agent in Turbulence last night when I was watching it. He is in fact an agent in Die Hard.

He loves playing an agent.

Talk about typecast.

He's great, though.

Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, it's perfect. As soon as he comes on, I was like, nice, it's Agent Johnson. Arse in school still, dickhead.

So the director's cut of this does exist. And just find it here.

Ed Flanders, not Ned Flanders, but Ed Flanders is just so good. He's called Ed Flanders.

So that's true. So the rough, there was a very, very rough cut of the director's vision where he inserted, but obviously it wasn't very good quality, inserted some scenes back again and removed a lot of the stuff he didn't like. Scream Factory released it. So it is out there.

Oh, so it's a legit copy.

But it was only done, only done about 10 years ago. And I believe William Peter Blatty died about two years after it completed. So he managed to see his true vision.

That's good. And as I remember now, ours in junior high, Dighead, it wasn't high school, junior high, he says. I'll be watching that this year. Don't I hear?

Coming up for that time of year.

Can he wait? This is a fantastic movie. It's it's John Carpenter met for a week with William to discuss it, and he could see how William was excited for it. And he just basically probably had the whole film tapped out how he wanted it. So it's easier just to be like, why don't you direct it? Or he felt like he wanted to already direct it. And he did, and it's directed, considering he's not really a director and directed much. I don't know.

It's so long. It's ahead of its time gap. It really is.

It's really well crafted. It's like it's taking its time. And it's funny because George E. Scott does that really well in the the changeling where it takes its time. It just the camera sits, it doesn't need to move around much. Let's just look and watch it like we're sitting in a play. And we're just sitting back and just looking at the stage, you know.

And funnily enough, in my opinion, this is now George John Carpenter would have been a good choice because this film does leave a similar taste in my mouth to Prince of Darkness. I was going to say in the mouth of madness.

I was going to say Prince of Darkness.

But yes, Prince of Darkness as well. It's like those two...

It's way Prince of Darkness. You can imagine the building being the same like, because it's mainly, Prince of Darkness is mainly inside the building.

Yeah. And obviously we've got the Gemini killer in the rest, who's based on the Zodiac killer. And as we all know, there's a weird link there because the Zodiac killer's favorite films were The Exorcist I and II.

Weird.

And he would watch them on repeat for days on end and thought they were the funniest films I've ever seen, he said.

But this film has just got a real class to it. And I think John Carpenter could have done well. It would be different if he had had John Carpenter's touch on it and given it a bit more of a maybe 80s vibe to it or something. But George E. Scott just is taking this very seriously. And you've got to remember, when this script's given to the agents, to the people like George E. Scott or whoever else, they're like, oh, Exorcist III.

Yeah. I mean, there is one final bit of trivia before we get into it, which is that it was rushed a little bit because the studio doesn't feel like a rushed film to me. The studio found out that another film was coming out the same week called Repossessed starring Linda Blair and Leslie Nielsen.

And luckily, they got this out.

They got this out just before because they didn't want that to hinder.

I think it did hinder Repossessed, didn't it, coming out after this?

It did. It did. Which I saw Repossessed as a kid. We rented it out because it was like, oh, it's that naked gun guy. Let's watch this.

And what was this? What year was this?

1990.

See, also 1990. OK, we've had this gluttony of slasher films through the 80s. 1990 is a strange time still. So, for coming up for doing this is a strange one.

Yeah, especially getting George C. Scott in there, like you said.

But I'm so happy because I don't actually own a copy. Well, I've got the whole anthology box set, The Exorcist, but I don't really want it. I'll probably get rid of it. I've had it once before. It seems to keep picking them up. And yeah, I need to get a blu-ray though of this part three because it's just, there's some beautiful shots. It's even the first shots, we might as well get into it. The first shots with the music and the fog on the steps from the original film.

Yeah. And what I was going to say about it as well is, I forgot what I was going to say about it. I was just thinking, I was picturing the opening scene then, as you were seeing that, and my mind was going there. But no, you're right. Like, where was this film? Where was horror right now? It was in no man's land, you're right. We hadn't got to Scream, and that sort of reboot of Slashers that happened at the end of the 90s. Yeah. We hadn't got to find footage movies at the end of the 90s.

Come 92, 93, no one's really caring about Slasher movies. So horror was a really weird place.

We hadn't really got to Silence Of The Lambs or Seven Yet or those kind of movies.

I think it's the only time, if you go through the history of cinema, not the only time, but it is a significant time from 1990 to 96 before Scream. It was a weird place for horror. It wasn't making the money like it was. It has died down a little bit. I think action was starting to come out in a big way. But then again, action was already there in the 80s. But that was actually, no, that's a lie.

People in 1990 were renting out Van Damme, Schwarzenegger movies. That's what they were watching, really.

And those films were doing gore and blood and all the death and killing. And it was taking out on a certain thing, like Rambo was going after a certain country who had been bad. And so you could get behind it. And horror probably wasn't doing what it needed to do. And that's why Scream had to be meta. It had to really do something different for people to take notice.

I remembered what I was going to say now as well. We do get the Tubular Bells back a little bit in this one.

Yeah, I mistakenly said in the last one, no, it does play in this one. I meant this film, yeah. And they do it really sussily in this. I gave props to a site in that film it didn't have. So take the props from that and add it to this.

And it's crazy that that's such a great song, but it's tied in so heavily to The Exorcist that now it's a creepy song. But it's not a creepy song, really.

And having this bit and that music and the steps of the fog straight away, it makes you go, okay, this has to be a link to the first one. Is this now going to be a sequel? Or are we going into Halloween territory where we could just see all different branches of the tree, the story can go. But that does say to us, it's saying to us that this is a sequel. And then it says the name Ed Flanders, and that's amazing.

Ed Flanders, isn't it?

Yeah.

It'd be amazing if Ned Flanders was the father dire in this, though, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

Apparently, hello, neighbors. You got an exorcism.

Now, after the other film, after The Other Secrets, just a moment ago, just that short of the fog and the steps, we have the camera floating along on a steady cam along with narration. And as I have dreams of flights of steps and just this camera just floating along and it's giving it a state away, it's establishing we are definitely now going, oh, you're definitely safe. Don't worry, you can loosen your belt. You are fine. Like some, whatever is you're about to watch this film is not part two.

We're taking you on a bit of a journey.

It really is showing you this is a more decent film.

And I'll tell you what this film does that the second one didn't do. This film, and I wasn't that scared, but this film is quite scary. It's got some terror in it. You know, some of the deaths, there's a suicide, and there's a few other bits here and there. And even just the description of some of the deaths, you know, you're like, fucking hell. There's one death, particularly with 25 jars next to it, which we'll get to, which is like...

That is so good. We'll get to that. It's so good.

That is seven or eight territory, isn't it?

Really, really good, yeah. But you've got to remember of this. Like, this is when people were coming back to the cinema for Halloween IV after being almost duped by Halloween III and trying to get the trust in the audience back into the cinema. And this is the same gonna be of this. Like, why are people gonna go watch Exorcist III? You know, why are they gonna do that?

So... Halloween V would come out the year before this, and we covered that in our last episode.

Right.

So that was where horror was at, really. Halloween V, Freddy V.

Yeah, nothing great then.

People were getting bored of it.

Yeah, absolutely. So like, and I think showing, like, what I was just saying, establishing the style of this film from the get-go, like really assured directing, handling of the camera and stuff like that, I think made people probably already go, oh, cool, let's not chase after the producers.

So we see, we see a rowing team, which will come back in a moment with one of the deaths walk past us. And there's a priest there who we'll learn more about in a minute. And he's looking at the steps of the house, so the famous steps again. And like you said, Gab, there's narration of somebody who says, I have dreams about falling and flying, floating down these steps. And then we see George C. Scott, who's now playing Kinderman from the very first film.

He has a fish in his bath.

Yes. I think he ad-libbed that. But it's fantastic.

This is why I kind of like this film. It kind of like, that's why quite a lot of the hospitals, a lot of detective things, and it's a lot of just light-heartedness as well.

Like, it's like, what's his name saying? It's Kish, isn't it? Oh, bloody hell, why can't I remember his name?

I don't know.

You know, the Kish guy in the film we did for your birthday. Not Death Wish, but the other one, where he says, where he thinks he's ordering pie, and it's Kish.

Oh, Tenth of Midnight, Charles Bronson. Charles Bronson, it's like, Kish, I hate Kish.

It's random. Yeah, but it's like, and it's very, get to the fish bit in a minute.

Yeah, that's very good. He just says, I'll say it now very quickly, he just starts complaining that his wife wants to have to eat fresh fish. It's his mother-in-law, he says, my mother-in-law likes to have fresh fish, so we have to keep the fish fresh before we kill it. So I was fishing my bathtub, and it's been there a week, because every night I come home, I just want to kill the fish. It's so not okay.

He's like, I can't even have a bath, because this fish is in there.

I would have kept my face serious if he were telling me that.

And we see a picture of him, when he's at his desk, a picture of him and Damien, the priest from the first movie. So we remember that they were friends. The school comes in, the steps, eerie, it's nighttime, we go inside a church, we're in a church, it's an exorcist film, an eerie wind blows the doors open. We get that title card come up with that font that we know from the Exorcist I, you know, Exorcist III. It's great, it doesn't need a second title.

Yeah.

And it turns out a boy's been killed. Yeah. A young black boy is being killed by the harbour. And that's who's under the sheet.

And the boy was crucified.

He was crucified. Now, the priest that we see, he briefly mentions Damian in his sermon, or Dimi, as Damian's mother used to call him. Dimi, Dimi, Dimi. And it's Father Dyer, and he's talking to, he's taking George to the cinema, because they're still buddies. And I love the bromance between these two. Absolutely love it. They're like an old married couple. You're running late. Oh, it's fine. Don't worry about it. The movie's going to start in a minute. I'm going to get some lemon drops.

Oh, good movie.

Which is a good movie. And I'll be watching that over the next few weeks.

I'll be watching that as well.

And then George sort of discusses the murder. And he says he mentions garden shares. Someone says it could have been garden shares that did this. So George is sort of looking in the investigation. And somebody says, the Gemini Killer, could it be? And he's like, no, he's been dead 15 years. So we're getting all these little hints. And what this film does here is rather than throw lots of little hints at us, and it doesn't really go anywhere, they do actually all tie in nicely.

Yeah, totally.

And then they discuss, he said, what is it the murder, Kinderman, is that what's on your mind? Do you want to talk to me about it? He's like, if your best friend's a priest, he's kind of like a psychiatrist as well. So they talk, he says, yeah, basically it was a 12 year old boy that was murdered. He had an ingot stabbed into each eye. Then he was decapitated. And instead of his head, there was a statue, the head of a statue of Christ to put on his in the stump.

So like the first Exorcist movie is quite like, oh my god moments. This just telling you this stuff is like, okay, well, if you start working and dealing with child death and you start, but describing like head chopped, children's head chopped off and shit, this is like, oh my god, we're going into like, this is full on more full on territory from part two with flashy lights and womp womp womp for sure.

And it doesn't need to show you it. He just tells.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just disgusting. So you know, you're in, you know, you're in a different film and it's just like, that's just the opening so far.

Yeah. And then we get a priest in the confession booth. And there's a creepy old lady in the shadow and the voice changes. And we realized that it's not probably the creepy old lady. Spoiler alert, it's the Zodiac killer. Well, the Gemini killer, sorry, in this film banks in between bodies or whatever he's doing, possessing people. We find out how he does it later. And suddenly blood starts pouring out from underneath the confession booth.

George? George's?

Yeah. And it's because he's checking to see if it's the MO of this Gemini killer. Because he thinks even though he's been dead 15 years in the electric chair, now, it's been mentioned and he's wondering if it could be true. Could he be doing this somehow? He basically feels some weird supernatural...

Well, I do like the slowness of this film. It's kind of like he's just, I love detective movies. I love detective thrillers. I love dark detective thrillers, Seven, that sort of stuff, things like this. And this is a real nice one. George Scott has played it so well. I love the fact he just gets in the confession box and sits in there and just shuts the hatch and just looks around.

And it's a really cool way for Grandel Bush to deliver some news to him, because he just sort of says, all right, but he's in the confession booth. It's so funny and original. You know what I mean?

It tells us how the kid died.

Yeah, he basically gets worse. So we've already heard how the kid died, but it gets worse because they found out after doing an autopsy that the kid was given an injection of something to paralyze him. So he was awake while all this stuff happened to him.

And it's very seven, like, it's very graphic, killing, like, seven, like, isn't it? It's like real, that sort of territory of killer, murderer.

And all the way through this film, especially when they described the murders and stuff, and with George Scott doing the investigation, as I often do with certain films that I know you'll love, but I thought of you, I thought, this is Scott gathering all over it, you know, it's such a slow burn detective, almost a Colombian.

It's an investigation. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and I absolutely love this too, you know.

And the horror's done really well as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there's no real killing, there's no like a serial killer movie, or, you know, a Jason or something like that. It's not like kill, kill, kill, kill. It's hardly much killing at all, we don't need to, but we've got dread and death surrounding us all the time.

And we get another scene now, which is how I described Kinderman and Father Dyer as an old married couple, because Father Dyer gets put in hospital. He's got, he's collapsed and he's got a problem with his heart. And so Kinderman goes in there like an angry wife or an angry husband, like, oh, for God's sake, you know, bad heart's running your family and you're still smoking. Because he's smoking in the hospital, you're still smoking.

It was back in the day when he could smoke in the hospital.

And they argue a bit about his health and his heart and his smoking.

Isn't it incredible how, it would have been money, obviously the tobacco companies, once they started making money, but isn't it incredible how people thought it was fine to smoke, like even hospitals and stuff, that it's very good for you. Why would you think breathing that in is good for you?

It was promoted.

It was promoted as good health. And then it started making money, the tobacco companies would have been bribing everyone, so that's why.

I mean, if you Google it, you'll find images of children smoking from a long time ago, because it was, if your child's got a cough, chesty cough, give them one of your Marlboros.

Insane, isn't it? What? Insane. Why would they think it was good? It's such stupidity in the medicals of food.

Some children would be paid in cigarettes, like some of the chimney sweeps back in the day, or kids at work tonight. Oh, thanks, love. You've done a great job today. Here's two potatoes and a cigarette, and a bugger off home. Thanks, mate. It's mental. Times have changed. They're all vaping now. Yeah. George is at the hospital now. Yeah. So, well, we've done that, really. That's kind of the end of that, really. But then George...

Oh, yeah, of course, because Father Joe is sick, isn't he?

He finds out that the priest that died in the confessional booth was also injected. So he was paralysed and he fell as he got killed as well.

Very quickly, I do like, quite often through this, George sees Scott, finds moments where he can shout at people. It'd just be essaying a line, and it's like, We're fine! And a really grisly voice, then just carry on talking. It's a shout at someone because they've interrupted him. It's brilliant.

There's one bit he screams, I can't remember what he says.

And that's where I get my George sees Scott voice.

There's one bit where he shouts later on, something like, Check the files or something like that. Really loud. I wouldn't want to ever be shouted at by him.

No.

Those two would really scare me. Um, talking of which, I think it was this film, Christopher Walken was one, was it this film or the one before?

It's gonna break.

Yeah, I'm sure Christopher Walken was gonna be involved in one, either this or the previous Exorcist film.

I can imagine Christopher Walken in this. Absolutely.

Yeah, he'd be good. Um, so after they find out that the priest was killed, they start examining the confession booth, and they take it apart and they figure out how he could have opened and closed it from the outside. And then they realized that the fingerprints from the confession booth do not match the fingerprints from the boy.

On the hatch, there's two separate fingerprints.

So we've either got two killers or two copycat killers, or we don't know what, or even worse, we've just got two absolute psychos who just happen to have turned up in this city at the same time and done a similar murder. So George is obviously stressed now. He goes to bed and he has some weird dreams about a church and a train station. And this is like my dream I told you about on the last episode.

I bloody, there's a bit in this later on also. I said to Sarah, it looks like a fucking one of Dan's dreams.

He has a dream that he's in heaven and-

This is, it says dreams of angels, the big one that says, is this one of your dreams? Question mark Dan.

So he has a dream that he's in heaven and he meets Samuel L. Jackson, Fabio and a bunch of other angels. And they're all kind of like walking around and he's like, am I dead? What's going on? And they're like, no, no, you're not dead. You're just here to visit someone. And they're like, okay. And then he sees the little boy and he goes, I'm so sorry you were murdered and beheaded little boy. And he's like, that's okay. I'm happy now. There's no pain here.

Yeah.

And then he wakes up to find out.

He says, I'm not dreaming. Makes you go, oh no, he's died and he's like having some sort of fucking thing.

Well, basically, he's had a weird premonition because he wakes up and father Dyer is dead. So he was almost like he had a visitation. Like, oh, I'm off now. See you later, mate. And when he wakes up in the morning, he has actually died.

My friend's wife passed away recently. And I was chatting to him because he works volunteers on a Sunday and he just put a new bench in at a pond next to where the kids live now. And anyway, I took a photo because he's put a bench in the fort with a plaque for his wife now, you know. And I took a picture, I said, oh, I got this picture the other day with the moon on, that was the sun shining over a very nice lake. Then he sent me a picture, he's up there at night time by himself.

It's just a moon beam.

It's just like a torch beam, real thin, just coming straight down. That's it, it's dark, just where he is. It's so weird.

Beautiful. That is definitely her.

And he said, I felt like she was with me. And it's like, wow. I can't, I can't.

I've got goosebumps from that story.

I'll send you the picture, because I can't explain what that light would be. It's like a torch. It's not that big, you know? It's probably like a few inches or whatever. It's just a beam coming down. It's so weird.

Well, that's absolutely beautiful.

Straight beam coming down.

Talking of that dream that I had, very quick tangent, our buddy RJ McCready sent me a video which freaked me out of a fireman in America who a few years ago is an interview on YouTube. And a few years ago, he had a terrible accident while saving someone from a burning building and was in a coma for weeks or a few days.

You're sure you're not some hard ass, are you guys?

Well, and RJ said to me that it's not the first sort of story he's heard like that, really.

Is this a DMT drip in this?

I don't know if I'd ever want to do that. Never done a psychedelic.

Yeah, but I think I came very close one time. I had to pick my kids up from school. I thought, I don't know, I don't think I should be doing stuff like that.

Well, it gets worse for Kinderman because he's woken up to a phone call saying, your buddy's dead. And this is a bit like the scene in Signs now, where Mel Gibson turns up at his wife's car crash because everybody knows him. Everybody knows Kinderman. They're all looking really down and sad about it because he's heartbroken. His best friend is dead. But it's about how his friend died because he didn't die from the heart condition, did he, Gav?

No, because and as we go in, the camera acts as George's point of view as he walks along, all the people are looking at him. Obviously, they're all starting to look at him. That means, straight away, we know as the audience, this means it's bad. We don't know what it is, but it's bad because they're going, Oh, you're not going to like this. So we're just staring at you.

You're not going to like this, I'm afraid.

You're really not going to like this.

Imagine that. Who's going to tell him, oh, fuck.

You tell him, no, you. Oh, my God. Oh, he's missed it. Oh, you didn't do it either. Maybe they will.

He walks in the room. He sees his friend.

He winces when he sees his body, his friend's face when he pulls the cloth off.

And he says, there's a great scene later on, actually, where he just cries in the middle of a rant.

Yeah.

Because he still, it's impressive.

We get to, we get to.

It's incredible. They say to him, yes, basically, George, the body was completely drained of blood. He goes, well, what's all that there? He goes, yeah, that's all the blood. And there's like 25 little cups full of blood next to the bed.

Well, as this happens, rain just starts and there's a load of rain in this movie where it's just raining. And I'm like, straight right, I'm like, I'm in, you've got me now. And then, then they're like, what? All these containers in perfect symmetry next to each other, like a perfect order. Oh, they're all full of all the blood drained from your mate there. And not one drop has been spilt. They are perfectly in there at the exact same level. No fingerprints, no nothing.

And then the only bit of blood that isn't in there...

You've got me as a little audience member, by the way, in this movie now. I'm hooked.

But this is the chilling bit. He says, there's only one bit of blood that isn't in there. And that was used to write on the wall. And he says, what do you mean?

It's the movie we're going to watch this month, Dan.

And somebody's written in blood, It's A Wonderful Life, which is the movie that they both went to see the day before. Wow. I was chilled to the bone. The first time I saw this, obviously, I've seen this several times now, but that was like, wow. Someone sent me a message to him.

I saw this as a teenager and didn't appreciate this film at all, which was a shame. I'd like to have seen it. I'd say now would be the first time. It'd been amazing. So basically, it's like, all right, sweep the hospital, lockdown, no one in, no one out, sweep this motherfucker. So we turn it into, I was like, nice. It's turned into like, I'm still like, yeah, this is a gaffe movie.

He says he was the last person to see him alive, but it was a nurse that administers his medicine. So he goes to interview her.

Shout at her.

She doesn't give a shit. She sat there smoking like, yeah, I go in there at 4 a.m. I go in there at 6 a.m. That was the last time I saw him. I don't really know.

He shouts at her a bit.

He screams at her a little bit. And then she says, oh, the reason I was a bit late going in to see him is because I saw one of the old ladies was collapsed on the floor from the mental ward, as they call it. And he's like, well, who? Who was it? And she says, oh, I can't remember her name now, but basically he goes down to see her. So we then cut to the psych ward.

I love the speedy wheelchair flasher.

I've written that down here. Speedy wheelchair flasher, flashes nurse.

I was like, what's this dude doing? He's speeding along really fast, put slams on his brakes, flashes a nurse. Pretty sure Sarah said that would be you in it.

She's seen it before, you can tell, because she just goes, oh, God, not again. Hasn't grown.

That's like me, I'm always flashing Sarah.

Brilliant. Oh, you're allowed to.

I'm allowed to.

But yeah, everybody there is very mentally unwell. So George goes to speak to the old lady who was collapsed on the floor. And she says to him, are you here to repair my radio? And he's like, no, I'm a cop. She goes, don't worry. Then he goes, Oh, no, no, I am here to repair the radio.

Oh, actually, I know how to play this.

He says, yes, I am. She goes, good, because it's broken. It seems to be, dead people seem to be speaking to me.

No, no, can you fix my radio? Yeah, okay. What's wrong with it? He says, dead people are talking on it. So what the fuck? This movie is just getting better and better.

So he pretends he's there to repair.

No, she says, it's this one here. And he says, oh, I know that one. She says, well, you're lying then, because I'm holding the telephone. She's not holding anything, but she dupes him.

So she's like crazy, but also not. He then goes for a little wander and goes a little bit further into the bowels of the mental institute, part of the hospital, and says, what's in here?

Well, he meets up with a very young walking dead actor.

He does, yeah, Dr. Temple, played by Scott Wilson. And he says to Dr. Temple, what's in here?

He was also in the thingy Rise and Fall of Lesley, then.

Oh, yes, he was. He was the dad in that, wasn't he?

Yeah.

He says, oh, you don't want to be in there. You want to go in there. That's the disturbed ward, he calls it, as in that is like crazy shit in there. You don't want to go in there. And he says, well, I need to go in there. So he goes in and he says like, there's only one way in and out, you need a pin code, which changes every day. No one can get in basically listeners, is what this guy is telling Kinderman. And then he sees a patient in the shadows and he sort of looks at him.

Yeah, yeah, no, no. When he says, shut your mouth, he says to him, then just starts crying. You're like, what? And I think they must be like, is he having a breakdown?

It's a really realistic way to show that his friend has been drained of all of his blood.

Yeah, and he's very passionate about what he's going on here and he wants to know what's going on. And yeah.

So he reveals to the head of the department that the Gemini Killer's MO is happening again. He severed a finger. He carved a sign on the hand. But when the Gemini Killer was killing 15 years ago, they released fake MO to the press.

Yeah, just basically false information. So all the crazy people came through, it basically filtered them out.

Yeah, but he said, however, the MO that's happening at the moment is the real one, and only the police department knew about that. The press never knew about the real MO. But the real MO is what we're finding on these bodies. Yeah. He goes down to the autopsy room and there's just a casual conversation, which is again chilling, because we've heard gardeners mentioned earlier, and we know that there's a certain scene coming up. And he's talking to the autopsy guy.

He's talking to us about his bone scissors.

He says, what's this? Picks up a huge pair of shears. He says, what's that? He says, oh, it's a sticker because they're brand new. What happened to the other ones?

We don't find out. It just cuts, actually. But he explains about the scissors. He says, try and do it. And he tries to open it, because it's spring loaded. So actually, you open it up and then it let go of it, slam shut. That's what the spring does. So when you can cut stuff like bone...

Ribs, ribs, okay. And your spinal column as well.

Yes.

Or your neck.

So when you cut that stuff, the spring's obviously going to take the force.

So he's now thinking, well, if a pair... Because they don't say it, but we know, because they don't treat the audience like fools, that we've now assumed as an audience, these beheadings are probably happening because they've just bought a new pair of bone cutters because the other one's gone missing, we're assuming.

Yeah.

Yeah. So George then goes to visit the head of the church.

It's a nice little bit though, just to put in there, straight away, just pick it up and say, oh my God, is this the murder weapon?

It's huge. Jesus. I went to a friend's house on the weekend who works for a funeral directors. She was telling me all sorts of stories.

Spooky stories?

Not really spooky, just more gory graphic about the stuff she has to deal with.

Oh God, Sarah, this is sort of thing. Sarah, what's her job?

Like sometimes people are brought into them in four bags, and their job is to put them back together, so their families can see them on final time.

Oh my God, I could not do this stuff.

She also told me that when they perform autopsies, they take the organs out, put them in bags, then they just shove them back in you and send you to the funeral director. One of their jobs is to take the organs out of these bags and put them back in you in some kind of normal way.

No, of course not. It's part of her job, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah. I couldn't fucking do that.

Really interesting conversation I had with her. Just wanted to mention that. So George goes to the head of the church.

He's talking away and the clock just stops. It just makes him just look. But it's that realness as well. It's not really like, well, that could be anything. And they don't even re-discuss it. But it's just that sort of thing is nice to create tension.

And that happens in The Exorcist I. There's that moment when the clock stops.

Oh, that's where they go from. OK.

And they have a very quick conversation where one of them says, do you think this is related to the Reagan McNeil case?

Yeah.

So she's she's mentioned. And then he hears some whispers.

And spooky doors opening sounds.

So he gets up and the lights start flickering. He's a bit freaked out. And he's thinking that he goes off and has a look around, but there's nothing really there. And then him and the priest start discussing an audio cassette that Damian had of Reagan's voice, where they figured out that she was talking backwards, which we remembered from the very first film. So this is a small but not tenuous, in my opinion, link to the first one, other than obviously, like, Pazuzio and that kind of stuff.

It's a really great shot of a long corridor around here.

Yes, really.

It's just really nice shots, basically.

And this is where we meet Dr. Canavan, is it? Whose name starts with a K.

I'm sure.

Because he starts piecing together later on that all the killer, all the murder victims began with a K. Now, we go back to the hospital and we've realized that that old lady that he interviewed with the invisible radio, her fingerprints matched Father Dyer's murder. They were on the cups.

Right.

So George is now saying, did you ever go in the room? You must have gone in there because your fingerprints were on those cups. What did you touch those cups for? Did you see anybody draining them? Because it took hours to drain the blood from this body. And she's acting all, I don't know what you're talking about. My radio needs repairing, doing her usual thing. And he's getting more and more boiling blood, isn't he? Because he's George C. Scott.

Yeah, he really is.

He's so nervous to tell him, but he tells him basically, 15 years ago, Patient X came in, there's a chance he could be the Gemini Killer. We don't know what's going on with that. He claims to be the Gemini Killer.

And I still love the fact it's still raining outside. You can hear it. I really like that.

Which is why 7 worked so well, because 7 just rained for the entire movie.

Yeah.

You love a good rainy movie. What's the other one you watched recently? Identity. Does it rain all the way through that as well?

Yeah.

Yeah. That's why you love that one as well.

It is. Isolation and rain.

Rain or snow for you? Either way.

I think it's probably what I like. Living in England, I'm used to it as an only child. Just isolation and rain.

It was a happy childhood.

That's fine. Coming up with ideas to make horror movies.

He says to George, the weird thing is Patient X has recently started talking and getting violent, which is why he's now in a straitjacket. And he's been telling everyone he's the Gemini killer. So George goes back to interview the nurse again.

He wants to file. He's going to shower her.

Yeah. He says, it's not in the file. Really loud in her face. It's brilliant. And he maybe suspects that this patient is Damian. Is it possible? But how? Because he died. So he entered his room.

He also tells Agent Johnson to put the place on lockdown again. Then almost passes out in the corridor.

That's right.

It's just like, fucking hell, calm down.

Your mate's just been drained of all his blood. You might want to go and take some time.

But that's the reason he's passed out. It's all just got to him. It's like, what the fuck? How can that person in the cell be my mate who died? What the shit? What? I don't understand. It's weird.

And the first thing he says to him when he goes in the room is, it's a wonderful life. And you're like, so there is definitely a connection here then.

Yeah.

He says to him outright, are you Damian Carras? He does.

But he rolls like a lion at him, which is so weird. And Sarah, would you not be like, what? Why have you just roared like a lion?

Well, when he asks him if he's Damian Carras, he's very vague. And he discusses lots of things like, I've killed many people. I've killed lots of children. I killed the black boy by the harbour. I killed the priest as well. I'm killing for a friend on the other side. And he says, who? And he says, you wouldn't understand. And then he roars like he said, Roar! And then he turns into Brad Durif.

He does, yeah.

And he says, sorry, I do that roar very well, don't I? And you're like, what the fuck is going on? It's like terrifying because it makes no sense. It's great. And he says, I want you to tell the press, I am the Gemini Killer. I killed the boy. And then he sings like a hymn with a little boy's voice as well.

Yeah, it's so weird.

And this is Brad Durif just absolutely going for it.

I got to say, a lot of these scenes with Brad Durif here, it was just lots of talking. I did find a lot of it's talk.

He talks about beheading people and says, did you know that when you behead someone, they're still conscious of what's happening for about 30 seconds? I like to hold the head up and show them their body. It's just a little treat I like to throw in when I do my work. I'm a showman.

Just a little segue, just look at the picture on IMDB. One of the pictures is actually a statement talking about the new version of The Exorcist III, but they do actually say, unfortunately, the footage has been lost to time. To that end, we have turned to VHS tapes to the film's dailies to assemble the director's cut. However, even some of the footage was incomplete. So scenes from the theatrical reshoot were used to fill the gaps. The director's cut is a composite of varying footage quality.

Let me know if it's worth a watch.

Well, I'll see if I can pick up a copy.

Because it will have the last 10 minutes taken off, really, and it will have anything to do with Father Mourning, which is a priest that you see in a couple of scenes here and there, and then shows up randomly at the end to do an exorcism. That will all be removed from it, because that was all added in at last minute by the studio, who were like, what do you mean there's no exorcism in this movie?

Yeah.

Get an exorcism in this movie.

Yeah, OK. I'll check it out.

When he says, I'm a showman, after he says, I hold up the heads, George punches him, breaks his nose, and he turns back into Karras, and then George leaves and gets his hand patched up, because you hear the nurse go in, she goes, oh my god, he's hemorrhaging. His nose is broken. Because he sort of says he's had a fall, and then leaves the room. He hasn't had a fall. You've smashed him in the face with the giant George C. Scott fist.

And he chats the old Age of Johnson, he says to him, like, well, fucking, he knew about a killing that was not in the news.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

And he also said to him, as he leaves the room, he says, save your servant.

And at this point in the movie, there's not really been a lot of proper outright killing so much in this film, but it's been a lovely, dark, rainy mystery story, detective story. It's great.

Well, that phrase, save your servant, makes George start thinking and he goes off to the library and he looks up in a Bible and he finds that it's part of an exorcism rite. So one of the things they say during an exorcism is save your servant. So he's now thinking, is this linked to the Regan McNeil case? What is this about? And we get the hospital scene now.

This is just brilliant. We've just got this long static shot in a corridor in a hospital. So we've got on our right hand side, we've got a couple of rooms in our foreground. As it goes down, we've got the reception desk on the right, then a couple of chairs down at the end, which are for like policemen or whoever. And then a couple more sort of things. It's just this long corridor shot, and it stays here now for ages. We do have a cut to St. Cows, but then it comes back to this shot.

It cuts to her entering a room here and there.

But majority of it is shot just here. And it's really nice.

It's about five or six minutes.

I think it really works as a good misdirect. I reckon in the cinema, this would have been really great. I reckon people really jumped.

Yeah, and you got the nurse. You feel safe.

You feel safe because the cop comes along and talks to them, sits down, reads the paper, then goes to do something else. But then later on, he's like, oh no, no, later on, he then comes and sits back down again. She's like, oh, we're all safe here. Everything's fine.

And she hears a noise in one of the hospital rooms. She goes in and we actually cut into the room, and it's a patient who scares her a little bit. And he's like, you keep waking me up at 5 a.m. for breakfast.

That was a little bit forced, but he just jumps up. And then she just goes back out and then the cop comes out and sits down. So it's actually nothing really going on. And the camera cuts back to that shot, which is really bold for an editing point of view. And to sell this to a studio is quite a bold choice.

And after a while, she's behind reception looking at some files and the cop sat down and nothing's going on. And then another cop comes in and says something to the cop. So he leaves, leaving her on her own. And then she hears another noise and she goes and checks her room. And it's quite far away. It's the end of the corridor from where we are with the camera.

And she looks in the room, shuts the door, opens it again, and pulls it really shut tight to make sure it's shut, turns around, and within three steps, this figure...

All in white.

All in white, holding garden shears up like the Burning.

Yeah, kind of. No, it's more straight on because it's going to take the neck off.

Holding them up like...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're a lot taller, because I'm looking at the picture right now of it.

But it's the speed that they did this set up because she shut that door twice. And as she turns on her heels, the person who's coming out with those shears had to do this so fast because there's no CGI or anything. So that door suddenly comes flying out of that door.

And had to work this out so when they don't get to the neck, otherwise if they had got to the neck, they would have had to show up, so they can't. So it doesn't even show the killing. But what it does though, it does a real cut zoom into what's going on, which is a shame watching it now. I was kind of wishing it was just going to be there. In my head, it's just there. The whole time in my head it was that, but they do a cut zoom to what's going to happen. But you don't see it happen though.

But if you were to Google or YouTube top 10 jump scares in horror history, this is always in the top three, top five maybe. Some people put this as the number one. It definitely comes out of nowhere. Like Gav said, it's a great misdirect. It comes off the back of a really, not boring, just a really static shot of nothing really happening, just people milling about.

But it's great though, this is why this movie works so well. I actually tried to emulate this in a film and it didn't work. Oh, it was in preternatural, trying to be a bit where the camera stays, all of a sudden it's run out of the side, but I couldn't get it. It's a totally different thing.

Well, obviously, they've got a body now, so George and the other cops are there.

The body's been sliced down the middle, emptied, then stuffed and sewn back up.

Stuffed with rosary beads.

What the fuck? How many rosary beads was there? Good it wasn't butt beads.

Just when they think things can, anal beads. Imagine that. She's been absolutely stuffed with anal beads. What was she ripped open? No, no, they weren't put in that way. They were put in the ear. Stuffed with them, she has. Yeah, the other thing, though, is that chain smoking doctor. Oh, oh, boy. The nurse, just when they're investigating this dead nurse, the other nurse comes out and says, Kinderman, I need you.

It's such a well-crafted film. I wish the director had done more.

George goes to visit Brad Derriff, and Brad Derriff says, did you get my message? And basically explains a bit of a convoluted way that his soul body jumped. So while he was being fried in the electric chair.

Is this like Child's Play?

Yeah. Well, funny enough.

Because he does say Child's Play reference. He says Child's Play.

And then a little ginger boy shows up. Yeah. He basically says, when I was in the chair, as I was being fried and as I was dying, I thought, I don't want to go, there's so much more killing to do. So I made a deal with somebody called Pazuzu, who helped me take on another body. And fortunately, it was Damien Carras' body, who was pretty much brain dead. It's taken me 15 years to get the brain back up to any sort of good state. And that's what I am. And now I can jump into other bodies.

Oh, OK. I thought you could say that. And the lady on the ceiling in the hospital.

Well, I mean, that is before that.

It's so good.

It's out of nowhere. It shouldn't be in this film, but it's fucking brilliant.

Dracula or like you say, like in The Mouth Of Madness or something. It's so good. George E. Scott's just in the war, just looking around, hands in pocket. I'm looking at pictures now. Hands in pockets, just looking around. Then all of a sudden the camera's low looking upwards and an old, I don't know how they did it, Eve. They must have just imposed it on top, but I'm looking how clear it is now and it's so clear.

We've seen this hundreds of times now with lots of Japanese horror films, but this is just an any exorcism.

It's the sense of dread though they've put through this whole film from the get-go. It just makes everything so creepy.

Then George finds, well, I assume a dead, naked nurse and somebody has taken her clothes and left the hospital.

Yeah.

When he's talking to the other nurse, he realizes her name is Julie, which is his daughter's name and he remembers Brad saying, did you get my message? He thinks, oh my God, Julie's in danger.

There's a lady in a taxi who's a nurse with a package on the way to his house.

But she's not a nurse. She's the old crazy lady from the mental hospital. And she's just, so we get this scene now, where she's headed to George's house, where his wife, daughter and mother-in-law are. George is like, oh my God, and he grabs a cop and he's like, you need to get me to my house immediately. So they're speeding along in the police car. This lady's in the back of the taxi, dressed up as a nurse. It's all very tense. George arrives at his house.

I did a good deed today. Let me tell you my good deed I did. Got in the car, I was at the supermarket, and I'm just about to go, and there's this old lady, and I can see her just looking around, with her trolley and just looking around. Out of the car, I just started up, about to pull out of the spot. I'm looking at her, she's still just looking around. I was like, she's lost her car, hasn't she? I was like, oh, for God's sake.

I did this about two weeks ago. I was walking home from the nursery after dropping the kids off and I didn't have the buggy because they walk in now. And I was like, on my way home, thinking I'm going to have a coffee and then I'll start work. And then I saw this very elderly Jamaican lady stumbling out of a shot.

Didn't you say to Alice this one last time?

Did I say that last time?

I feel like you did. Maybe not. Maybe you just told me.

Maybe it was just you. And she said, I said, are you okay? She grabbed my arm and she said, will you help me cross the road?

Yes, you did.

Did I talk about it on the show?

I'm not sure though, but you better carry on just in case you didn't.

So I said, yes, of course, I'll help you cross the road. I'm not going to say no to an old lady.

Yeah, of course.

So I walked her across the road. I walked her down the road a little bit and I said, do you need help getting home? She said, yeah, I only live at the end of the road. She didn't. She lived about 25 minutes away. God knows. God knows how she got there. Well, I said to her, how did you get to the shop? She said some schoolgirls helped me earlier. She said, I don't normally go out because I can't really walk. She had a stick, a walking stick, but she had a bag. And I said, let me carry a bag.

Yeah, bless her. Oh yeah, I felt good for doing mine. And I said, I liked, she said, oh, you're a good person. I said, well, I like to do good things. I'm hoping someone will do good things for me when I'm older.

She actually then said, you can come in for a coffee if you want. And I thought, I'm going to have to do that. But this sounds cruel, but luckily I didn't, because when I got there, there was some workmen working on her, because she lived in a residential home. And they were like, oh, you're back, Sylvia, oh, she's back. And they took her up to her apartment then. But otherwise, I would have ended up in there, probably eating biscuits and drinking coffee with them, being late for work.

It is good to do a good thing for someone.

But this old lady in The Exorcist III is not so nice.

No, she's not.

She, while they're sort of talking heatedly, the family, she pulls a pair of garden shears out of her, well, not garden shears.

Just to cut the head off the daughter.

And she, it's a great shot, this, isn't she? Because she goes to snap them, and they almost snap on that, and they pull her out of the way just in time.

Really good.

And then she starts strangling, who is it she strangles? George.

Oh, she's cut.

And finally she collapses.

Yeah, she's not going to have that much strength.

And now we get the random inserted scene, now we know about it, Father Mourning arriving at Patient X's room. And this is where Patient X has got the yellow eyes. And this is the bit that the studio were like, you need to film an exorcist, an exorcism. So he had to like throw this scene in really now, which is, it works for me. Cause if I didn't know the backstory, I just think it was part of the story anyway. I never read Legion. He begins an exorcism.

I never read Lytex and I never read Lytexisms really.

Loads of flames and snakes appear in the room. The priest gets thrown against the wall. His skin is like half peeled off.

He's stuck falling and rips off as he comes down, cause like glue stuck there as well.

Yucky. George is heading there because he knows it's all to do with patient X.

He finds the said stuck father dead.

Yeah, well, 99% dead.

Okay, yeah.

He finds the Bible that's been burned.

George tries to shoot him. He gets stuck to the wall.

He gets blown back against the wall and he says, we'll get Julie eventually.

And raining lightning in the room.

Yep. George, he gives some great dialogue here. I can't remember exactly what he says, but it's a great sort of biblical only way that George C. Scott can do it. Lightning rips a hole in the floor. Damien suddenly seems to appear on a cross with lots of souls around him.

Yeah.

He says, God is not here. But then the priest is still alive and he does, he throws something at Damien and says, fight it, Damien, fight it. And then Damien snaps out of it just for one second. He's not possessed. And he just looks at George C. Scott and says, no, no, kill me now, do it now. Because he knows that's the one moment he can do it. And bang, bang, he shoots him. You think he's dead, but Damien's still dying. And then he says, free me, free me.

That's the end.

And again, how does he explain that? When his other cop buddies show up and there's dead snakes, a dead priest with no skin on his face and he shot a patient in a straitjacket, point blank in the head. How does he explain that?

I don't know.

When he's writing up the report.

I don't know. But I find this guy, I think that's my issue of one of the movies we did last time. What do they say when they get to the end? Explain that. But yeah.

But what a movie.

It's a great movie, isn't it?

And it's not perfect, but I really enjoy this. It's really good.

It's not perfect, but it's a really good film.

And it's a bit of a mess, but not so much as a mess as the first, as Exorcist II.

I'm glad we got to review it.

Yeah. And if anything, it's worth watching just for that five minute hospital scene, really.

Yeah, it's a great scene. Some really good scenes in it. I really like the film. I think it's a great atmosphere. I'll happily add this to the collection, I think, when I can get a good copy.

It would fit in nicely with VII and stuff like that as a double bill. So highly recommended from me and from Gav as well on that one, Exorcist III. It shouldn't be as good as it is. It's the second sequel to a film, which is completely different. You know, the first film was just a straight up possession. The second one is just a crazy nightmare dream. The third one is like a crime thriller, VII.

It's very good.

It's brilliant.

Well, a definite thumbs up from me.

Yeah. So if you haven't checked it out, go do it.

I hope so, because we spoiled it.

Yeah. Sorry about that.

Let's come back for the outro.

Okay.

And we're back again.

Thank you, Phil. Back again.

Thank you for... And we're front again. Thank you for listening to us and coming along for a little journey. Unless you forward through the whole podcast, you just listen to the outro, maybe because you're into outros of podcasts, and that's the only thing you do. Maybe it's like an outro podcast fetish you're into. If so, thanks for listening to the outro.

It felt really good this episode to really get our teeth into these films, because our last episode we couldn't really talk about Freddy Five and Michael Five, because they're just not very good films, really. But even Exorcist II has got some stuff to say about it.

Yeah, it's still quite confusing, but it's the first time I've watched it for me, so it's interesting. I felt like I had to see it, because I really like the third one. Obviously, the first one's got what it's got going for it. I had to see the second one.

Well, as explained in our intro, we've rejiggled things around now. This episode is much later than we would have liked, which means, Gav, our next episode is our Christmas special.

I know.

Which also means it's our 11th year anniversary.

Really interesting, that is. 11 years.

That's nuts, isn't it? So next year will be our 11th year of podcasting. Crazy times. So episode 168, our Christmas special, will be covering two Christmas movies, Violent Night from 2022. Relatively new, really good film, funny as well. And a movie which I think you've seen, I've definitely seen, I absolutely loved, 2023. There's something in the barn.

No, I hadn't seen, is that the, is it European? Is it a group of American family?

Americans go to Europe.

I went to watch it last year with Sarah, and we never actually went to watch it. And I was like, well, it's too late. And after Christmas, my head can't do it, so I didn't do any Christmas films. So, or did we watch it? I don't think we did. I remember watching a trailer.

It's really, really, well, in my opinion, really, really good.

I look forward to it. We'll probably watch it this weekend, maybe.

If you like Krampus and Rare Exports, it's kind of like that, but with the fish out of water element, because it's an American family who moved to a camera, which country is they moved to? And they have to deal with like this Christmas legend of a little creature. I'm not going to say any more or get into it in the next episode.

I've chosen this year. I'm really excited for this one. I've chosen a James Bond film. So we're doing it on a Majesty Secret Service. Now, I've actually only seen it once for the first time for like last year, which is weird because I love all the Bond films, but it blew me away. And I felt like, fuck it. You know what? We do genre films and stuff. I'm going to do the first Bond movie, and we're just going to do a Bond movie, which is not something we could do very regularly.

Well, it's not the first Bond movie. It's about the third or fourth Bond movie. Is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What have we covered?

Oh, our first Bond movie.

Yeah, it's our first Bond film.

I thought you meant the first Bond movie.

No, our first Bond film. But it's very special in a way, but we will talk about it when we get to it.

Yeah, it's definitely probably one of the darkest of the Bond films.

It's something really special about this film. And that's why I want to get into it.

And it's the only one George Lazenby started in, you know, so we can get into that.

There's a whole thing of it, yeah. And the other film is a movie that I knew about and then just didn't watch it one day and went, oh, screw it, I'm going to watch this. It's a claymation film called Chuck Still and The Night Of The Trampires, which is vampires, the tramp vampires that got drunk off something that turned them into trampires. It's incredible. And no one's, I don't know who's seen it or who hasn't seen it, but Dan here has not seen it. Sarah has not seen it.

For anybody out of the UK, by the way, a tramp would be what you called a bum or a homeless person. In the UK, they get called tramps.

Ravs and vampires.

Yeah. And that's from 2018.

So it's so good.

On Home Majesty Secret Service 1969, another 69. And Chuck Steele's Night Of The Trampires.

And I am Gab Chucky still, which is weird. It is Chuck Steele, but yeah, it is. Yeah, it's so good.

We don't often do this, but you probably would have guessed. That means the fourth episode after that will be the one that we were supposed to do soon, which was the Peter Jackson special. So after that, we'll be doing Frighteners and Bad Taste. Yeah, we've got a lot of good stuff to kick off the new year.

Yeah, then maybe we'll start slowly drifting into spring, which is good. That's been the end, so thank you very much for coming along with us. I'm happy to say we almost finished a new film, which is quite good, called Amanda. It's very close, we've done some more shooting for that, which is really good.

Working hard, working hard on that.

Yes, and other stuff we're doing over at Deadbolt, so do please check out Deadbolt Films, which we're going to talk about in a moment.

Indeed, well, I'll do some housekeeping now, then we can say our goodbyes. Really enjoyed this episode, and like I said, thank you. Great to chat about those two movies, especially Exorcist III. Thank you to everybody for listening and supporting and doing the things that you do. We are the podcast on Haunted Hill, as you know, and have been for almost 11 years now. And for all of that time, we have been a proud member of the Legion Podcasts Network.

Then sends, then Dan sends out nudes from that email address. Just ask him.

If you want, it might not be me.

It's not me.

And it might not be me either. We're just sending out a random one. You've thrown me now. Wherever you're listening to us now is where you hopefully will always be able to listen to us. But we're available on most podcast platforms like Spotify, YouTube, Podknife, Podbean, Apple, Podcast Addict, all the other bits and bobs. And we're on Instagram. Our handle is the podcast on Haunted Hill Insta.

And like I said, Shadow of Death is now free on Prime.

Yeah, and you can still rent Breton Action on Prime too. Dead Bought Films is the handle on Instagram. And we not just do films, but there's also comics and another podcast other than this one, which we've already mentioned. But Gav, what is that other podcast that you do?

The High Strangers Podcast with Sarah, to my loveliness.

If you're into your true crime and deranged people doing stuff, then listen to that. I love it.

Our next episode this weekend, we're starting a little lost season. So we're doing places where you get lost, which aren't good. We're doing In The Sea.

Yeah, that's not good.

Sarah and I, we actually is a movie we watched, actually. We watched, is it Adrift? I'm not sure. It's where the five people are stuck on a boat. It capsizes with a shark, kind of hunts them, and they have to kind of swim. And they need one, based on true story, need one bloke in the boat. He's like, no, I'm not going to stay here. And he was never found, that guy.

I do definitely have a fear of not being found.

Yeah, it's horrible.

That's why the descent still gets under my skin, because I always think if you went down in there, in those little caves, and you just got lost, you're never getting out, you're never going to get found. No one would even find your body.

Oh, it's horrible. Lost is such a horrible feeling. So that's what we're doing. So if you want to hear about that, come in soon to The Hardest Strangers Podcast, Lost in Different Places.

So that's Deadbolt Films, Deadbolt Media. And finally, we also are part of Patreon. So we do have some patrons, which I'll be thanking in a moment. If you'd like to become a patron and support the show financially, you can do so. We would appreciate it. It does help us continue to move forward with the show, keep it ticking over nicely, buy equipment as and when needed, rent and buy films that are more obscure, that we're reviewing and all that kind of stuff.

I will do a few more mixes now. I've got my digital decks, because I can take loads of horror samples and things, put it all together and stuff.

You'll also get a shout out at the end of every episode and you get to pick two films for us to review. Every three episodes is a patron. Big, big, big. So every three episodes, one of our patrons tells us which two films they'd like us to review. They also tell us a little bit about why they love those films, why they picked them, what they mean to them, the first time they watch them, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, Rachel is our next patron in the new year. Almost rhymes, Rachel patron.

Yes, thank you so much for the people who do it. And if you want to do it, please just have a look on Patreon or give us a shout and we can point you in the right direction. But we really appreciate it. Thank you. You know, yes.

And to our patrons, we thank you all individually by name. We thank Dante, Don Collier, Matthew Godley, Jamie Jenkins, Kevin S. Fife, Sarah K., Rachel, RJ. McCready, and Lex Boone.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, guys.

Thank you so much. We massively appreciate it as always.

Thank you to everybody who listens or shares or jumps on the Facebook page or likes or comments or even hates us because the hate makes us stronger like Legion. But no, thank you to everybody. Thank you to Gav.

Thanks, Dan.

Thank you to me. Thank you to Pazuzu.

Do look under the bed tonight, guys, and lock the windows and stuff for Pazuzu, who likes to sneak in.

Or Brad Deriff or an old lady crawling on your ceiling.

Oh, look up at the ceiling.

That would be the worst thing.

It would. If you're looking up and you thought you saw something and it's actually an old lady, the head's turned around sideways looking down at you, though.

Yeah. And also, here's a little tip. If an old lady who's definitely too old to be a nurse shows up at your house with a big bag, don't let her into your kitchen because she's got some big bone cutters in there.

But do help old ladies who have lost their car.

But do, yeah, please do. On that note, it's a good night from James Earl Jones in a lion costume roaring at you.

It's a good night from James Earl Jones in a lotus costume. Locust. Locust.

It's a good night from Brad de Riff.

Doing locust stuff at you. Twitching.

It's a good night from Brad de Riff.

It's a good night from George E's card.

Yeah, you know it is.

Go to sleep. It's not in the file.

That's up there, that line with the ice is going to break, isn't it? It's up there. But yeah, and it's a good night from Pazuzu, of course. We have to mention his name.

Hello, Pazuzu.

Careful, because I've got to go out in that spooky corridor in a minute.

I figured I saw a little hand come round the corner.

Is it the old lady?

Yeah, on your roof.

Hello. On my roof.

It's the grand old bush on the roof.

I think I heard. Oh, the grand old bush of yours.

It's a good night for grand old bush.

It's Grand Owl, isn't it? Not Grand Old.

I like Grand Old Bush. Oh, Owl.

Well, there we go, guys. That's been a fun episode. We'll be back for our final episode of the year, which is Christmas. So start writing your Christmas list to Santa. Start getting your eggnog in the fridge and stocking up on your mince pies and your treats.

He's coming down the chimney to empty his sack.

Yeah, make sure you think about what you want to do when you sit on Santa's lap, because he'll ask you if you want the fearless sack.

Good night, everyone.

Good night.

Thank you for listening to the podcast on Haunted Hill. We will be back again real soon.