Halloween Diary : 10/13 - 10/17
10/13
Psycho *****
Psycho II ****
10/14
Phantom of the Opera *****
10/15
Dracula: Prince of Darkness ***
The Unknown *****
10/16
Exorcist II: The Heretic *
10/17
The Unholy **
________________________________________________________________________
This could very well have been the first evening I actually watched Psycho (1960) and Psycho II (1983) in succession. Actually I think this is the first time I've watched Psycho II during October since maybe 2008. Like others around my age, Psycho II was a VHS rental-on-repeat in the era of the VCR; if only I had been of age during it's theatrical release. Even before Psycho was a real favorite of mine, Psycho II introduced us to the infamous, iconic shower sequence, culminating in a credits sequence and the fade from B&W of the past Hitchcock masterpiece into color of the present where Norman has finally been released from the institution after killing Marion as we witnessed from the first film. I did have the privilege to see Psycho in the theatre, even writing about it on the blog upon returning home a few years ago. It was a Sunday afternoon, I recall. Norman turning away when returning to survey the damage caused by his mother, and the cleanup, so scientific and matter-of-fact, as if he'd done it before. If anything the psychiatrist's long-winded explanation at the end of Psycho does speak of missing girls. In Psycho II, the swamp is dragged of cars in search of bodies, Mother is unearthed to prove to Norman by his new psychiatrist that she's indeed VERY dead, Lila, Miriam's sister, and daughter, Mary, see fit to drive Norman back into the institution only for another supposed Mother claiming to be Norman's biological matriarch. Perkins, fresh-faced and socially awkward in Psycho, weathered and holding on to his sanity by a thread in Psycho II, is a critical presence in both films, but significantly in the sequel.
Vera Miles, a stubborn, fierce force to be dealt with in her pursuit of her sister in the first film and doggedly determined to drive Norman off the deep end in the sequel is often costumed as drab and presented even unpleasantly in favor of sympathizing with Norman. Between Goldsmith's score which is hauntingly melodic and tempered with such melancholy and the Cundy photography which is just so creative in shooting characters inside and out the Bates home, the sequel indeed always captivated me. The knife in the mouth and shovel to the back of the head, and the knife victim's prosthetic face, aren't all that great. And obvious dummy used to represent a victim carried by Norman upstairs is rather glaring, too. And the supposed revelation that Norman had a biological mother he never knew, only to slam a shovel to her obvious double in the back of the head, always just never felt altogether successful.
I could see why some were critical of the sequel. I always emotionally react to Norman returning home after the police release him in the sequel once they determine Lila and Mary were responsible for all the violence having occurred. Mary had been quite a presence in Norman's life, for better or worse, and her absence is felt. It was as if a potential bond and positive influence for Norman was undermined by Lila's obsessive need to see him remain locked up. Goldsmith's score, on top of that, sort of reinforces Norman's tragic existence.
______________________________________________________
I think I chose the perfect time to watch Phantom of the Opera (1925), later into Sunday evening, throwing up some Philip Glass as my own chosen score as a soundtrack. Really enjoyed the early sinister presentation of Arthur Edmund Carewe early on, particularly his eyes and suspicious behavior. Red herrings can really be perfect for films such as this. The chandelier falling, the Phantom sneaking about and leaving notes, hurriedly in his cape scampering about, warning Christine that she is his and only his, as trap doors, dungeon trappings, hanging bodies, ballerinas scurrying to and fro with concern of a ghost in their midst, and stage hand with severed doll head in tow accompany the Paris House's attempted shows, always interrupted and seemingly on the verge of success despite knowledge of the infamous Erik, a lunatic asylum escapee. Erik tries to look presentable to Christine but she's in love with Raoul, wearing the nice mask so she'll not be traumatized by his disfigurement. Like other horror fans fond of the macabre, Chaney's work to creep us out, such intense effort was not in vain. Remaining iconic, besides his remarkable appearance as Red Death as the Masque Ball, is definitely his approach towards the screen when his face is revealed. The madness following it sort of reinforces the torment manifesting from being disfigured, surfacing in his behavior, as he emerges from the underground chambers looking for his obsession. Running down Paris streets from the Universal Studio's trademark locals with pitchforks and torches until he reaches river with nowhere else to run, pretending to have a bomb, is quite a setpiece as is all of them rushing into the dungeons looking for Erik. The extravagant bedroom where Erik places Christine is incredible as well. And the mad rushing audience spilling out of the Paris House when the chandelier falls just looks fabulous...what an undertaking these expansive setpieces must have been!
______________________________________________
One of those nagging aspects of Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) is just how did Klove enter the picture. Yes, there has been ten years since Dracula last tormented the countryside, but just how servants turn up for him despite various degrees of death lends to much scrutiny. Whether in this film's case regarding his ash receiving blood to fuel his resurrection or through the use of his blood later, the incredible ways to bring Dracula back must've given screenwriters quite a headache. Just the same, in this film, horses drive a carriage to Castle Dracula despite efforts of Francis Matthews to move them in another direction, Klove miraculously had all of the ash of his master in a box despite the wind's efforts to scatter them apart, and despite Barbara Shelley's warning after warning, she's treated with disregard. The film does telegraph her fate less than subtly. The whole Lee non-speaking notoriety, I'm just of the mindset that he could say something. It isn't Shakespeare, here. Still, Lee just benefits the film with his walking into scene, that pounding Hammer score we know so well..Matthews, I really liked him in Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), but he indeed just seems better suited as a sidekick. Andrew Keir, of Quatermass and the Pit (1967), really is the true adversary of Dracula, although weak-minded simpleton, Thorley Walters, going often unsupervised by the monastery is yet another head-scratcher. Not without its flaws, Sangster's script gives plenty ammunition for critiquing his efforts, but when tasked to throw together something, I guess logic problems are bound to happen. Seeing Shelley with fangs, looking for the kiss, just my favorite part of the film. Dracula risking exposure, vulnerable as he would be even with Klove, just to get Farmer, and some measure of revenge, is further puzzling...is Farmer really worth that risk? Walters was my personally favorite part of Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), actually, made just a year after this. You just have to shake your head at why Farmer would entertain letting Shelley inside her room at the monastery after what she witnessed at Castle Dracula..it does lead to her capture and Keir staking Shelley, so the inexplicably dense Farmer helped the film in that regard. She gets the great scenes in this. Well her and Keir browbeating a priest and locals while also warming his "posterior" near a fire.
Between Crawford's unmentioned come-apart regarding men's beastly hands and Chaney's rage and breakdown, Tod Browning's The Unknown (1927) has plenty of emotional instability to go with the delightful peculiarities that arise throughout its ongoing 60 minutes. Chaney's eyes revealing a mind working out diabolical ways to secure Crawford for himself is in and of itself perfectly illustrates why he remains such a silent film treasure. Chaney telling Crawford he's not ill, just missing some flesh, once with arms, a hand with two thumbs responsible for robberies, removed by a surgeon he blackmails (having killed Crawford's cruel father, too); this is but one wicked bit of subject matter. See Chaney's mind contemplating the strongman's arms ripped off by treadmill horses, manipulating the strongman to embrace Crawford, knowing she'd react with repulsion, and his confrontation with Crawford's father when they are alone except for Chaney's dwarf companion, revealing he has arms and hands. Seeing his beloved holding hands with the strongman, coming unglued, his reactions misunderstood. Browning and his carnie sensibilities, the darkness and pointed emphasis on the misfits of society, it's no wonder I'm so much a fan of his.
I said to myself that I'd give Boorman's critically savaged Exorcist sequel an unbiased, honest reevaluation. I would just apply fresh eyes and see if time has been better to it. Yeah, time hasn't exactly welcomed it into the fold. I need a palate cleanser.
Before Chiller Channel was discontinued, it did show some older content during its humble beginnings. In fact, I remember fondly revisiting Elvira, Mistress of the Dark on Chiller in the morning. Another film from the late 80s (1988, to be exact) was also shown on Chiller, The Unholy, with Ben Cross (oh, so serious) as a priest who miraculously survives a flight out a high rise in New Orleans when Peter Frechette, seemingly possessed by the demon Desiderious (in a favorite scene of mine, Trevor Howard, complete with whited eyes, telling us he's blind, which also gives him an eerie quality, goes on and on about this demon), is on the ledge, thought to be a jumper. Frechette later bleeds out of his face before he goes up in flames as if he combusts on the alter of a parish.
The final fifteen or so minutes is outre cheese. The grotesque rubber monsters that nail Cross and tie up his legs aren't as scary to me as just plain ugly. But, lemme tell you: Nicole Fortier sure ain't ugly, that's for sure. Fortier is a red head who spends her entire time (a bit over some ten minutes between two appearances) naked under a see-through attempting to seduce priests (including Cross late into the film). The first priest's death wasn't shown, later elaborated by Ned Beatty and William Russ to Cross. The second priest is shown trying to pray his way out of temptation but Fortier is just too alluring, too delicious. And a good ripped apart throat he gets for is inability to resist her. Fortier is full body nude later when confronting Cross, who is able to resist her alluring illusion, as the full-teeth, on-fours slimy beast (something out of an effects creature workshop) emerges with a wet tongue licking his cut leg (before sticking a piece of its flesh in his mouth...yuck!).
After watching Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) last night, and this film with its church breaking apart with a hole seemingly to hell opened up, I'm rather done with structures coming under attack. I'm also done with demons and priests combatting them. Especially when good actors like Burton and Cross must work their way through bad films about Satan and his EVVVVVVVEEEEEEELLLLL through the power of Christ, trying to conjure something sincere when the material just doesn't deserve anything beyond going-through-the-motions. Russ has a night club that deals in cult kink with him actually being used by Desiderious to draw in fresh souls to corrupt as Jill Carroll is introduced as Russ' desired plaything, a virgin herself supposedly, a victim of "daddy abuse" in her youth. Carroll is the object of temptation Desiderious utilizes in the hopes of tormenting Cross. Both desire each other, but Cross MUST BE STRONG. Russ hanging upside down like the Disciple Peter, with his intestines hanging out, eventually also going up in flames, accompanied by Frechette's blood-vomiting spontaneous combustion certainly has enough surreality to go with the bizarre conclusion as Cross nobly does his due diligence to get over the priest's bravery fighting against the forces of darkness, going blind as Trevor Howard did. Hal Holbrook's casting was a serious reason I had any giddiness initially to see this, and Beatty has work as a concerned detective who asks Holbrook to close the church so Cross can be kept from the same harm as previous priests. Holbrook is elusive and selective in the words used towards Cross, allowing him to remain somewhat distanced from us. Cross is a priest who is of a progressive nature in his spirituality, not embracing Howard's views of Satan, chiding Carroll later on for her passionate interest in Lucifer as identified in the Holy Bible. But when confronted with irrefutable evidence, he has work to do.
Psycho *****
Psycho II ****
10/14
Phantom of the Opera *****
10/15
Dracula: Prince of Darkness ***
The Unknown *****
10/16
Exorcist II: The Heretic *
10/17
The Unholy **
________________________________________________________________________
This could very well have been the first evening I actually watched Psycho (1960) and Psycho II (1983) in succession. Actually I think this is the first time I've watched Psycho II during October since maybe 2008. Like others around my age, Psycho II was a VHS rental-on-repeat in the era of the VCR; if only I had been of age during it's theatrical release. Even before Psycho was a real favorite of mine, Psycho II introduced us to the infamous, iconic shower sequence, culminating in a credits sequence and the fade from B&W of the past Hitchcock masterpiece into color of the present where Norman has finally been released from the institution after killing Marion as we witnessed from the first film. I did have the privilege to see Psycho in the theatre, even writing about it on the blog upon returning home a few years ago. It was a Sunday afternoon, I recall. Norman turning away when returning to survey the damage caused by his mother, and the cleanup, so scientific and matter-of-fact, as if he'd done it before. If anything the psychiatrist's long-winded explanation at the end of Psycho does speak of missing girls. In Psycho II, the swamp is dragged of cars in search of bodies, Mother is unearthed to prove to Norman by his new psychiatrist that she's indeed VERY dead, Lila, Miriam's sister, and daughter, Mary, see fit to drive Norman back into the institution only for another supposed Mother claiming to be Norman's biological matriarch. Perkins, fresh-faced and socially awkward in Psycho, weathered and holding on to his sanity by a thread in Psycho II, is a critical presence in both films, but significantly in the sequel.
Vera Miles, a stubborn, fierce force to be dealt with in her pursuit of her sister in the first film and doggedly determined to drive Norman off the deep end in the sequel is often costumed as drab and presented even unpleasantly in favor of sympathizing with Norman. Between Goldsmith's score which is hauntingly melodic and tempered with such melancholy and the Cundy photography which is just so creative in shooting characters inside and out the Bates home, the sequel indeed always captivated me. The knife in the mouth and shovel to the back of the head, and the knife victim's prosthetic face, aren't all that great. And obvious dummy used to represent a victim carried by Norman upstairs is rather glaring, too. And the supposed revelation that Norman had a biological mother he never knew, only to slam a shovel to her obvious double in the back of the head, always just never felt altogether successful.
I could see why some were critical of the sequel. I always emotionally react to Norman returning home after the police release him in the sequel once they determine Lila and Mary were responsible for all the violence having occurred. Mary had been quite a presence in Norman's life, for better or worse, and her absence is felt. It was as if a potential bond and positive influence for Norman was undermined by Lila's obsessive need to see him remain locked up. Goldsmith's score, on top of that, sort of reinforces Norman's tragic existence.
______________________________________________________
I think I chose the perfect time to watch Phantom of the Opera (1925), later into Sunday evening, throwing up some Philip Glass as my own chosen score as a soundtrack. Really enjoyed the early sinister presentation of Arthur Edmund Carewe early on, particularly his eyes and suspicious behavior. Red herrings can really be perfect for films such as this. The chandelier falling, the Phantom sneaking about and leaving notes, hurriedly in his cape scampering about, warning Christine that she is his and only his, as trap doors, dungeon trappings, hanging bodies, ballerinas scurrying to and fro with concern of a ghost in their midst, and stage hand with severed doll head in tow accompany the Paris House's attempted shows, always interrupted and seemingly on the verge of success despite knowledge of the infamous Erik, a lunatic asylum escapee. Erik tries to look presentable to Christine but she's in love with Raoul, wearing the nice mask so she'll not be traumatized by his disfigurement. Like other horror fans fond of the macabre, Chaney's work to creep us out, such intense effort was not in vain. Remaining iconic, besides his remarkable appearance as Red Death as the Masque Ball, is definitely his approach towards the screen when his face is revealed. The madness following it sort of reinforces the torment manifesting from being disfigured, surfacing in his behavior, as he emerges from the underground chambers looking for his obsession. Running down Paris streets from the Universal Studio's trademark locals with pitchforks and torches until he reaches river with nowhere else to run, pretending to have a bomb, is quite a setpiece as is all of them rushing into the dungeons looking for Erik. The extravagant bedroom where Erik places Christine is incredible as well. And the mad rushing audience spilling out of the Paris House when the chandelier falls just looks fabulous...what an undertaking these expansive setpieces must have been!
______________________________________________
One of those nagging aspects of Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) is just how did Klove enter the picture. Yes, there has been ten years since Dracula last tormented the countryside, but just how servants turn up for him despite various degrees of death lends to much scrutiny. Whether in this film's case regarding his ash receiving blood to fuel his resurrection or through the use of his blood later, the incredible ways to bring Dracula back must've given screenwriters quite a headache. Just the same, in this film, horses drive a carriage to Castle Dracula despite efforts of Francis Matthews to move them in another direction, Klove miraculously had all of the ash of his master in a box despite the wind's efforts to scatter them apart, and despite Barbara Shelley's warning after warning, she's treated with disregard. The film does telegraph her fate less than subtly. The whole Lee non-speaking notoriety, I'm just of the mindset that he could say something. It isn't Shakespeare, here. Still, Lee just benefits the film with his walking into scene, that pounding Hammer score we know so well..Matthews, I really liked him in Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), but he indeed just seems better suited as a sidekick. Andrew Keir, of Quatermass and the Pit (1967), really is the true adversary of Dracula, although weak-minded simpleton, Thorley Walters, going often unsupervised by the monastery is yet another head-scratcher. Not without its flaws, Sangster's script gives plenty ammunition for critiquing his efforts, but when tasked to throw together something, I guess logic problems are bound to happen. Seeing Shelley with fangs, looking for the kiss, just my favorite part of the film. Dracula risking exposure, vulnerable as he would be even with Klove, just to get Farmer, and some measure of revenge, is further puzzling...is Farmer really worth that risk? Walters was my personally favorite part of Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), actually, made just a year after this. You just have to shake your head at why Farmer would entertain letting Shelley inside her room at the monastery after what she witnessed at Castle Dracula..it does lead to her capture and Keir staking Shelley, so the inexplicably dense Farmer helped the film in that regard. She gets the great scenes in this. Well her and Keir browbeating a priest and locals while also warming his "posterior" near a fire.
Between Crawford's unmentioned come-apart regarding men's beastly hands and Chaney's rage and breakdown, Tod Browning's The Unknown (1927) has plenty of emotional instability to go with the delightful peculiarities that arise throughout its ongoing 60 minutes. Chaney's eyes revealing a mind working out diabolical ways to secure Crawford for himself is in and of itself perfectly illustrates why he remains such a silent film treasure. Chaney telling Crawford he's not ill, just missing some flesh, once with arms, a hand with two thumbs responsible for robberies, removed by a surgeon he blackmails (having killed Crawford's cruel father, too); this is but one wicked bit of subject matter. See Chaney's mind contemplating the strongman's arms ripped off by treadmill horses, manipulating the strongman to embrace Crawford, knowing she'd react with repulsion, and his confrontation with Crawford's father when they are alone except for Chaney's dwarf companion, revealing he has arms and hands. Seeing his beloved holding hands with the strongman, coming unglued, his reactions misunderstood. Browning and his carnie sensibilities, the darkness and pointed emphasis on the misfits of society, it's no wonder I'm so much a fan of his.
I said to myself that I'd give Boorman's critically savaged Exorcist sequel an unbiased, honest reevaluation. I would just apply fresh eyes and see if time has been better to it. Yeah, time hasn't exactly welcomed it into the fold. I need a palate cleanser.
I
just had to come home and give my afternoon over to this. Live and
learn. Blair, someone I admittedly adore, and Burton, an actor I
certainly enjoy, deserved better than this.
You know, I’m just not going to pile on too much. We know there’s been enough of that since the release of Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). The dangled carrot of Equus and the need for some extra cash were too much of a lure for poor Richard Burton to resist. I genuinely pitied him particularly at the end when he is “led” by Pazuzu to Blair’s former rented Georgetown home, almost always in a trance. Blair having to follow him, trying to convince Burton to look on her, before the two reach the place where the exorcism took place (there is no mention of Jason Miller’s suffering Father Karras). The house coming apart, with cracks in the structure while Burton plucks the “dark heart” from a demonic Pazuzu version of Blair while Kitty Winn (her “sitter”) sets herself on fire for some ungodly reason while a perplexed Louise Fletcher (she’s an actress that, when the material is right, she’s right, but when the film isn’t good she doesn’t come off well, either) looks on from behind a gate she can’t surpass is just the final petal plucked from the withering, rotting flower. I just won’t even bother unloading my angst about the fucking synch machine…I just can’t even. The Blair being on stage dancing at Fletcher’s “parapsychology clinic” while Burton gets hit by a barrage of stones chucked at him by a religious sect in Africa (as he searched for James Earl Jones’ Kukumo), the two “synched” to the point that she feels his terror and pain, plummeting in a heap to the floor while he jeeps out of the area quickly, where does it end?
You know, I’m just not going to pile on too much. We know there’s been enough of that since the release of Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). The dangled carrot of Equus and the need for some extra cash were too much of a lure for poor Richard Burton to resist. I genuinely pitied him particularly at the end when he is “led” by Pazuzu to Blair’s former rented Georgetown home, almost always in a trance. Blair having to follow him, trying to convince Burton to look on her, before the two reach the place where the exorcism took place (there is no mention of Jason Miller’s suffering Father Karras). The house coming apart, with cracks in the structure while Burton plucks the “dark heart” from a demonic Pazuzu version of Blair while Kitty Winn (her “sitter”) sets herself on fire for some ungodly reason while a perplexed Louise Fletcher (she’s an actress that, when the material is right, she’s right, but when the film isn’t good she doesn’t come off well, either) looks on from behind a gate she can’t surpass is just the final petal plucked from the withering, rotting flower. I just won’t even bother unloading my angst about the fucking synch machine…I just can’t even. The Blair being on stage dancing at Fletcher’s “parapsychology clinic” while Burton gets hit by a barrage of stones chucked at him by a religious sect in Africa (as he searched for James Earl Jones’ Kukumo), the two “synched” to the point that she feels his terror and pain, plummeting in a heap to the floor while he jeeps out of the area quickly, where does it end?
Burton
in vision gaining the “wings of Pazuzu”, where the evil spirit comes to
a halt when Jones’ “breathes out a lion” or locusts gathering in a
cloud overhead the Georgetown home as it fractures. Pazuzu causing
Father Merrin to have a coronary and Fletcher, while hooked to her synch
hypnosis machine with Blair, actually suffering because of the “return
to the past”, with the demon actually fondling her heart while she huffs
and puffs. Burton actually locating Jones who is wearing a locust
costume, needing to cross wet spikes, doing so only to fall to a floor
in a “locust testing lab” complete with a different Jones, dressed in
lab coat with glasses. Fletcher and Winn encountering one accident and
frustrating “stoppage” (a taxi cab dilemma, an airplane ride that
suffers serious turbulence, bad traffic) after another, before a cracked
window and “runaway cab” wreck smashes them into the gate of the
Georgetown home. Burton speaking of the evil while Fletcher stone-faced
with bored delivery tries to diffuse his persistent pleas to work with
Blair to “subdue” Pazuzu once and for all. Boorman looks to have lost
control of the material, mishmashing it all into something that
embarrassingly runs off the rails, careening off the cliff into the
crashing waves below, going up in a mushroom cloud of fire and
brimstone.
I
said I wouldn’t pile on. But, Jesus, this is just a clusterfuck. I can
honestly say I’m never sitting through this again. Never again. I will
say I always liked the balcony scene where a pretty Blair is off in a
trance, almost walking off the ledge. And I always liked the black
poster with Blair at the center, the title in red letters, and the
cast’s faces in boxes below her. I have seen Equus and can say he rectified this disaster quite well, recovering in the film, but no one escaped The Heretic unscathed…it
is definitely a blight on anyone’s resume. Blair never quite recovered,
sent packing into the B-Movie jungle…a jungle I have ventured into and
found some entertaining trash far more entertaining than this slog.
The film writes Burstyn out of the film, using her career as a reason to do so. Blair wasn't so lucky. When dialogue considers the good locust as Jones commits to explaining the lab experiments involving locust behavior while Burton must summon a serious look of astonishment, I realized that being an actor of renown and brevity comes with strings attached...projects that serve as painful reminders that not every part or gig resonates with particular depth and clarity, richness or credibility. They stink up the nostrils and are noxious to the taste.
_____________________________________________The film writes Burstyn out of the film, using her career as a reason to do so. Blair wasn't so lucky. When dialogue considers the good locust as Jones commits to explaining the lab experiments involving locust behavior while Burton must summon a serious look of astonishment, I realized that being an actor of renown and brevity comes with strings attached...projects that serve as painful reminders that not every part or gig resonates with particular depth and clarity, richness or credibility. They stink up the nostrils and are noxious to the taste.
Before Chiller Channel was discontinued, it did show some older content during its humble beginnings. In fact, I remember fondly revisiting Elvira, Mistress of the Dark on Chiller in the morning. Another film from the late 80s (1988, to be exact) was also shown on Chiller, The Unholy, with Ben Cross (oh, so serious) as a priest who miraculously survives a flight out a high rise in New Orleans when Peter Frechette, seemingly possessed by the demon Desiderious (in a favorite scene of mine, Trevor Howard, complete with whited eyes, telling us he's blind, which also gives him an eerie quality, goes on and on about this demon), is on the ledge, thought to be a jumper. Frechette later bleeds out of his face before he goes up in flames as if he combusts on the alter of a parish.
The final fifteen or so minutes is outre cheese. The grotesque rubber monsters that nail Cross and tie up his legs aren't as scary to me as just plain ugly. But, lemme tell you: Nicole Fortier sure ain't ugly, that's for sure. Fortier is a red head who spends her entire time (a bit over some ten minutes between two appearances) naked under a see-through attempting to seduce priests (including Cross late into the film). The first priest's death wasn't shown, later elaborated by Ned Beatty and William Russ to Cross. The second priest is shown trying to pray his way out of temptation but Fortier is just too alluring, too delicious. And a good ripped apart throat he gets for is inability to resist her. Fortier is full body nude later when confronting Cross, who is able to resist her alluring illusion, as the full-teeth, on-fours slimy beast (something out of an effects creature workshop) emerges with a wet tongue licking his cut leg (before sticking a piece of its flesh in his mouth...yuck!).
After watching Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) last night, and this film with its church breaking apart with a hole seemingly to hell opened up, I'm rather done with structures coming under attack. I'm also done with demons and priests combatting them. Especially when good actors like Burton and Cross must work their way through bad films about Satan and his EVVVVVVVEEEEEEELLLLL through the power of Christ, trying to conjure something sincere when the material just doesn't deserve anything beyond going-through-the-motions. Russ has a night club that deals in cult kink with him actually being used by Desiderious to draw in fresh souls to corrupt as Jill Carroll is introduced as Russ' desired plaything, a virgin herself supposedly, a victim of "daddy abuse" in her youth. Carroll is the object of temptation Desiderious utilizes in the hopes of tormenting Cross. Both desire each other, but Cross MUST BE STRONG. Russ hanging upside down like the Disciple Peter, with his intestines hanging out, eventually also going up in flames, accompanied by Frechette's blood-vomiting spontaneous combustion certainly has enough surreality to go with the bizarre conclusion as Cross nobly does his due diligence to get over the priest's bravery fighting against the forces of darkness, going blind as Trevor Howard did. Hal Holbrook's casting was a serious reason I had any giddiness initially to see this, and Beatty has work as a concerned detective who asks Holbrook to close the church so Cross can be kept from the same harm as previous priests. Holbrook is elusive and selective in the words used towards Cross, allowing him to remain somewhat distanced from us. Cross is a priest who is of a progressive nature in his spirituality, not embracing Howard's views of Satan, chiding Carroll later on for her passionate interest in Lucifer as identified in the Holy Bible. But when confronted with irrefutable evidence, he has work to do.
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