(1990)
Dir - William Peter Blatty
Overall: GOOD
It is a shame really that William Peter Blatty's directional adaptation of his own novel Legion only teases as being great, since this is one of the worst offenders of studio interference hampering the end product and reducing its effectiveness. Blatty scored a chance to get behind the lens after original Exorcist filmmaker William Friedkin dropped out, but once everything was shot and finished, production company Morgan Creek threw another four million dollars at him and insisted he completely re-shoot the ending to include an actual exorcism. To do this, an entirely unnecessary character was added and the final priest vs demon showdown springs up out of nowhere and resembles something more out of a schlocky action movie than anything else. It is a jarring finale, but The Exorcist III works almost perfectly up until that point. George C. Scott takes things seriously and is very George C. Scotty, but there is not a weak performance to be found anywhere. Blatty concocts a number of very tense sequences with long, music-less takes and lots of dialog-heavy monologues that are often creepy without going overboard. There is the occasional indulgence in genre cliches here or there, but Blatty uses them more as sprinklings as opposed to entirely relying on them. It is as good of a squeal to an iconic horror movie as can be made, even with its forced-upon flaws in place.
(1995)
Dir - Tobe Hooper
Overall: WOOF
By the mid-nineties, Tobe Hooper had been delivering dud after dude for over a decade and even after his team-up with John Carpenter in Body Bags the previous year, he still managed to make one of the most if not the most infamous, abysmal entry of his career with The Mangler. Based off of one of the sillier Stephen King writings that really had no business being adapted to the screen in the first place, The Mangler fleshes out its running time and overstays its welcome in doing so with a barrage of moronic plot details and a story that only gets stupider as it goes on. Since the basic premise is "laundry machine is possessed by a demon or something" to begin with, the battle is all uphill with no winners. Every performance is so exaggerated and every line of dialog is so incredibly embarrassing. Those are the easier things in the movie to laugh yes, but Hooper is sadly lost trying to make any of it riveting even in a trainwreck capacity. Because the story is so vacant, things only escalate because the movie needs to end at some point and so many laughable revelations occur that you would think the film was missing scenes if not for the fact that it is crystal clear from the opening few minutes that indeed nothing clever was ever going to happen. You would like to believe that everyone involved knew they were making a piece of shit, but it does not come off as self-aware as it needed to and instead it easily could be the worst Stephen King adaptation there ever was.
(1998)
Dir - Stephen Sommers
Overall: MEH
Easily forgettable and downright criminally formulaic, Stephen Sommers' Deep Rising is the type of stupid, loud giant monster movie that does everything in its power to re-invent no rules whatsoever. Very akin to the Mummy series which Sommers would dive into next, the director is mostly interested in getting as many quips and implausible action movie moments out of his script as possible since there is nothing here even a five year old would be scared of. Water action movies are inherently moronic anyway and the structure of a bunch of unlikable bros with giant guns, a loveable dork, a wise-cracking hero, a love interest, and a villain for some reason besides the giant sea creature all scrambling to escape a doomed vessel in the middle of the ocean hits every beat it is supposed to. You could say that the film is not even trying, but that is the thing; it IS trying very hard to adhere to everything that is expected of it. It is necessary to completely turn one's brain off when watching a splashy, explody dumb-fest like Deep Rising and if the viewer is capable of such a thing, rewarded they shall be. The film is not insulting in anyway, but just pointless for anyone who has better things to do with their time.
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