Another 3rd act ruined by the studio

Some slight disagreements here. Agreed that Morgan Creek Studios should have more or less left Blatty's version alone. But they didn't, and Blatty dealt with it as best he could under the circumstances. Areas of disagreement:

1. It was not the studio that added the character of Fr. Paul Morning to the script. The studio only demanded that Blatty rewrite it to include an exorcism. Morning was entirely his own creation. And a fine creation it was.

2. For instance, consider Blatty's poetic, wordless introduction of Morning. First, the camera shows the Georgetown campus area where Morning is living. This immediately returns us to the Friedkin film, with Dahlgren Chapel (in front of which Karras and Kinderman strolled, talking murder and movies); the beautiful fountain in front of the chapel; and, viewed through Morning's open window, the residence where Karras was living and where Kinderman parted company with him quipping the "you look like Sal Mineo" joke. Blatty's camera work deftly places us back in "Exorcist territory" in just two simple shots.

3. The camera lingers briefly on the simple, pious objects in Morning's room which indicate his own simplicity and piety - an immaculately kept sink, a small figurine of the angel vanquishing evil; a Rosary on a desk; a photo of what is probably an infant Morning with his parents; an injured bird on the window sill that Morning has been helping to mend.

4. The bird's sudden silence lures the Breviary-meditating Morning to the window. Blatty's camera - as did Friedkin's when following Merrin from behind as he approached the one-eyed blacksmith - also follows Morning's shadow from behind as it reveals a wall plaque reading, What We Give To The Poor Is What We Take With Us When We Die - a reference to the original novel, where Karras carries in his wallet a card featuring the identical words. All of this has unfolded in silence, except for the birdsong, without any utterances from Morning.

5. Morning finds that the bird has suddenly died. No sooner does he notice this, when his crucifix falls off the wall "by itself". Frowning, Morning approaches the crucifix, only to find it mysteriously bleeding. The the sky darkens, the room is plunged into shadow, and "the demon wind" - so familiar from the Friedkin film - begins to howl through the room. Like Merrin, Morning stands alone, facing this new surge of the demonic, courageous but alone. Pure Blatty; pure Exorcist.

6. Later, Morning prays alone in a chapel, the prayer that "men of violence have sought my life..." Morning simply repeats the grim phrase..."My life..." and we realize that he is certain that he, like Merrin, "will soon face an ancient enemy". And the next time we see him, he enters the Violent Psychopath ward, to do just that.

7. Blatty's solution to the studio-demanded exorcism was, for many, much too over the top, but it needs to be borne in mind that his style of presentation is completely different from Friekin's. Friedkin had an entire film to create demonic manifestations and a violent climax in which they were finally put to an end. Not so Blatty, who had to do a hurried rewrite and create his own exorcism scene - and he only had, as you said, about five minutes to do so.

Blatty's style was not Friedkin's gritty, documentary "take". Instead, Blatty focused on the psycho-spiritual-symbolic aspects, which is why he has lightning bolts chew up Cell Eleven's floor, a symbolic crucified Karras surrounded by tormenting demons rising up through the ruined floor, Morning, and then Kinderman, "crucified" repectively to the ceiling and the wall, venomous serpents, and hell-fire.

Taken literally, it seems ridiculous; taken metaphorically but as real (real to Morning and Kinderman) visualizations of the demonic and of Karras' torture, they work adequately. I think that most audiences - expecting a "real-world" set of physical effects - missed this allegorical-symbolic-visionary aspect and therefore found the exorcism not only unnecessary, but embarrassingly garish. However, the opposite is true when consideration is given to the fact that after Karras, with Morning's and Kinderman's assistance, throws off the vengeful demon and the Gemini, Cell Eleven immediately returns to normal: all the snakes, broken concrete, and pyrotechnics were real, but mental, phenomena, not physical events - which underscores their metaphoric/symbolic truth, if not their actual, "external world" factuality.

So: yes, the film should not have included Morning and the exorcism.

Fact: it does so because the studio demanded it.

Fact: Blatty rewrote the script because he was so instructed/coerced, but I, for one, applaud his imagination in working it out on screen, and on his creation of a wonderful new exorcist-figure in the person of Fr. Paul Morning, who is a kind of "silent knight of the Cross" who gladly sacrifices his life ("My life...") for Damien Karras.

Thus Karras, the hero and rescuer of the first film, has now become the object of rescue, and Morning and Kinderman become his rescuers. To me, that schema - although an unnecessary result of an unfair studio demand - falls well within the parameters of Blatty's already well-established "demon possession and redemptive suffering" narrative.