Brad Dourif

  • Spontaneous Combustion (1990)

    Spontaneous Combustion (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, December 2021) It’s a shame that the inherent goofiness of Spontaneous Combustion doesn’t translate into much more than an average horror film, especially considering that it’s written and directed by Tobe Hooper — it clearly announces the bad later half of Hooper’s career, where the spark of his earlier films was blown out and never came back. You can actually see some of that creativity at work early in this film — the prologue sets up a love story between two test subjects that logically leads to a very special child, but the film loses steam from that point, becoming nothing more than an incoherent blend of plot points that, taken together, end up making a very dull film. (Comparisons to Firestarter are obvious and not complimentary to Hooper’s film.) Brad Dourif doesn’t do much in the lead, and the result ends up being a strong disappointment considering the elements involved. Spontaneous Combustion may be worth a look if you’re trying to piece together how Hooper’s career degenerated over time, but there isn’t a lot there for sheer entertainment.

  • The Exorcist III: Legion (1990)

    The Exorcist III: Legion (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2021) The good news is that The Exorcist III: Legion is quite a bit better than its ridiculous predecessor… but that’s not saying much considering that The Exorcist II is widely hailed as one of the worst sequels of all time (certainly one of the sharpest quality drop-offs between original and follow-up). This one, written and directed by William Peter Blatty (who wrote the screenplay for the first film, based on his own novel), does get closer to the spirit of the original by having a good-versus-evil face-off that often plays in conversation, tying it with Catholic mythology and a contemporary horror such as a serial killer with demonic affiliations. The Exorcist III does turn weird very quickly, though, with plenty of oddball moments that are nonetheless constrained into an overall vision rather than just a grab bag of strange stuff. George C. Scott (as Good) and Brad Dourif (as Evil) are somewhat fun to watch as they respectively try to outdo each other, but the film is perhaps a bit too sedate to accommodate such moments without creaking. Despite some scenes that work more through suggestion than schlock, the film is curiously talky and unevenly interesting. Furthermore, well-documented studio interference forced the inclusion of a climactic exorcism scene (ensuring that the studio got what it paid for as an entry in the series) despite Blatty’s initial intentions—and while the shift in tone is noticeable, I’m not convinced it necessarily made the film any worse. Still, by avoiding the unexplainable looniness of its predecessor, The Exorcist III: Legion merely settled for being an ambitious but underwhelming horror film—which is still quite a bit better than many other examples of the genre.