The Devil is a Dumb-Ass



According to E! Online citing the New York Post,
producers of The Exorcist IV: The Beginning have ousted writer-director Paul Schrader for delivering a
goreless horror movie (Morgan Creek Productions have yet to announce a new director who'll shot the additional blood and guts). Novelist Caleb Carr (who
wrote a draft of TEIV:TB) told the Post: "[Schrader's cut] does have some good dramatic elements which can be rearranged with some good shooting into a very good movie." That's comes to no surprise here, considering Schrader, who was hired to replace the late John Frankenheimer, has made a career of shooting very good movies. His last picture, Auto-Focus, was a stylized look of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane. The sick
punchline of that flick was Crane's swinging ways wasn't glossy or slick; despite Schrader's shiny direction, he was a lonely black hole.


Schrader's restraint within exploitation gave that film needed depth (plus the real dirty pictures shown were blurred out in my DVD, thank you Blockbusters). It's that depth that runs through his other films, from Affliction to Blue Collar. It's that depth that Morgan
Creek wants exorcised.

And since when are Exorcist sequels any good? I don't have my dog-eared copy of the Golden Turkey Awards in front of me, but didn't Exorcist II: The Heretic place
as first runner-up to Plan 9 From Outer Space for the Worst Movie Ever? Maybe if Morgan Creek is lucky, original Exorcist novelist and Exorcist III director William Peter Blatty is available.

- Media Yenta's Brother