A saucy demon, Dourif howls and fumes and foams at the mouth. All growls and girth, Scott heaves himself into his performance with the delicacy of a shark who has spotted a tuna. But what's an old ham to do when forced to talk Shakespeare with the cops down at the station. Blatty has stuffed Scott's jowls with great, gaseous wads of dialogue and words of literary portentousness. But then again, Blatty has his points to make.
Evil is rampant in the land and audiences are numb to violence.
In this fundamentalist look at good and evil, we learn nothing new. The Devil makes us do what we do. And the heavenly hosts, if we can survive the tests, sometimes lend the likes of cops and doctors a helping hand. There's a dream sequence, inserted video-style, that takes place in Heaven's waiting room, where Purgatory's answer to the Tommy Dorsey Band is entertaining lost souls with hot dance tunes. In Heaven, you can wait.