Samuel L. Jackson Had An Early Role In An Overlooked Horror Sequel

Samuel L. Jackson is not just one of the most prolific actors around, but he's also one of the most beloved. Before Dwayne Johnson tried to turn himself into "franchise viagra," Jackson was actually helping build properties from the ground up, being a part of so many that he's become the highest-grossing actor of all time. His cameo as Nick Fury in "Iron Man" helped set the Marvel Cinematic Universe's decade-long pop cultural domination in motion, and it was all because Marvel Comics used his face without permission. Of course, Jackson is more than a mere blockbuster machine, having also starred in many acclaimed lower-budget, director-driven films (ranging from "Pulp Fiction" to "Do the Right Thing").

Part of Jackson's appeal is that he shows up everywhere. He's a working actor unafraid to offset his big-budget turns and prestige roles with fun popcorn movies like "Snakes on a Plane" or the "xXx" films — not to mention his love of anime. (He's the voice of Afro Samurai.) Above all else, Jackson is man who loves movies and also loves campaigns for silly "what ifs" as much as fans do, like when he insists Mace Windu survived his fall from a sky-scraping building in "Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith" and tells anyone at Lucasfilm who will listen to him.

This is to say, it's never that surprising to find out that Jackson was in a movie. Really, if something was filmed with a camera, has a director, and can actually be considered a film, chances are he acted in it. Even earlier in his career, Jackson managed to pop up in one of the most overlooked horror sequels around: "The Exorcist III."

After the monumental, game-changing success of the original "Exorcist" movie (a film so popular it actually spawned a bizarre tourist attraction in the middle of a real-life war), a sequel made perfect sense. Unfortunately, "Exorcist II: The Heretic" was a catastrophe. Far from a worthy follow-up to director William Friedkin and "Exorcist" novelist William Peter Blatty's original horror classic, the film proved to be a messy, formulaic follow-up about the demon Pazuzu just coming back to terrorize a slightly older Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) for no particular reason. In fact, the movie's reception was so bad it ultimately took 13 years for another sequel to make its way off the ground. 

By that point, however, Blatty had published "Legion," a horror novel that begun as the script for a movie he'd hoped to make with Friedkin. In the end, the film version of "Legion" (which Blatty both wrote and directed) was instead re-purposed as the third chapter in the "Exorcist" movie series, with Blatty being forced to include elements from "The Exorcist," add an exorcism scene, and retitle the whole thing "The Exorcist III" (something he begged the film's studio backers not to do). Yet, despite all that, it's still rather good taken on its own and benefitted greatly from Blatty being the one to call the shots.

This, at last, brings us to Jackson's brief cameo, which takes place during a bizarre sequence in which George C. Scott's Lieutenant William F. Kinderman has a very strange dream. In it, he sees a friend of his, a priest, being dealt tarot cards by none other than the Angel of Death (who's played by Patrick Ewing — yes, as in the NBA legend). As if that cameo wasn't weird and borderline immersion-breaking enough, the scene also features appearances by Tommy Dorsey and even Fabio as an angel.

Jackson, meanwhile, can be seen playing the Dream Blind Man, who's shown sitting next to a radio as he and another spirit try to communicate with the living. "The living are deaf!" Jackson's character can be heard saying.

"The Exorcist III" trades the metaphysical silliness of "The Heretic" in for a murder mystery involving the occult, with a major focus on dialogue (that and, again, a shoehorned exorcism scene near the end). The story follows Kinderman, a detective with a peculiar love for movies, as he investigates a string of grim murders in and around Georgestown — murders that bring the nasty handiwork of a deceased serial killer to mind. However, as the investigation goes on, Kinderman starts to wonder if the devil himself is involved in these killings.

What you end up with is a slow-burn of a horror movie that feels like a precursor to the procedural horrors of David Fincher's "Seven." The film also manages to bring in side characters from the original "Exorcist" in a way that avoids feeling too gimmick-y and instead comes across as a natural expansion of this universe. Not to mention, it boasts what is absolutely one of the scariest jump scares in all of cinema.

Brad Dourif is, unsurprisingly, great as the Gemini Killer at the heart of the film's murder mystery, blurring the line between humanity and supernatural horror in thrilling and surprising ways. Because of Blatty's creative differences with the film's producers, though, the ending is heavily contested by fans (although there is an alternate cut of the movie that features some massive changes).