The Ninth Configuration

In the Pacific Northwest of America, a Gothic castle (shipped over from Germany by an eccentric businessman) is being used to house shell-shocked veterans of the Vietnam war.  Halfway between an institution and a boot camp, the inmates are not reacting well to the regime and spend their time destroying molecules (to send a message to the other molecules) adapting Shakespeare for dogs ("Can I cast a Great Dane as Hamlet?") and stealing the head psychiatrist's trousers.

That is until the arrival of Dr. Hudson Kane (Stacey Keach) a psychiatrist with issues of his own, who instantly removes all the military style restrictions and engages the inmates on their own terms.

INMATE:  I want my Rorshach test!
KANE:  Okay.  What do you see?
INMATE:  I see Franz Kafka on a tricycle.
KANE:  Correct.
INMATE:  You're full of it!
KANE:  No, really.  I got Kafka too.

Kane decides that these men are not insane.  They are pretending to be insane in order to avoid losing their sanity.  And so he prescribes allowing them to go as bonkers as they like.  This leads to a deepening relationship with ex-astronaut Billy Cuttshaw who refused to be sent to the moon on the grounds that it would be "rude", "naughty", "inappropriate" and "bad for his complexion".  The two men clash on philosophy.  Kane maintains that the presence of good in the world proves that there is a god.  Cuttshaw insists that god is more likely a giant, uncaring cosmic foot.  

KANE:  But you believe in the devil!
CUTTSHAW: That's cause the pr1ck does great commercials!

I'm not sure what to make of this film.  It has some funny lines but tends to tip too much towards "zany" (by which I mean "shouty and annoying").  The discussions between Kane & Cuttshaw which are at the centre of the film are interesting, but there's a bit of  a cop-out conclusion.  The Ninth Configuration was written & directed by William Peter Blatty and as well as having some other Exorcis-ors in it (Jason Miller, Ed Flanders) it covers similar ground philosophically.  In fact, Blatty once said this was the real sequel to The Exorcist (Cuttshaw is supposedly the same astronaut that Regan warns "You're going to die up there.")

Beloved by critics who say it's "an hilarious cross between One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and The Marx Brothers", I was more than a bit disappointed.  To me, it feels like a film that bit off more than it could chew, often frustrating in that it stops dead in its tracks just when it looks like it might be going somewhere.  Also, Stacey Keach gives an almost blank performance as Kane.   It's an interesting watch, but I can see why this movie has been consigned to cult city.  6/10

"Given that we exist in a world of of evil, death, horror and decay, why do we view these things as unnatural?  Unless we were meant for somewhere else."