Every Friday during Lent, in Losing My Religion, we’ll be looking at a different movie from a Catholic (or at least, Catholic-raised) director, and how their religious upbringing influenced the film in question. Each movie has at its core that most Catholic of all sentiments: heaping loads of internalized guilt. For this third Friday of Lent, we’re looking into the cult favorite and slow-burn horror film from William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist III. We’re going with the theatrical cut because it’s more widely available on streaming, as of this writing.

Lt. Bill Kinderman (George C. Scott) heads the homicide division in Georgetown, Virginia. The same Georgetown, Virginia where the original The Exorcist took place 15 years earlier. It’s also where his friend Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) died from a fall down a long flight of concrete steps, following an exorcism attempt.

The Exorcist III opens on the anniversary of Karras’s death, and Kinderman’s guilt over his lost friend’s death hangs over the proceedings quite heavily. Kinderman does have one thing keeping him going, though—his friendship with Father Dyer (Ed Flanders), a mutual acquaintance through Father Damien, whom also shares in his grief. Every year, they attempt to cheer each other up by meeting for a movie at a local theater. Neither man is made to feel better, save for the feeling that at least they tried to help the other.

The desire to help others who you know are in pain is a strong point of guilt for Catholics. Often, those in the faith catch themselves saying, “I wish I could’ve done more to help.” when something goes wrong. Kinderman isn’t among the religious—he spends quite a bit of time arguing with Dyer about the existence of a loving, Christian God over topics such as suffering, death, disease, and murder, with which Kinderman himself is quite familiar. Being a homicide detective, he’s seen the absolute worst which humanity can do to one another. There’s no denying it’s gotten to him in his long career.