Exorcist II - The Heretic (1977)

This sequel to the Oscar-winning horror film based on the novel by William Peter Blatty was virtually laughed off the screen when it came out in 1977. It was an unintentionally hilarious mishmash and received such terrible reviews that director John Boorman yanked it out of theaters. He reedited it, cutting eight minutes in hopes of getting the story (written by William Goodhart) to the point of coherency, to no avail. The film remains a kind of reverse gold standard for sequels. It's still a ridiculously overacted, although at times visually haunting, movie. Richard Burton stars as a troubled priest (something of a specialty of his) who is brought in to follow up on the case of Linda Blair, who is institutionalized, still troubled by her encounter with the devil (who wouldn't be?). By the time they confront Satan's minion in the final struggle, you'll be rooting for evil to win. --Marshall Fine Amazon.com

Vastly Underrated Film

Okay, fine, this is not the best film you'll ever see. However, it did not deserve the critical bashing it received. The big reason why it was so hated was not so much the quality as it was the fact that it did not restrict itself within the confines of the first film; it went off on its own imaginitive, visually spell-binding way.

It was accused of being too fantastic, too far-fetched. However, when the source material involves demonic possession, why not go for broke. And that's what this film does. While the dialogue is slightly below par, Burton pulls off his role of Father Lamont with his usual Shakesperian elegance. His presence is second only to Director John Boorman's mesmerizing visual style. Add to that the beautifully chaotic, climactic showdown, and your reservations will become negligible.

August 14, 2008

What is that they say about sequels?

Exorcist 2 The Heretic in no way at all compares with the original. In fact, it's not even in the same league or sport. I don't consider it a total failure though. It does have its moments.

Linda Blair returns in her ever so sexiness glory. And man did she have a body back then. Anyways, she's suffering from nightmares that took place in the original. Also a priest is sent to investigate the death of Father Meran. The priest who conducted the first exorcism.

Right away where this sequel fails is that sense of terror that made the original a classic. Plus the drama and sense of dread. This one isn't scary at all and I find it boring at times. The back story of the demon starts out interesting enough but I just felt it wasn't executed properly. There's lots of things I find wrong with this movie and I don't want to turn this into a hate fest.

At first I thought this sequel was ok(3 stars had I reviewed it a year ago). But after seeing it a few more times it only gets worst. Thankfully the third sequel was pretty good and that was a much better follow up then this. That one is quite the opposite, it actually gets better to me. June 18, 2008

SO BAD IT'S SUPERB

must see TRUE CULT trash with an A-LIST budget , HORRIBLE writing , HILARIOUS dialog , SOME pretty good acting (LOUISE FLETCHER) , some GOOD cinamatography and LAUGHABLE effects . MULTIPLE viewings REWARD the adult readers of NATIONAL LAMPOON (the magazine) crowd . lots of mis-placed FUN . enjoY.....OH , and LINDA BLAIR had a GREAT BODY June 12, 2008

Exorcist II: Electric Boogaloo

The worst of the sequels and prequels (the film itself falls into both categories) but also, despite its reputation, the only one to show a profit on its theatrical release, Exorcist II: Electric Boogaloo - sorry, The Heretic - is one of those films you can make a case for being not THAT bad. Just not a very convincing one. It's a hugely ambitious film with over-reaching ideas married to a typically bad Rospo Pallenberg script filled with lumbering construction and crudely on-the-nose direlogue that typifies everything that's so painfully wrong about John Boorman at his self-indulgent worst. Originally intended as a more conventional sequel to be directed by Rosemary's Baby editor Sam O'Steen, with only Linda Blair, Von Sydow, Kitty Winn and make-up man Dick Smith returning from the original (though Lee J. Cobb was scheduled to return before dying), the studio instead decided to hire a more experienced name director who made no secret of his hatred for the original, giving him almost complete creative control and taking the material on a huge leap into the esoteric from which it never recovered.

The hook of a priest investigating the original exorcism to save Father Merrin's reputation amid rumors of heresy was retained from William Goodhart's heavily rewritten script (amazingly he lobbied for, and won, sole writing credit), but instead of projectile vomiting and genital self-mutilation-by-crucifix it opts for a more metaphysical plot. Where the character of Merrin in the novel was inspired by the controversial Catholic philosopher and palaeontologist Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the script embraced his theories of a spiritual and mental evolution that would ultimately lead to man developing a universal consciousness and becoming one with God. This being a metaphysical thriller, the film's premise is that the Devil is sending the demon Pazuzu to seek out and possess healers (or "good locusts") to prevent that happening while the inherently corrupt Catholic Church is too busy rationalizing evil to acknowledge its existence, let alone fight it. Unfortunately, any potential that premise might have had is drowned in a sea of inanity in a film bad enough for even Jon Voight to drop out of after reading the script (Boorman's favored replacement, Christopher Walken, was vetoed by Warners' studio management, whose intense dislike of the actor would finally pay dividends when they dropped out of Heaven's Gate when Michael Cimino refused to replace him!).

What's often so bizarre about the result is that every horrendous misstep it takes has a perfectly valid idea behind it that SOUNDED perfectly reasonable when Boorman explained it but which became laughable the moment it hit the screen. Where Friedkin set out to achieve reality, Boorman set out to distort it, filming the majority of the exteriors on soundstages (even the house on Prospect Street was recreated at Burbank) that make no real attempt to hide the fact that they're just plywood and hardboard to give it an air of unreality. Sets were designed to resemble the central nervous system and all blues and greens were banished from the film. The intention was to create a dreamlike texture and add a subtext of impending ecological disaster, but the result is a perfect illustration of the void between film theory and reality. The overwhelming impression of this bizarre spiritual odyssey into the director's psyche is car crash cinema at its most WTF. As Richard Burton says - or rather spits as if on the brink of an asthmatic attack - it's horrible, utterly horrible... and fascinating.

It's hard to pick the most absurd moment in a film increasingly filled with them, be it James Earl Jones' witch doctor dressed as a giant locust `spitting a leopard,' the king of the evil spirits of the air being portrayed as what looks like a really big moth, a crass jumpcut from a burning South American faith healer to Linda Blair rehearsing her tap dancing (according to Boorman intended to symbolize her spirit taking flight: no, really) or a mind-linking synchronized hypnosis device that's just a headband, lightbulb and detonator box contraption that Ed Wood might be proud of. Even the look of the film is horrendously dated (with its `now' fashions and swarms of locusts descending on Washington, it would make an ideal double-bill with The Swarm). And oh, that dialogue: "I've flown this route before. It was on the wings of a demon," "If Pazuzu comes for you I will spit a leopard," "You've got to fight that demon that's inside her! It's preventing her from reaching full spiritual power!" "I was face to face with the Evil that's inside her. Your machine has proved scientifically that there's an ancient demon locked within her!" and the immortal "I was possessed by a demon. Oh, but it's okay, he's gone now!" Even by Rospo (Vercingetorix/Druids) Pallenberg's standards, this is wonderfully woeful drivel that proves him to be screenwriting's answer to Merton of the Movies (the fictional inept dramatic overactor who inadvertently became a comedy sensation).

The performances veer from the theatrical to the lost-the-will-to-live bad. Throwing away the credibility he had regained with Equus on Broadway for a big payday, you can tell with little effort which scenes were shot when Richard Burton was hung over, sober or drunk (just look at the way he empties that communion chalice); a somnambulistic Louise Fletcher gives a particularly pained performance as a psychiatrist, looking for all the world like she'd rather be back in the cuckoo's nest as she can see her career slipping away one line at a time; Kitty Winn looks like she hasn't a clue what she's doing there but she'll try to find a character in there somewhere if it kills her; Max Von Sydow has obviously seen the writing on the wall and is just reading the lines while he thinks of what he'll buy with the check; while Linda Blair, spending much of the film looking for all the world like a chipper cartoon hamster, tap-dancing like a union boss in cement shoes and with a completely unconvincing double playing her possessed self, waits until the grand finale to hit rock bottom when she depicts the seductive nature of evil by, er, wrinkling her nose a la Bewitched and looking like a cute likkle bunny wabbit. Only Ned Beatty comes out of it with something approaching his dignity intact, but then he's only in it for a couple of minutes and clearly thinks the whole thing's too mad to take seriously. You can also spot the ill-fated Dana Plato as an autistic child and an even younger Joey Lauren Adams making her debut as Louise Fletcher's daughter along the way.

It's not all bad. Some of the in-camera special effects and early steadicam work are interesting, with a particularly attractive glass matte shot of a golden city, and Ennio Morricone's occasionally disco-driven score that alternates with more lyrical and plain bizarre cues is enjoyable even if it does sound like it would be more at home in a Dario Argento giallo. Now Dario Argento's Exorcist II - in 1977, THAT could have really been something!

Curiously the DVD of the original theatrical version comes with an alternate opening from the maybe-we-can-fix-it? re-edited version that dropped 15 minutes of footage and most of Paul Henreid's part but not the infamous truncated alternate ending with Burton dying. April 21, 2008

disaster

I nearly fell asleep watching the second Exorcist movie. It's not really a bad movie, but compared to the original, it falls short in many areas, such as truly featuring a scary atmosphere. In the first movie you were terrified to walk upstairs after the film was over for fear something truly evil and frightening was lurking around the corner of your upstairs hallway. In this movie, I felt almost nothing at all.

It's a shame really- in the first movie, so much effort was involved in throwing in an unbelievable amount of devastating fears that the second one just feels really inferior in comparison. Perhaps the ultimate example of a sequel not living up to the original. The only scene that shocked me was when the preacher walked into the bedroom where all the evil activity happened in the original, and the only thing in the room was a giant horsefly buzzing on the ceiling. That's pretty creepy right there. That's about it though.

Yes it's true some of the horror segments border towards hilarious. That's a bad sign. If the Exorcist was a rock band, it'd be Iron Butterfly. March 16, 2008

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