Film Review: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

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The Exorcist entered the history books for being one of the first modern Hollywood blockbusters and one of the first modern horror films. As such, it was inevitable that it would spawn its own series of horror films, but none of the sequels, reboots and prequels repeated its success or even managed to achieve success at all. Ironically, the most successful of such efforts in strictly commercial terms, Exorcist II: The Heretic, a 1977 film directed by John Boorman, is now considered not only the worst among them, but also one of the worst films ever made.

The plot begins roughly four years after the events in the first film. Regan McNeill (played by Linda Blair), now seemingly free of demonic possession, is a happy and healthy teenager living in New York City, but nevertheless goes to therapy led by Dr. Gene Tuskin (played by Louise Fletcher), an expert specialising in dealing with repressed memories. In the meantime, Father Philip Lamont (played by Richard Burton), a Jesuit priest, is called by a Cardinal (played by Paul Henreid) to investigate the circumstances in which Father Lankester Merrin (played by Max von Sydow) died while performing an exorcism. Lamont soon learns that the Church considers exorcism to be at odds with its new, more progressive and enlightened views, and that Merrin might have been declared a heretic. In the meantime, he contacts Regan and, during the hypnotic sessions, learns about the ancient demon Pazuzu who had possessed Regan and whom Merrin had actually encountered as a young missionary in Africa. Lamont sees that the key to the mystery could be found here, in a boy who had the ability to fight locusts.

The Heretic was, during production, one of the most expensive and ambitious projects for Warner Bros. It quickly regained its huge budget, but its box office was also quickly extinguished by bad word-of-mouth and it was savaged by critics, thus developing an unenviable reputation that lasts to this day. Is that reputation justified? Not exactly, although The Heretic is still a very bad film. Most of its problems were caused by the decisions of William Peter Blatty, the author of the original novel, and William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, to stay out of the sequel. This allowed for a typically New Hollywood attempt to try something different, both in terms of general theme and style. While the original functioned as a straight and relatively simple horror film, the script for The Heretic, written by William Goodhart, tried to explore issues of good vs. evil, science vs. religion, and speculate about the next stages of human evolution, making it closer to the genre of science fiction. Unlike Friedkin’s cinéma vérité style that enhanced the horror by making it look like something from everyday life, John Boorman made the sequel as an ambitious “artsy” film full of surreal images, almost entirely shot on sound stages and accompanied by Ennio Morricone’s musical score that mixed liturgical and African motifs. Boorman’s approach at times looks interesting, but the film is wrecked by his apparent disregard for pace and clarity, making many scenes overlong – like the one in which characters use a “synchroniser”, a hypnosis-inducing device that apparently establishes a psychic bridge between its users. Some of the scenes don’t make much sense, like the one in which James Earl Jones plays the character of an African witch doctor who inexplicably gets transformed into an entomologist. The ending tries to compensate for a lack of proper scares with spectacle and features special effects that look rather dated by today’s standards.

The worst thing about The Heretic is the cast. Many of the original participants (like Ellen Burstyn, who had played Regan’s mother) refused to appear in the sequel. Kitty Winn, who played Regan’s nanny, had her role enhanced, but also poorly written, thus wasting talent, as in the case of Louise Fletcher as the scientist. Linda Blair was, by her own admission, drugged out of her mind for much of the production and, although she plays the role relatively well, there is little she can do with a misguided script that, among other things, forces her to perform a tap dancing number. The most disappointing part of the cast is Richard Burton, delivering another weak performance characteristic of that stage of his career and, often succumbing to overacting which, at times, gives the wrong impression that Lamont’s character might be possessed instead of Regan. The bad reputation of The Heretic led to its content being completely ignored in the 1990 sequel The Exorcist III and later prequels The Beginning and Dominion.

RATING: 3/10 (+)