Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) hooks up to the synchronizer as Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton ) looks on in the abysmal Exorcist II: The Heretic.

Movie rating: 1/10

Painful. Incomprehensible. Baffling. What were they thinking when they made this garbage? I’d like to preface this review by noting that I don’t hand out 1/10 ratings lightly. The internet thrives on extreme reactions, where things are always the best or the worst ever. Wikipedia includes Exorcist II: The Heretic on its list of films considered the worst ever made. Surely that was hyperbole, I thought. Well, after seeing the film, I have to say The Heretic makes a strong case for its inclusion on that list.

William Friedkin’s The Exorcist is a modern classic and one of the greatest horror films ever made. It’s certainly one of my favourite horror movies, ranking right up there with The Shining and John Carpenter’s The Thing. Given that context, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a massive dive in quality between films in a series. Nothing about Exorcist II works. There are long portions when I wondered aloud what I was watching, or struggled to figure out what the filmmakers were trying to achieve.

The basic premise is sound enough. The sequel revolves around Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), subject of the titular exorcism in the first film who is now 16 years old. The movie’s tagline sums up its jumping-off point: “It’s four years later… What does she remember?” Priest Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) is assigned by a cardinal (Paul Henreid) to investigate the death of Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow) during the climax of the last film. It’s as good an idea as any for an Exorcist sequel—which, let’s be clear right off the bat, was totally unnecessary and only produced because the first film was such a massive box office hit.

Unfortunately, the film goes off the rails quickly. An early warning sign is the use of a “synchronizer”, a device that helps people synchronize their brainwaves. It’s a goofy idea, but this could have been overlooked if the rest of the film was better. What we get instead is a lot of incoherent nonsense about Africa, locusts, and psychic powers.

Part of the brilliance of the first Exorcist was how methodically it laid the foundations for its memorable climax by grounding the film in reality. Disturbed by Regan’s bizarre behaviour, mother Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn, noticeably missing in The Heretic) takes her daughter to doctors in every field who can detect nothing medically wrong with the girl and are unable to offer any solutions. Chris’s turn to a priest to perform an exorcism is an act of desperation by a mother who no longer has any other options. In the modern secular age, the idea of possession by demons is seen as an absurdity even by the Roman Catholic Church depicted in this series. Yet most horror films revolve around the supernatural. The Exorcist brilliantly went through every natural, scientific explanation for Regan’s behaviour until only a supernatural explanation remained. Even so, the viewer is never totally sure if Regan was actually possessed by a demon or suffering from some extreme form of mental illness.

The Heretic throws all that out the window. Instead, demons are just real and Regan was possessed by one. This one even has a name, Pazuzu. Apparently that was also the same demon in the original according to Exorcist canon, though Friedkin wisely never had characters say that out loud. Regan could just as easily have been possessed by Satan himself—or again, perhaps there was no demon at all. The sequel has none of that artful ambiguity.

In any case, the execution is so poor that it just leaves the viewer angry. Nothing here provides any real insight into the events of The Exorcist, or at least nothing that improves upon the material. Attempts to expand the lore are ridiculous and fail miserably. Pazuzu here seems to take the form of a swarm of locusts, which is odd because that was never depicted in the first film. There’s so much attention on locusts where it’s not even really clear what director John Boorman is trying to say. Lamont talks about a “good locust”, but there appears to be no payoff to any of that.

Characters act illogically or inexplicably throughout. Why does Regan’s guardian Sharon Spencer (Kitty Winn) behave the way she does in the climax? Why is Father Lamont so determined to travel to Africa to find Kokumo (played as an adult by James Earl Jones) when his assignment was to investigate the circumstances of Merrin’s death, which had no connection to Kokumo? Characters go to Washington, D.C. at various points to the site of the exorcism in the first film, but their reasons for doing so are unclear. At one point Pazuzu tempts Lamont by offering him unlimited power. His reaction makes no sense. Characters have no meaningful arcs. Most of what happens onscreen is inscrutable or downright laughable. Why is there a gap in the railing when Regan is walking on the roof of her building? None of this is remotely scary, the most basic task of any horror film.

It’s sad when talented people produce such dreck. Director John Boorman has made good films, such as Hell in the Pacific and Deliverance. There are strong actors here such as Burton, von Sydow, Jones, and Louise Fletcher, who do what they can with what they’re given. You could argue that the film was doomed from the start because the entire notion of an Exorcist sequel was misguided (though I’ve heard decent things about The Exorcist III, so I’ll have to reserve judgement until I see that). The first film told a self-contained story and anything further would just spoil its mystery and ambiguity. But much of the blame surely has to go to screenwriter William Goodhart, because there’s only so much anyone can do with a horrible script.

Nothing about this film adds to The Exorcist. Like the worst sequels, it makes the original film worse if you take it seriously, which luckily is impossible to do because the film is so bad. That’s the kindest thing I can say about this abomination. It’s not even entertainingly bad, just a waste of everyone’s time.