Exorcist 2 : The Heretic

Alternate titles : The Exorcist 2

Tagline : "It's four years later, what does she remember?"

Eager to cash in on the success of "The Exorcist", Warner Bros hired acclaimed Oscar winner John Boorman to direct a sequel starring Richard Burton and original cast members Linda Blair, Kitty Winn, and Max Von Sydow. They obviously thought they were onto a winner but, thanks to Boorman and his eccentric quirks, ended up with one of the WORST horror sequels in cinematic history.

Set some 4 years after the original, we discover young Regan (Linda Blair) was possessed by a demon named Pazuzu, and not the devil as we had previously been told. Presently living with her mother's friend Sharon (Kitty Winn) in California, she's still suffering from trauma and having to undergo extreme counselling.

Father Lamont (Richard Burton) is a Catholic priest investigating the events surrounding Father Merrin's death (only Father Merrin and not Father Karras?), who visits young Regan at the psychiatric centre she's attending. The film then rapidly goes downhill, as we are treated to a bizarre scene of Regan dragging her psychiatrist into her nigthmare visions with a hypnosis machine. Lamont somehow determining the building is on fire after looking at one of her paintings and there's something about locust plagues in Africa???

Discovering Regan is still possessed, the plot continues sliding into further nonsensical absurdity, in a bizzare climax as Lamont becomes possessed himself and heads to Regan's old house in Washington (why?). So Regan trys to exorcise him with the help of a hypnosis machine and the ghost of Father Merrin or something, before fending off a plague of locusts by swinging a piece of cord around her head (yes it IS as bad as it sounds).

A confusing mess of a movie, which was apparently supposed to be about the conflict of ancient beliefs with modern science and technology. But is little more than a disjointed mish-mash of different ideas that didn't amount to anything fathomable when put togethor on screen. I think John Boorman must have been smoking something peculiar when he came up with this, so if you loved the original you're best avoiding it, unless you are morbidly curious or a die hard completist and want to collect the whole series.

Overall Marks : 3/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Several well known actors turn up in minor roles. Ned Beatty (Deliverance) appears as a aeroplane pilot, Blaxploitation actor James Earl Jones turns up as an African scientist, and Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) stars as Regan's psychologist Dr Tuskin
• Linda Blair wasn't interested in doing a sequel, but eventually agreed as she liked the original draft of the script. Unfortunately, after being rewritten several times, it no longer bore any relation to the film she'd agreed to do. But couldn't back out as she'd already signed her contract, so had to appear.
• The flashback scene's showing the possessed Regan were filmed using a double, as Linda Blair refused to go through the make-up process again.
• Stanley Kubrick was originally offered the directing job but declined. John Boorman had previously turned down directing the original Exorcist, but eagerly accepted the chance to direct the sequel.
• John Boorman contracted a rare virus called San Joaquin Valley Fever during production, which he picked up from the dust in the African sets of the film and caused filming to be suspended for 5 weeks.
• According to William Freidkin, who directed the original, several Warner studio executives attended a sneak preview of "Exorcist 2" to see what the audience thought and ended up being chased out of the cinema and down the street by angry fans.
• The locust swarm at the end of the film, was actually styrofoam packing chips painted brown, which were thrown into a giant fan off camera.
• Author William Peter Blatty, who wrote the original, went to the premiere of this and was the first person to start laughing out loud at how bad it was.
• There are at least 3 different versions of the film that have been released to date. The original version was 117 minutes long, but after it's premiere Boorman decided to re-edit the film, which then ran at 110 minutes. This version, which was released theatrically in the US and UK, added a prologue recapping the events of the first film with Richard Burton narrating over a series of still images, used stock shots of the possessed Regan for the films climax (instead of new footage of Linda Blair's make-up double), cut out much of the Lamont's dialogue and had an alternate ending where Father Lamont (Burton) is killed (in the original cut he survived and ran off with Regan to help her to become a force of good). The version released in mainland Europe is said to be different again.
• The re-edited 100min version was for many years the only version available on home video and shown on TV. However, the original, longer, 117min version has since been released to DVD and shown on Sattelite TV.

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