Movies - Exorcist II: The Heretic

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	Movies - Exorcist II: The Heretic

Exorcist II: The Heretic is a 1977 American horror film and the sequel to The Exorcist
. It was directed by John Boorman who also co-wrote the screenplay with William Goodhart from an original story by Rospo Pallenberg. The author of the original, William Peter Blatty was not involved in the production, and received credit only for creation of the characters.

Plot summary

Richard Burton stars as exorcist Father Philip Lamont in John Boorman's sequel to The Exorcist
. The cleric, who is struggling with his faith, is assigned by the Archbishop investigate the death of Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow), who was killed in the course of exorcising the Assyrian demon Pazuzu from Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair). Although now seemingly normal, Regan continues to be monitored at a psychiatric institute by Dr. Jean Tuskin (Louise Fletcher). In an attempt to plumb her memories of exorcism, Dr. Tuskin has hypnotized the girl, to whom she is linked by a "synchronizer" and is so overcome by "witnessing" Regan's memory of the event that Lamont has to rescue her. After a tour of the Georgetown house where the exorcism took place, Lamont returns to be coupled with Regan by synchronizer. The priest is spirited to the past by Pazuzu to observe Father Merrin exorcising a young boy, Kokumo (Joey Green), in Africa. Learning that the boy developed special powers to fight Pazuzu, who appears as a swarm of locusts, Lamont journeys to Africa, defying his superior, to seek help from the adult Kokumo (James Earl Jones).

Production notes

Exorcist II: The Heretic
, being the much-anticipated sequel to one of the most financially successful films in Hollywood history, was the most expensive film produced by Warner Bros. at the time. It ended up becoming one of the most notorious commercial failures ever released. Because reports indicated that the film inspired audience laughter at its premiere, prints were hastily pulled from release and quickly recut by Boorman in an attempt to make the film's narrative more comprehensible. The revised version fared no better (some critics commented that Boorman's restructuring made the film even more incoherent) and was the only version of the film available for many years, until the release on videocassette of the original cut in the early 1990's.

Response

While most reviewers were extremely unkind to the film, Pauline Kael greatly preferred Boorman's sequel to the original, writing in her review in The New Yorker that Exorcist II "had more visual magic than a dozen movies."

In recent years, Exorcist II has developed a cult following; fans of the film point to the movie's often stunning cinematography (by acclaimed cinematographer William A. Fraker), the pounding, eerie musical score by Ennio Morricone, and Boorman's customarily stylish direction as major attributes. The film's critical reputation has also grown over the years. Kim Newman wrote in Nightmare Movies (1988) that "it doesn't work in all sorts of ways ... However, like Ennio Morricone's mix of tribal and liturgical music, it does manage to be very interesting." Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese asserts, "The picture asks: Does great goodness bring upon itself great evil? This goes back to the Book of Job; it's God testing the good. In this sense, Regan (Linda Blair) is a modern-day saint -- like Ingrid Bergman in Europa '51
, and, in a way, like Charlie in Mean Streets
. I like the first Exorcist, because of the Catholic guilt I have, and because it scared the hell out of me; but The Heretic surpasses it. Maybe Boorman failed to execute the material, but the movie still deserved better than it got."

The film reportedly greatly damaged Blair's career, who went from the enviable position of one of Hollywood's hottest young actresses to being relegated to a future in low-budget exploitation films. Boorman recovered from the film's financial failure with the successful Excalibur
a few years later, and the Exorcist series would eventually get a more conventional, audience-friendly sequel in 1990's The Exorcist III
, adapted by William Peter Blatty from his own novel Legion. Blatty's film serves as the "true" sequel to the original, completely ignoring the events of Boorman's film, much as the general public had a few years before.

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