Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

Ok, no more messing around. I had my fun for Spooky Season this month, we covered a low budget horror movie, a silly old horror movie and a Disney err... well, Halloween themed movie now it's time for Spooky Season main event. I'm even watching this on All Hallows Eve itself in order to maximize the spookiness! Exorcist II: The Heretic. The 1977 sequel to the original Exorcist movie and considered to be potentially one of the worst sequels of all time. If not the worst then at least the first sequel movie to be labelled as one of the worst movies of the year. In the subsequent 3rd sequel from the Exorcist franchise the events of the movie are completely ignored and totally retconned from the timeline such was the polarising nature of this movie.

I actually watched The Exorcist first before going into this, a movie I hadn't seen before, just so I could be best placed to judge it on whether or not it really is a terrible sequel and I'm not going to do a whole post about it but for the most part I thought it was good. Just good. I found it was a bit slow to get started and there was a few times I wasn't quite sure what was going on and I struggled with some of the dialogue as well at times, it was sometimes a bit hard to follow. But otherwise the cinematography was excellent, and it did well to build and develop the plot to build to the crescendo in, literally, the last 5 minutes. Well portrayed by everybody involved. I enjoyed it. An all round good film. But just good.

Which brings us on then to the 2nd movie which from what I can tell only really retains 2 of the characters from the first movie: Regan MacNeil and Father Merrin, and Father Merrin *spoilers* dies in the first movie so fuck knows how they are going to work him into the script for this movie. Guess I gotta watch it to find out. And it's worth mentioning that neither Writer/Producer nor Director of the first movie are in any way involved in the sequel. But uh yeah, kind of looking forward to this one, kind of not. Let's see how it goes.

Set 4 years after the events of the first movie, Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) is now under Psychiatric care in an institution and is seeing a Doctor at the behest of her Mother in order to help her deal with the trauma she suffered whilst possessed, although Regan claims to remember nothing about the events and insists she feels fine. Meanwhile Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) is tasked with investigating the death of Father Merrin - the priest who performed Regan's exorcism in the first movie - and the facts of his last exorcism by the Cardinal. With Father Merrin's reputation in jeopardy; accused of heresy, the Cardinal hopes Father Lamont's findings will go some way to clear his name. Father Lamont pays a visit to the institution where, upon his arrival, Regan agrees to be hypnotised in order to explore the possibility that her memories of the events 4 years ago have just been repressed. During the session, Dr Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher) who is patched in with Regan appears to suffer a cardiac event when she tries to push Regan back to the events of Father Merrin visiting her - mimicking the way Father Merrin dies. When Regan is awoken and Father Lamont takes her place in the session he sees a vision of Father Merrin's heart attack essentially being caused by a possessed Regan (neither of which look anything like they did in the first movie...). After the event, Regan draws a picture of Father Lamont with flames behind him. On seeing the photo Father Lamont immediately dashes around the hospital believing there to be a fire somewhere which he immediately spots and as he fights it, a vision in Doctor Tuskin's line of sight almost perfectly matches that of Regan's drawing... Father Lamont believes the picture was a warning but also that the demon is still locked within Regan and that together with Doctor Tuskin they can help her. Regan, who currently lives under the care of her guardian Sharon (Kitty Winn) has a nightmare that evening that involves a demon manifesting as a plague of locusts attacking a village which leads to her almost sleepwalking off the edge of a roof but she hides her night terrors when confronted about it by Sharon. Sharon and Father Lamont travel back to Regan's old house in Washington where, Sharon is somehow extremely knowledgeable about the events of the possession despite not actually being there... and somehow was deeply affected by it... despite not actually being there... Father Lamont steps into Regan's old bedroom where it appears a locust is hovering in the corner of the room... Back at the institute Regan agrees to be hypnotised again but this time with Father Lamont patched in. During the session Regan has a vision of Father Merrin in Africa inside her nightmare from before; witnessing a tribe being attacked by a demon manifested as a locust swarm. A demon which names itself Pazuzu when it possesses a boy in the tribe. Inside the dream, the pair have a vision of Pazuzu being exorcised by Father Merrin from a young child named Kokumo. Pazuzu then very helpfully leads Father Lamont to exactly where a much older Kokumo might be now. Demon's being famously helpful to the Catholic Church... After the session, Regan appears to help a severely autistic girl find the ability to talk, and prompted by what happened, Father Lamont and Dr. Tuskin argue with Father Lamont convinced she needs help to rid herself of the demon and her telling Father Lamont to stay away from Regan, concerned for her wellbeing. Father Lamont and Regan later bump into each other at the Natural History Museum where Regan confesses that she remembers everything. They opportunistically stumble upon a painting that just so happens to be the exact spot where an older Kokumo confronted Pazuzu in the vision, what are the chances, and it transpires to be a church in Ethiopia. Father Lamont visits the Cardinal and asks for their permission to travel to Africa but it is denied and he is instead relieved of his duties in investigating further with the Cardinal concerned that he has become too involved in the investigation (?). Father Lamont goes anyway. And after he gets in trouble with the locals for being a devil worshipper when he mentions the name "Pazuzu" he comes under attack with Regan - miles away back in America - appearing to feel the same pain he feels with the pair now being telepathically linked somehow. Father Lamont eventually finds someone who doesn't want to bash his brains in with a rock when he tells them he flown on the wings of a demon... who takes him to Kokumo's church. Once he meets Kokumo (James Earl Jones), for the first time the movie explicitly says that Regan was possessed by Pazuzu - it's kind of eluded to in the first movie but never explicitly stated - and there is some exposition about locusts that to be frank I didn't really understand... Back in America, Regan runs away from the institute and from home and when Father Lamont returns Sharon places the blame on him for her behaviour. Father Lamont finds Regan at the museum again, with Regan having stolen the hypnotising machine from the institute. The pair connect to it again and there is some exposition from Father Merrin in the form of a vision that explains Kokumo, Regan and others are all deliberately targeted by Pazuzu as they are special people and that Father Merrin was trying to protect them. He asks Father Lamont to take his place and when the vision is abruptly cut short, Father Lamont appears locked in and in a trance travels to Washington with Regan back to the house. In the interim period, Regan manages to phone Dr. Tuskin and tell her where they are and both her and Sharon head there as well in hot pursuit. Father Lamont and Regan arrive at the house first, and still in a trance, Father Lamont makes his way to Regan's old bedroom, opening the door the house is enveloped in a swarm of locusts whilst at the same time, the taxi carrying Dr. Tuskin and Sharon has it's windshield shattered causing the car to career into the walls and gates of the house and crash, killing the driver and trapping Dr. Tuskin inside, but Sharon is only slightly injured and leaves Dr. Tuskin behind heading into the house herself. Inside Father Lamont and Regan re-enter the bedroom, this time there is a demon bearing Regan's likeness and there is some weird kind of sexual element to things all of a sudden... with Father Lamont completely infatuated by the Regan demon... I'm not sure why. She orders Father Lamont to kill Regan and as he tries to essentially bash her to death Regan quotes some of the things Father Lamont was told by Kokumo. Meanwhile outside, Sharon appears to have been possessed by Pazuzu and kills herself by igniting a fire from the wreckage of the taxi and burning herself to death. Inside the house, Father Lamont comes to his senses and starts to attack the Regan demon on the bed. As he begins to get the better of her / it, a swarm of locusts bursts into the house and the house itself begins to violently shake and fall apart as Father Lamont begins to get the better of the fight. Eventually ripping out the heart of the demon the house completely collapses in on itself and falls to the ground. As the swarm of locust eventually dies and falls around Regan's feet, Father Lamont nonchantly walks over to Sharon and gives her the last rites before Dr. Tuskin entrusts care of Regan onto him.

JESUS CHRIST no uh... blasphemy intended but err yeah this was a not very good film. And, in a way, that's a shame because there was promise and there was potential with this one but I feel like it was horribly misplaced. It felt alot like a fan flick: like somebody had watched the Exorcist, loved it, and was like: this is what should happen next and then filled some of the gaps in the first movie with their own nonsense. It felt absolutely nothing at all like the first movie; where as that was a more kind of folk horror kind of tale, this one lent heavily into supernatural and pseudoscience using the events of the first movie really as a template upon to build the foundation of their own movie. I mean, I haven't read the book so I don't know how much of it is truly faithful to the source material but it does feel like it's own plot and it's own narrative adapted to incorporate Exorcist characters and events rather than be a true, faithful to the original.

There are a handful of positives though, so I guess let me start there. Linda Blair returns as Regan and does a pretty good job at it. I feel like being older, she does have a bit more scope as a character and gets to be more of a personable character this time rather than a warty, scared up demonoid thing like she was in the first movie. It's obvious she has a talent and whilst there are a couple of scenes where I feel she comes across as a bit awkward she was otherwise very good and pretty much held this whole thing together. I am kind of flip flopping with Richard Burton as Father Lamont. For the most part I think he was just fine but he does get a bit one dimensional at times and there are occasions when he should really be displaying a bit more scope in his emotional responses but for the most part he was fine as the steely, stoic priest. Linda Blair is carrying this thing though and without her it dies on it's arse.

Similarly there was again some very good cinematography although at times a handful of shots were weirdly out of focus, or the focal point was completely wrong. That could have genuinely been intentional though, although I'm not sure why... but there was a pretty good use of framing and some interesting camerawork employed to make the movie much more interesting and visually impressive. Similarly the soundtrack was also very good and well produced. I checked it out and discovered it was Ennio Morricone who has done outstanding work on a list of films too long to mention, so it really comes as no surprise. His work here again is very good and it gave what was otherwise a lacklustre movie a much needed boost.

And the plot is kind of a double edged sword really so serves as a nice transitional paragraph: On the one hand the movie had a well constructed, detailed and consistent narrative that told a story from start to finish, had a clear thread and a clear transition from start to resolution. And to that extent it was at least entertaining. It at least told a story that was enjoyable to watch unfold before reaching a resolution at the end. I do feel though that the exposition to pad that story out got incredibly confusing and the movie left a lot of things either too ambiguously explained for me to understand or just outright didn't explain things at all. Some of it I think is intentionally left for you to kind of join the dots yourselves, but some of it could have really done with being elaborated on and fleshing out a bit to appreciate events in later scenes that built upon something poorly established beforehand. And then towards the final scenes with the sexy Regan demon doppelganger, the movie just gets a bit outright silly and there are more than a few moments that are just massively unconvincing and goofy.

There is also a fair old degree of padding and un-necessary content that could just outright be cut from the movie. It already clocks in at a hefty 1 hour 57 minutes but it feels bloated and over encumbered. Ironically for a movie that often left parts not fully explained or elaborated on, there was conversely far too much exposition in other areas. But it was all fairly un-necessary and the movie wouldn't have suffered with it being completely removed. The scene where Father Lamont is refused permission to go to Africa - un-necessary as it has no real bearing on the plot. The scene where Sharon and Father Lamont go to the house - un-necessary? Nothing accomplished by it? The scene where Dr. Tuskin has a conversation with Sharon about going after Regan - completely un-necessary as there is a further scene after the phone call where the same point is formulated. The movie takes a long time to build to Father Lamont learning and finding out about Kokumo which I feel should have been established sooner and then built upon as the plot of your movie? Potentially would have made for a better movie! It felt so heavily padded out and very little detail was cut that could have streamlined things and made it a bit less of a chore to watch.

And in the context of this being a sequel to the original movie, I can see why fans of the first one would absolutely reject it. It doesn't really retain any of the charm or capture from the first movie, instead taking the source material in a drastic new direction and as I mentioned, essentially taking the events of the first film and building it's own narrative from it. I can appreciate wanting to do something slightly different in order to not fall into the copycat sequel trap but there's nothing really retained from the first movie in terms of appeal that is reproduced here. It bakes the plot and characters from the first movie into it's own plot but there are no other elements from the first movie retained.

I didn't think this was very good. For a few reasons really which I hope I've elaborated on in the above paragraphs but in a nutshell - it had little to do with the original source material and the first movie, it felt too long, and it often lumbered into uncanny territory with bizarre rambling exposition and bastardisation of the first movies' characters. But even those facts aside, appreciated as a movie in it's own right it felt overly bloated, with questionable dialogue sequences and a lack of detail to really explain and allow the viewer to digest the technical points of the story. I can fully understand why audiences were so turned off and why they rejected it like they did. A shame because there was a good performance in it from Linda Blair, some lovely musical numbers and some good camera work. But all the prettiness couldn't really save this movie from just being a bit crap really. Weak 2 out of 5.