Movie Notes: Exorcist II: The Heretic

October 24th, 2008

Note: This is an entry in the second Webomatica So Bad They’re Good movie contest.

0 stars
So Bad It’s Good Rating –9 stars

Starring Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher
Directed by John Boorman

Synopsis

Father Lamont (Richard Burton) is asked to investigate the death of Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) which leads him to the older Regan (Linda Blair) who was possessed by the demon Pazuzu in the first film. This trip takes Father Lamont (Richard Burton) to Ethiopia and beyond.

The Good

N/A.

The Bad

• The credits deserve some mockery, a list of moderately famous people set to a soundtrack of a disturbed woman freaking out. Not very scary, just gross.
• If you ever wondered what became of Louise Fletcher, Oscar winner as Nurse Ratchet, now you know, she plays child psychologist Dr. Tuskin. Overall I’d say the locusts buzzing about are more animated.
• Linda Blair, the little girl Regan from The Exorcist, is an appealingly daffy young teenager, but in that rough child star mode — over-compensating in the acting department as if to demonstrate she has talent. She looks a bit like Carrie Fisher mashed with Chevy Chase’s daughter in National Lampoon’s European Vacation. Ultimately, Blair’s most notable contribution is a coat hanger for some really inventive seventies fashions.
• Dr. Tuskin links herself psychically to Regan using some machine, resulting in some silly film overlays of Father Merrin and Regan superimposed over the doctor who has her heart squeezed by a demon. This goes on much too long and it moves from creepy to ridiculous and then laughable in a few seconds.
• Eventually we meet Pazuzu, some kind of locust spirit type guy who lived in a small African village, long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away. Sorry, wrong movie. We see Father Merrin carrying a possessed child up a cliff to some mountain temple for an exorcism. This whole locust thing is taken a bit too far and is way too much explanation — as if the Midichlorians were portrayed in some extended sequence from ages ago, giving birth to Jedi. Yes, right movie. Boorman sure gets a lot of mileage out of that one locust shot.
• What the hell is up with Regan’s tap dancing? Oh, the stage is set for her to flip out as Father Lamont (Richard Burton) is stoned by villagers who think he’s a devil worshiper. Could I get stoned, too?
• Lamont makes his way to James Earl Jones playing African priest, the possessed boy all grown up. He’s dressed in a giant locust outfit. Yes, it’s Darth Vader from that other movie, dressed as a giant insect. He spits a fruit into a pit of spikes. Oh, it’s just a dream. James Earl Jones is actually a doctor that studies locusts. Now we’re watching a National Geographic documentary on locusts. Am I in the right theater?
• Things eventually snowball to a nonsensical climax where everyone makes their way back to the original house, locusts swarm over Washington DC, the caretaker nearly burns up Dr. Tuskin, and Lamont chokes and has sex with Regan simultaneously. I won’t claim to understand what the hell happened here (something to do with turning the victim of the first movie into the savior of the second), but they should have brought back James Earl Jones in the giant locust outfit.
• Father Lamont holds a burned body of as Lamont and Regan walk off in the distance. I think there’s a rather perverse angle there I won’t get into. The authorities suddenly arrive to pick up the pieces at another head-scratchingly wrong moment, obviously saved for dramatic effect. At this point I felt a strange sadness, and empty feeling, as I had just wasted precious minutes of my life watching this flick while I could have done something more entertaining like cleaning out the kitty litter.

Conclusion

I was depressed to learn this horrid sequel was directed by John Boorman, whose films Exaclibur and Deliverance I liked. It’s woth noting that the latter film’s banjo-playing rednecks were more frightening than anything depicted in this flick — James Earl Jones in a giant locust outfit included.

I’m not a fan of horror movies because “scary” often crosses the line into “silly” and “unintentionally funny.” This film fails whenever the camera lingers too long on the scary stuff which lessens its impact. The rest is just a mess of a script that makes absolutely no sense despite all attempts to explain, which also lessens the horror.

But in term of a so-bad-it’s-good contest, this is all a positive.

IMDB: Exorcist II: The Heretic
Wikipedia: The Exoricst II: The Heretic
Rotten Tomatoes: The Exorcist II: The Heretic 14%