Exorcist 2: The Heretic (1977)

“an absolute fiasco ” Creature Features

“an absurd sequel” Splatter Movies

“preposterous turkey” Maltin’s

“Dennis Wheatley fans, at least, will love it” Time Out

“Highly unsatisfactory psychic melodrama…falls flat on it’s face – unintelligible” – Halliwell’s Guide

“A turkey” – Video Movies Guide

“Can make a legitimate claim for the worst major motion picture of all time” – Videohound

Being a person who believes in second chances made sense in revisiting Exorcist 2: The Heretic; on Blu Ray once again just to see the film from a different perspective after all the years.  Was it truly the King Sized Turkey that the consensus agrees upon, or was there some deeper intellectual theme going on that only the few could see? 

Was it another “Heaven’s Gate”, for example – a movie derided out of town upon release but one which has gained quite a reputation among serious cinema fans as a near-classic over some time?  Is The Heretic an unheralded gem, or does it deserve the foul reputation it has been stuck with as one of the worst films ever made, THE worst sequel ever and by far the worst of the Exorcist bunch?

The first time this film was viewed, a spell was cast. It almost took a certain amount of courage to watch the second instalment in a fleapit cinema in Amman, Jordan, not so far from Mosul, where the chilling opening scenes of the original had been shot.  The fact is Friedkin’s Exorcist had traumatised me far beyond any other experience had in my guarded young, and therefore the thought of a similar onslaught on the senses was met with trepidation and excitement in equal measures.

The film kicks off with the familiar crimson titles on a stark black background, familiar territory to Exorcist fans.  Not so familiar is the African percussion instruments that merge into the opening bars of Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack, and the opening scene that follows rather debunks the tone of the first Exorcist film, which is very much set in a modern world.

Richard Burton as Father Lamont is seen to be presiding over an Exorcism of some unfortunate young woman in Italy where things get out of hand with her dress catching fire, and she writhes in delight as the flames engulf her.  Later, somewhat chastened, he is given the task by his Papal elders to discover exactly what happened to Father Merrin, who exorcised “that girl in America”.  Burton retorts, “but I’m not worthy” before stomping off to Washington to start his investigation and thus his spiritual soul searching.

The first stop is at Dr. Louise Fletcher’s chambers at a very plush looking facility to care for patients with psychological disorders. Regan McNeil, seemingly cured of her horrors, is a regular visitor.  Regan and Fletcher have a friendly Dr. to patient banter before the former agrees to try out this new fancy gadget that Fletcher has acquired for “synchronised hypnotism”.  It looks like a stand with two light bulbs on either side, but clearly, it is capable of so much more.

Within moments Dr. Fletcher or Nurse Ratchet or whatever you want to call her soon joins Regan in THAT room by hypnosis and starts to go into a strange state, and her breathing starts to falter as distress sets in and her heart starts “fibrillation”. Regan hops into her seat and straps up with the electrode headband, and it is not long before she is lulled into a hypnotised state as Fletcher calmly instructs her to “go deep, deep, deeper and lower her tone”, and the bulb pulses slower and slower and seemingly works like a charm.    In jumps, Father Lamont has mastered using the hypnotiser in three minutes, watching a device he has never seen before and whipping on the electrodes with a confident “I know how to find her”.  Heroically entering the fray, trying hastily to find the “tone” so that he can discover Regan’s bedroom and whip Fletcher out of there and rescue her.

While this drama is going on, there is a reappearance of the scene of Merrin’s death. While Father Lamont is mesmerised by what he is viewing, Regan appears to be physically massaging/molesting Fletcher’s heart, causing some distress.  Meanwhile, the “good” Regan in the office pinching and plucking at the “evil” Regan’s hand, trying to stop her from massaging her therapist’s heart which she doesn’t seem to enjoy at all.  High drama of majestic proportions within the first twenty minutes of the movie.  When the film played in theatres, the projectiles had already started to fly at screenings all over.

Exorcist fans were already totally bewildered and bemused by what they were viewing on-screen and reacted demonically, in some instances throwing stuff at the screen.  John Boorman, at this stage, went rushing back into the editing room with his scissors and hacked off good segments of the original theatrical release to stop the tide of abuse from turning into an irreversible torrent.  It was too late, the damage control ineffective as the film was laughed out of town, rapidly earning the reputation of the worst movie ever made.  Indeed in (pre-internet age) polls, the film ranked second only to Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space as one of the “Worst Ever”.  Certainly, fans of the Exorcist seemed to think so.

Indeed some critics have named The Exorcist the Best Film Ever (Mark Kermode of the BBC).  Following in the footsteps was like following in the footsteps of Spielberg’s Jaws, an extremely unenviable task but one that had to be done and judged by the same yardstick was always going to be brutal.   So, from an utterly laughable, incredible first quarter of an hour with Burton threatening to outdo Neil Hamilton of Batman for sheer bravura gravitas, things could only get better.  Read on.

Innocent, goody-two-shoes Regan draws a picture of Father Lamont that has him reacting with great concern, and he goes scampering off to show Dr. Fletcher.   “The flames…they are getting bigger”, he exclaims, which is a bit odd considering he just met Regan and wouldn’t have been familiar with her previous drawings but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, considering he is a man of the cloth.  Anyway, Father Lamont goes bustling around the building in a total flap, Regan’s drawing in hand, creating a huge fuss about “Evil” and that there is a fire somewhere – and then guess what?  Lo and behold, there is some crate on fire, and Father Lamont takes to beating the flames with a wooden crutch as a man possessed. At the same time, Louise Fletcher returns with a fire extinguisher and pauses momentarily as she chillingly sees Father Lamont in the exact pose as drawn by Regan. (Omen territory?).

With that flame crisis over Father, Lamont goes into overdrive, insisting that he use the Synchronised Hypnotising gizmo with Regan to get her to take him to her tone by which he can unravel the mystery of not only Merrin’s death but further mysteries beyond.

Their hypnotism session is a spectacular success as Regan can take Father Lamont on a weird journey in a land that looks like drought-ravaged Africa. A giant locust flies around, causing mayhem and havoc, lots of death and disease and destruction.  In her hypnotised state, Regan demands that Lamont call her by “her name” and when he calls her Pazuzu, he gets his response.  Pazuzu is one of the great evil lords of the wind and rides around in the form of a locust, causing pestilence and death wherever he appears. A child has been possessed by Pazuzu, and is that Father Merrin trying hard to battle his old foe?  Meanwhile, Regan living in her high rise Manhattan apartment and fast asleep, is suddenly gripped by an unseen force and voice that forces her to the brink of falling to her death.  She, too, has visions of the locust swarm causing havoc in Africa.

Lamont visits the old house in Georgetown and Regan’s room, where a rather large locust hovers in the corner rather menacingly.  Things start getting “heavy” at this stage and what you see is not what you get.  Lamont soon has his bosses telling him to take a break as he is getting too involved for his good.  Of course, Burton doesn’t listen and follows Regan’s visions by flying out to the Dark Continent, searching for his ultimate foe, Pazuzu.

Lamont and Regan develop this rather touching psychic link after their experience with the Hypnotizer. Like Siamese twins, when one is in distress, the other appears to feel the torment. When one is jostled in Africa, the other stumbles thousands of miles away.  They are united in the battle against evil, and It’s quite a surreal sight to watch Regan stumble and fall during a tap-dancing performance as Pazuzu and his iniquities set about father Lamont.

Burton’s arrival in Africa has the swirling plot spinning out of control. Things go deliciously loopy with a script that is either taking itself way too seriously or not seriously enough or a director reeling to make some sense of the monstrous mess he has created.   Burton’s Father Lamont, goes into overdrive and sets the tone for the magnificent Rod Steiger in The Amityville Horror a couple of years later.

Events lumber to a dizzying conclusion that leaves most audience members scratching their heads in utter bewilderment but a few who were dazzled by the elevated theme and its brilliant exposition.  One or two very irate emails have been received over the years with readers mocking a lowly intellect for failing to grasp the subtle spiritual and metaphysical nuances of The Heretic and how it works only for those who can think beyond the plodding mundane everyday possession film.

Kokumo (James Earl Jones) is finally tracked down wearing some splendid headgear, and Burton must face his convictions to advance.  As the film crawls to its climax, the audience is treated to a National Geographic like mini-documentary about how nasty and horrible locusts can be. Still, there is a silver lining in this black cloud as we learn that there is also a good locust who can maybe stand up to the evil locusts and save the day.  Father Lamont almost cracks a smile at this triumphant breakthrough. Now all he has to do is find him some “good locusts”.  But is it that easy to conquer Pazuzu and his plague of evil? Very doubtful indeed.

  Diabolical mayhem is unleashed on Georgetown like never before as a cloud of evil locusts descend on the city and the earth literally caves in as the showdown between good and evil, faith and faithless, good Regan and Bad Regan comes to a crunching, barnstorming climax.  The hair-raising, locust filled climax eventually occurs at the old house in Georgetown, where father Lamont returns with Regan to confront the ultimate evil. The sad thing is, almost everyone who has ever watched this movie has lost interest long, long ago, and it’s only the brave, the brilliant or the exceptionally foolish who manage to the end.

The film was laughed off screens upon release, and it’s not difficult to imagine why.  Clearly, audiences were expecting more of what they had experienced in William Friedkin’s movie and as it becomes evident fairly early on in the movie that the audience is in for a very rude and unpleasant shock as the film flies off in a different tangent altogether, retaining almost none of the elements that propelled the original into one of the biggest money spinners of all time.

It is not difficult to imagine audiences drooling in excitement to finally watch an Exorcist sequel reacting with revulsion upon discovering the reality.  They had paid for a fangled fantasy adventure sci-fi horror epic set largely in Africa featuring a giant locust representing pure evil on earth.  The reports of audiences trashing cinemas in anger are not exaggerated. Yet, the film retains its die-hard fans who insist that it’s a fantastic film not meant for the undiscerning crowd and that only people with a certain level of understanding can even begin to comprehend it.

As the dust settles after all these years finally re-watching the film again, it is still shocking how it single-handedly alienated a vast fan base, murdered a franchise in its tracks and introduced elements to the narrative that lessen the impact of Friedkin’s masterwork.

The attempt at going pseudo-intellectual was woefully misguided and so awful that it even makes the cardinal sin of detracting from the original by introducing such infantile rubbish such as even mentioning and naming the demon as “Pazuzu”. The faceless, nameless evil being given a truly ridiculous persona as “Paz-bloody-Zuzu!

The Heretic is such a dreadful and dreary mess that even the rather spectacular if ridiculous scenes set in Africa are laughable.  For a moment, you would might what genre of movie you were watching as a giant locust has herds of animals running for cover.  That final National Geographic scene explaining the lifestyle of the nasty locust is mind-bogglingly dull, as is most of the film.  Pretty much the only saving grace is Richard Burton’s monumentally brilliant performance as Father Lamont, who plays his tortured, guilt-ridden, obsessive character with remarkable gravitas and urgency.

Some consider this film to be one of the “so bad it’s good” category, but in my book for that, however awful, a film must at least be entertaining and The Exorcist 2; The Heretic is absolute not that and requires a major effort to even sit through to the end.  Is the film worth watching?  Absolutely yes, but only for true horror geeks and those interested in why the film remains one of the most hated and maligned modern era.

Incidentally, we did receive some irate mail regarding our review of The Heretic and our thoughts in general.  Take a look:

The film does have its fans, however, and here is some angry correspondence we received attacking our review as being retarded:

I THINK THIS MOVIE WAS GREAT I THINK YOU DO NOT NO WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. GIVE THE MOVIE A FREAKIN CHANCE AND LEAVE YOUR BRAINWASHED HEADS LISTEN AND MAYBE YOU WILL LIKE IT. AND I HOPE THEY WILL PUT THIS CLASSIC ON DVD. BECAUSE I AM GOING TO BUY IT. FROM NOW ON. AT LEAST KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON BEFORE YOU TRY TO MAKE A LOGICAL REVIEW WHICH I MAY ADD WAS RETARDED. THANK YOU!

He added later…

,,,,You are obviously too immature to realise the whole story behind the movie. It is people like you that I try to stay away from. I am sorry, but self-involved people like yourself put others with real taste to shame. Like I have previously stated, DO NOT WRITE A REVIEW UNLESS YOU COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND IT. You have proven to me that your intellect and judgment are as sorry as you are. Goodbye,

And that was the last we heard from that particular reader.  The great thing is how movies elicit different responses from different people.  A review is only one person’s opinion, nothing more.  A reader has every right to agree or disagree or ignore it.  It’s the name of the game.