Exorcist II: The Heretic

I was 8 years old when this movie came out but wasn't able to watch it until 1983, and it was unforgettable. Unforgettably ridiculous and stupid. The only reason I saw it was because Linda Blair was in it and I remember thinking how I felt sorry for her being in it. Flash to modern day. I could barely make it through the trailer.

This review is an excerpt from my book “Killer B’s: The 237 Best Movies On Video You’ve (Probably) Never Seen,” which is available as an ebook on iBooks. If you enjoy this review, there are 236 more like it in the book (plus a whole lot more). Check it out! EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC: It’s been four years since Father Merrin (von Sydow) exorcised a demon from Regan (Blair), now a typical teen with a gift for healing troubled youth. But Merrin’s protégé, Father Lamont (Burton) has been assigned to investigate his death, which risks opening up old wounds—and summoning up old demons. Regan’s psychiatrist, Dr. Tuskin (Fletcher), is wary, but allows Lamont and Regan to use an advanced biofeedback device to hypnotize themselves into a “synchronized altered state of consciousness,” where they inhabit a shared virtual reality of memory. The machine proves scientifically that the demon is real—and still locked up inside Regan. Further “trips” convince Lamont that a tribal healer in Africa, also once possessed by this demon, holds the key to triumph over the “King of the Evil Spirits of the Air.” Risking his life to find the grown boy is the easy part. But he’ll risk his faith, and Regan’s life, in a final confrontation—and their minds will become the battleground for this ancient evil. Discussion: It’s decades old and the most reviled sequel in cinema history. So why the five star rating? Well, I think I know why audiences hated it—and why it should be given a second chance. People went to this sequel expecting more of the same: more turnstile heads; more pea soup puke. What they got was a philosophical treatise on science and religion working in harmony; a psychological study of a good man suffering a crisis in faith, and the trials he must endure to renew that faith; a conflict between our primal fear of ancient mysteries and our rational aspirations for human evolution; and a visionary trip through the mythological stratum of the psyche. Who wants that [expletive deleted]? Bring on the barf! If the movie has a weak point, it’s not the script but the acting: Burton is aggressively hammy in his agony; Fletcher is a lethargic cardboard cutout; Blair, pudgy and vapid. Points in its favor, however, begin with the direction. Boorman suffuses the film with symbolism, from the obvious to the subtle—Lamont under the spell of the locust-demon, for instance, “brushing wings” with the crowds on the street and in the train station. There is also an entire symbolic language in the use of color and light at play here—not just in every scene, but in virtually every shot. Black, red and white battle for dominance throughout the film, and even the colors of the characters’ clothing changes to reflect their psychological states. Notice the regular appearances of flashing lights—emergency vehicles, stage lights, the sun, marquee signs—indicating subliminal repetitions of the “synchronizer” device, unconsciously cueing us that these characters are walking between two worlds: the waking world of the conscious mind and the archetype-inhabited realm of the unconscious. Watch the lights; watch the reflections; watch the way images overlap to indicate the overlapping levels consciousness. This remarkable achievement in direction gives the film a hypnotic, almost hallucinatory, tone, mirroring the interpenetration of worlds that Lamont is experiencing. (Boorman discussed this aspect of the film in his 2004 autobiography, “Adventures of a Suburban Boy”: “My aesthetic theories and colour codes seemed like indulgent whims to the crew of hardened cynical technicians.”) Lamont’s task is to enter this internal realm, face his—and Regan’s—demons, and have faith that he can find his way back to rationality. Once exposed to the light of consciousness, the monsters of the unconscious cannot survive. The ending is a brilliant integration of the main elements, where the action is simultaneously literal and symbolic. Are there “really” two Regans? Of course not. Is there “really” a plague of locusts? No: It’s clear that these events are not taking place on the material plane. And the symbol system makes it very clear when they do re-enter “reality.” “I understand now,” Tuskin tells Lamont near the end of the film. “The world won’t. Not yet.” Maybe Boorman understood his own experiment too well. Maybe the world of 1977—the year of “Annie Hall” and “Star Wars”—wasn’t ready for a film of this mystical nature. Maybe in today’s action blockbuster market, it’s still not. But, if you’ve read any Jung or Joseph Campbell, maybe you are ready to appreciate this mythological movie, and to appreciate it as a thought-provoking spiritual horror story: Not a bomb, but a time bomb.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE EXORCIST 2 THEN YOU MIGHT WANT TO STEER CLEAR IF REAGAN SCARES YOU. YOU SEE MORE OF HER FACE THAN YOU CAN HANDLE, AND I'M IN THE SAME BOAT, BUT I DON'T WANT ANYONE TOO SCARED. THANK YOU!

How can it be Sci-Fi if this movie only features scary things, it's kind of Sci-Fi but the movie is all about horror!👹

The truth is I only watched the second one because Linda Blair was in it😍

I liked it but i think its more of a sci fi movie then a horror

I watched this when I was about 9 and it amazed me how stupid this movie was. I watched it before I watched the first Exorcist, though, so maybe that's why. But all in all, pretty lame-o movie. Stick with the original. Truly the scariest film of all time.

This is my fav movie of all time. Granted yes it has some falts but It still surpasses the Exorcist. Mabe not in horror but in plot. This movie is Highly recomended to any one one loves Horror movies!

Like what that one person said, it isnt meant to be that scary. It's meant to follow regan and truly get Pazuzu out of her for good. i love the ending.

Exorcist was a terrifying movie... no, it was THE terrifying movie. The sequel is not. The main problem is that the thing possessing Linda Blaire in the first movie is actually identified in this one as Pazzuzu, an African wind demon, and not Satan, which HEAVILY implied in the first one. The acting is mediocre, some scenes make absolutely no sense, and the special effects are downright laughable. Waste of time AND money.