Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39867 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-10-20
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 113 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
When it was released in 1977 The Exorcist II: The Heretic was virtually laughed off the screen. A much-anticipated sequel to the Oscar-winning original, it turned out to be an unintentionally hilarious mishmash and received such terrible reviews that director John Boorman yanked it out of cinemas. He reedited it, cutting eight minutes in hopes of getting the story (written by William Goodhart) to the point of coherency--but to no avail. The film remains a kind of reverse gold standard for sequels. It's still a ridiculously overacted, although at times visually haunting, movie. Richard Burton stars as a troubled priest (something of a speciality of his) who is brought in to follow up on the case of Linda Blair, who is institutionalised, still troubled by her encounter with the devil (who wouldn't be?). By the time they confront Satan's minion in the final struggle, you'll be rooting for evil to win. --Marshall Fine

Special Features
Alternate Opening Sequence
Trailers
Audio: 1.0 Mono
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 widescreen
Languages: English, French, Italian
Hearing impaired: English, Italian
Subtitles: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Arabic, Bulgarian, Romanian, Dutch

Synopsis
Four years after Regan (Linda Blair) has a demon exorcised by a Catholic priest, flying reveries and visions continue to pervade her dreams. Father Lamont (Richard Burton) is released from the Vatican to discover the truth behind Regan's problems, little knowing that the search will take him to Africa and back. Can Lamont's dedication and hypnotic research specialist Dr Gene Tuskin's (Louise Fletcher) know-how sort Regan out once and for all

Customer Reviews

Exorcist II: Electric Boogaloo
The worst of the sequels and prequels (the film itself falls into both categories) but also, despite its reputation, the only one to show a profit on its theatrical release, Exorcist II: Electric Boogaloo - sorry, The Heretic - is one of those films you can make a case for being not THAT bad. Just not a very convincing one. It's a hugely ambitious film with over-reaching ideas married to a typically bad Rospo Pallenberg script filled with lumbering construction and crudely on-the-nose direlogue that typifies everything that's so painfully wrong about John Boorman at his self-indulgent worst. Originally intended as a more conventional sequel to be directed by Rosemary's Baby editor Sam O'Steen, with only Linda Blair, Von Sydow, Kitty Winn and make-up man Dick Smith returning from the original (though Lee J. Cobb was scheduled to return before dying), the studio instead decided to hire a more experienced name director who made no secret of his hatred for the original, giving him almost complete creative control and taking the material on a huge leap into the esoteric from which it never recovered.

The hook of a priest investigating the original exorcism to save Father Merrin's reputation amid rumors of heresy was retained from William Goodhart's heavily rewritten script (amazingly he lobbied for, and won, sole writing credit), but instead of projectile vomiting and genital self-mutilation-by-crucifix it opts for a more metaphysical plot. Where the character of Merrin in the novel was inspired by the controversial Catholic philosopher and palaeontologist Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the script embraced his theories of a spiritual and mental evolution that would ultimately lead to man developing a universal consciousness and becoming one with God. This being a metaphysical thriller, the film's premise is that the Devil is sending the demon Pazuzu to seek out and possess healers (or "good locusts") to prevent that happening while the inherently corrupt Catholic Church is too busy rationalizing evil to acknowledge its existence, let alone fight it. Unfortunately, any potential that premise might have had is drowned in a sea of inanity in a film bad enough for even Jon Voight to drop out of after reading the script (Boorman's favored replacement, Christopher Walken, was vetoed by Warners' studio management, whose intense dislike of the actor would finally pay dividends when they dropped out of Heaven's Gate when Michael Cimino refused to replace him!).

What's often so bizarre about the result is that every horrendous misstep it takes has a perfectly valid idea behind it that SOUNDED perfectly reasonable when Boorman explained it but which became laughable the moment it hit the screen. Where Friedkin set out to achieve reality, Boorman set out to distort it, filming the majority of the exteriors on soundstages (even the house on Prospect Street was recreated at Burbank) that make no real attempt to hide the fact that they're just plywood and hardboard to give it an air of unreality. Sets were designed to resemble the central nervous system and all blues and greens were banished from the film. The intention was to create a dreamlike texture and add a subtext of impending ecological disaster, but the result is a perfect illustration of the void between film theory and reality. The overwhelming impression of this bizarre spiritual odyssey into the director's psyche is car crash cinema at its most WTF. As Richard Burton says - or rather spits as if on the brink of an asthmatic attack - it's horrible, utterly horrible... and fascinating.

It's hard to pick the most absurd moment in a film increasingly filled with them, be it James Earl Jones' witch doctor dressed as a giant locust `spitting a leopard,' the king of the evil spirits of the air being portrayed as what looks like a really big moth, a crass jumpcut from a burning South American faith healer to Linda Blair rehearsing her tap dancing (according to Boorman intended to symbolize her spirit taking flight: no, really) or a mind-linking synchronized hypnosis device that's just a headband, lightbulb and detonator box contraption that Ed Wood might be proud of. Even the look of the film is horrendously dated (with its `now' fashions and swarms of locusts descending on Washington, it would make an ideal double-bill with The Swarm). And oh, that dialogue: "I've flown this route before. It was on the wings of a demon," "If Pazuzu comes for you I will spit a leopard," "You've got to fight that demon that's inside her! It's preventing her from reaching full spiritual power!" "I was face to face with the Evil that's inside her. Your machine has proved scientifically that there's an ancient demon locked within her!" and the immortal "I was possessed by a demon. Oh, but it's okay, he's gone now!" Even by Rospo (Vercingetorix/Druids) Pallenberg's standards, this is wonderfully woeful drivel that proves him to be screenwriting's answer to Merton of the Movies (the fictional inept dramatic overactor who inadvertently became a comedy sensation).

The performances veer from the theatrical to the lost-the-will-to-live bad. Throwing away the credibility he had regained with Equus on Broadway for a big payday, you can tell with little effort which scenes were shot when Richard Burton was hung over, sober or drunk (just look at the way he empties that communion chalice); a somnambulistic Louise Fletcher gives a particularly pained performance as a psychiatrist, looking for all the world like she'd rather be back in the cuckoo's nest as she can see her career slipping away one line at a time; Kitty Winn looks like she hasn't a clue what she's doing there but she'll try to find a character in there somewhere if it kills her; Max Von Sydow has obviously seen the writing on the wall and is just reading the lines while he thinks of what he'll buy with the check; while Linda Blair, spending much of the film looking for all the world like a chipper cartoon hamster, tap-dancing like a union boss in cement shoes and with a completely unconvincing double playing her possessed self, waits until the grand finale to hit rock bottom when she depicts the seductive nature of evil by, er, wrinkling her nose a la Bewitched and looking like a cute likkle bunny wabbit. Only Ned Beatty comes out of it with something approaching his dignity intact, but then he's only in it for a couple of minutes and clearly thinks the whole thing's too mad to take seriously. You can also spot the ill-fated Dana Plato as an autistic child and an even younger Joey Lauren Adams making her debut as Louise Fletcher's daughter along the way.

It's not all bad. Some of the in-camera special effects and early steadicam work are interesting, with a particularly attractive glass matte shot of a golden city, and Ennio Morricone's occasionally disco-driven score that alternates with more lyrical and plain bizarre cues is enjoyable even if it does sound like it would be more at home in a Dario Argento giallo. Now Dario Argento's Exorcist II - in 1977, THAT could have really been something!

Curiously the DVD of the original theatrical version comes with an alternate opening from the maybe-we-can-fix-it? re-edited version that dropped 15 minutes of footage and most of Paul Henreid's part but not the infamous truncated alternate ending with Burton dying.

Decide for yourself
I never figured out why exactly this film received so much bashing. It is very different form it's predecesor, it is even of a different genre, and that may be the reason. People not getting what they expect can be brutal. In fact, (at least for me) "Exorcist II" is a competent film by an achieved artist, looks great, has excellent music and is interesting enough. Cast is stelar and comprises of Richard Burton (need I say more of him), Louise Fletcher, Max Fon Sydow Linda Blair and James Earl Jones. Even if this people were joking around, it would be good. There are some gripping nightmare scenes. Some people may resent some moments being out of continuity, but it still makes an interesting and inteligent outing. I regret movie being shortened, and would love it in better sound representation, so that Ennio Morricone's fantastic music can be better appreciated. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that, becouse endless criticisms the movie undeservedly gets, it will ever be presented in some other form then mono, so we have to put up with this. In the endTastes are very different and there is no ultimate criticism or recommendation other then: "See it and decide for yourself".

Not terrible, just misunderstood...
I'll admit: as a direct sequel to The Exorcist it's terrible. And yet what a relief that it wasn't just 'more of the same.'

Boorman didn't like the original and neither did Max Von Sydow. The attempt here was to make a film about goodness, but as Stanley kubrick told Boorman after the failure of the film, 'Nobody wants to see a film about goodness.'

Richard Burton was confused by the shifting script and also Boorman's lack of perspective on the shoot. So he just switched on the auto pilot and went through the motions. It shows. However, there are moments when Burton rises above the confusion and manages to bring Father Lamont to life (especially in the Africa sequences).

Linda Blair is as nice as pie but struggles with a role that is still too big for her. Strangely, she makes some of the more terrible dialogue work by delivering it as a naive innocent (the exchange between the mute girl and Regan is a nice example of this).

The film uses some interesting techniques where one set up mirrors another location and joins the two scenes (indulging the hypnosis element of the script).

The film looks amazing. Even Scorsese referenced this film for Last Temptation! The set design is superb as is the technical aspects and overall production. Nice score by Ennio Morricone is a big plus.

At the end of the day, The Heretic is a failure as a sequel to The Exorcist. However, as a film in its own right, it tries something fresh and new and stylish that, although never really gels together, is infinitely more interesting than the original on many levels. And as for the further sequels? Less said the better!