Review of Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) by Rob C — 23 Sep 2012

Taking place four years after the first film, Regan is once again subjected to the evil spirit. And it's up to her psychologist and a protégé of Father Merrin to stop the spirit once and for all.

To put it frankly, the film was going alright until the script decided to land itself in Africa of all places, surrounding the plot with locusts and cardboard effects. As a stand-alone film, it would have maybe worked, but to mix it with the original film was just a sloppy move and completely crushed any kind of mystery and horror brought on by The Exorcist.

Director John Boorman decided he wanted to be artsy and avant-garde and include his own take on the original, giving us scenes of random nonsense involving locusts, strobes, mirrors, trances, out-of-body experiences and a final battle of a good/bad Linda Blair.

Shaving at least a half hour off would have been nice, maybe even garnering another half star from me, but I guess he wanted to cram as much details in his script hoping to surpass that of Friedkin's original.

This was just a case of "biting off more than you can chew" and clearly he choked in the process here.