Warner Brothers Studio

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Four years following the harrowing events of The Exorcist Regan McNeil (Linda Blair) is a 16-year-old girl studying at an arts and performance school in New York City and apparently still unable to recall her possession and exorcism.

The Catholic Church dispatches Father Lamont (Richard Burton) to investigate the death of Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) during Regan’s exorcism. Lamont, himself a survivor of a botched exorcism, inserts himself into Regan psychiatric treatment by Dr. Tuskin (Louise Fletcher) discovering through hypnosis and a psychic link with Regan that Merrin did not die of his well-displayed heart condition but rather from the demon psychically manipulating Merrin’s heart. Lamont pushes forward his investigation to discover why Regan was targeted for possession and to validate Father Merrin’s heretical theories about humanity.

Oh god, this movie is bad.

First off as a sequel it makes no sense. The Church is concerned about Merrin and what happened to him, as though an elderly man with a heart condition having a heart attack and dying is at all more peculiar than a healthy young priest defenestrated to his death. However as far as this movie is concerned Father Karris never existed. The movie always undercuts one of the main mysteries of The Exorcist, why her? Why Regan McNeil? In the longer released version Merrin speculates, correctly, that it is to make us feel that we are animals, unworthy of God’s love. When that scene was cut from the film it damaged to friendship between the writer Blatty and the director Fried kin because Blatty believed it to be so critical to understanding the meaning of what he had created.

This ties to the second reason this movie doesn’t work; it simply isn’t Catholic enough.

Now I am a non-believer. I do not believe in any gods or goddesses. The universe is ruled by physical laws and when we die, we end. That said, if you are crafting a work that hinges on religious theology then you need to stay true to that theology as it is the reality of that world. Blatty was a Catholic and wrote the novel and screenplay for The Exorcist exploring his deeply held faith and what evil means in the world he viewed as fallen. Part of the reason The Exorcist is so compelling and is because it comes from a sincere belief in its truth. Exorcist II: The Heretic abandons all that for uber-psychics with special mental healing powers and their destiny to unify humanity into one grand loving mind. That is pretty damned far from any Christian theology.

Aside from the lackluster script the movie is further damaged by some of the most blank, lifeless line readings I have ever seen on the screen. It is as if director Boorman, in an attempt to live up to his surname, instructed everyone to play their parts in a bad imitation of Star Trek’s Vulcan race. This movie has some real acting talent in it, Max Von Sydow, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, and James Earl Jones, but there is not one scene of genuine emotion in the entire movie.

The film’s score by the great Ennio Morricone is discordant to the point of distracting and quite possibly the worst score that man has ever composed.

Exorcist II‘s art direction is equally damaging to any suspension of willing disbelief. The sets look like sets, with studio lighting and backdrops only marginally better than what had been achieved on television a decade earlier.

The Exorcist is a film I revisit often, Exorcist II: The Heretic I last watched 40 years ago and revisiting it was a mistake.

Exorcist II” The Heretic is currently streaming on Max.