Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Exorcist II: The Heretic Blu-ray Movie Review

Excommunicated

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 22, 2014

Exorcist II: The Heretic is being released both separately and as part of The Exorcist: The Complete Anthology.

Director John Boorman has made some indelible classics, including Point Blank, Deliverance and Hope and Glory, and he's also responsible for one of the most memorable cult classics of the 20th Century, the head-scratching Zardoz. Unfortunately for Boorman, he still has to live with the blot on his résumé that is Exorcist II: The Heretic. Laughed at by audiences (including Exorcist author William Peter Blatty), denounced by Exorcist director William Friedkin (who claimed that The Heretic diminished the value of his original), and named the second worst movie ever made (coming in second only to Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space), The Heretic didn't lose money, but it effectively killed the Exorcist franchise, as production company Morgan Creek learned when they made the mistake of releasing a film in 1990 entitled The Exorcist III.

Is the film really that bad? Sadly, yes. There's the germ of an interesting idea, probably left over from the original script by playwright William Goodhart that persuaded Linda Blair to sign on to reprise her role as Regan MacNeil. But whatever might have made an interesting sequel got lost among the endless rewrites that continued throughout production, as Boorman and second unit director Rospo Pallenberg struggled to make a film that was both coherent and scary, failing on both counts. Even after the premiere, Boorman tried to salvage the film by recutting it, lopping off about seven minutes, reordering scenes, even altering the ending, all to no avail. The version presented by Warner on Blu-ray is supposed to be the original premiere version, for whatever that is worth.

Four years after the events of The Exorcist, Regan MacNeil now lives in New York City with Sharon Spencer (Kitty Winn), her actress-mother's assistant. (After the intense terror of the first film, you would think that Chris MacNeil would be afraid to let Regan out of her sight, but the real explanation is that Ellen Burstyn wisely refused to return for the sequel.) Regan attends high school, where she participates in the performing arts, tap dancing extensively, but much of her time is spent at a bizarre psychological institute run by Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher, already squandering the Oscar she'd just won for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). Though Dr. Tuskin will repeatedly protest that she's a "scientist", she behaves more like a kooky New Age guru. Her clinic consists of a hive of glass-enclosed offices and treatment rooms, where all the patients can see each other, and her major treatment device for Regan consists of a biofeedback "synchronizer" that works as a mind meld machine and looks like it was cobbled together in someone's basement. Seriously, if such a device actually existed, it would make headlines. The speed with which it puts Regan into deep hypnosis, then allows her to pull someone else into her memories, is absolutely amazing; one could even call it mystical. "Bring me down to you, Regan", says the doctor, as if one could pull another person into one's mind like taking down a saucer from a shelf. (It was typically at this point that theater audiences started laughing.)

But Regan isn't even the central character in The Heretic, although her face featured prominently in the advertising. That dubious honor belongs to Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton), a disciple of Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow), who is asked to investigate the late priest's exorcism of Regan because of vague allegations of irregularities and potential heresies in Merrin's teachings. Courtesy of Dr. Tuskin's "synchronizer", Father Lamont gains access to Regan's recollection of how Father Merrin died during those few minutes when he was alone with her demonically possessed body, and he becomes convinced that Pazuzu, the demon who tormented her, is still a threat lurking inside her.

Wait a minute—wasn't Pazuzu exorcised in the first film? Wasn't that the whole point of the selfless sacrifice by Fathers Merrin and Karas? Well, yes and no. In the muddy theology of The Heretic, Pazuzu's mission is to destroy certain special individuals who were born to defuse evil in the world and who are distinguished by their ability to heal the sick. The film's opening scene shows Lamont failing to save such a young girl from Pazuzu in South America. Lamont's visions lead him to the young boy that Father Merrin saved in Africa, whose name is Kokumo, now an adult (James Earl Jones) and, depending on which version of reality you believe, either a powerful medicine man or a scientist working with locusts. Regan, too, has magical healing powers, as she demonstrates at Dr. Tuskin's clinic by miraculously drawing forth speech from a silent autistic girl. But, according to Father Lamont, once Pazuzu's wings have "brushed" someone, they are always in danger. Or something like that.

The real purpose of all this mumbo-jumbo is to provide an excuse for Regan and Lamont to return to Georgetown so that Regan can confront her past and Boorman can try to outdo Friedkin in special effects. But despite a plague of locusts, walls that rip themselves to pieces and a floor that collapses beneath Regan's former bed, Boorman's grand finale fails either to move or to frighten. The nearly two hours that lead up to it are too dull and meandering, the plot logic too opaque, and the "reveal" just before the confrontation between Regan and her demonic "double" too confusing to create any sense of fear, tension or even giggles. It's telling that Boorman got pretty much the same reaction from alternate versions where a main character survived the conflagration or died in the battle. By that point, nobody cared.

Exorcist II: The Heretic Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Exorcist II: The Heretic didn't lack for talent behind the camera. Its cinematographer was veteran DP William A. Fraker (Rosemary's Baby, among many others), whose lighting deserves better treatment than the soft and muddy image on Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray. While some of the softness is undoubtedly inherent in the source, especially the effects shots, Warner has made no apparent effort to bring the film to the Blu-ray format with anything like the detail and clarity of which the format is capable and that undoubtedly exists in the source material. Colors are frequently dull, detail is inconsistent, and a thin layer of video noise is an almost constant companion (don't mistake it for grain; it isn't). As with The Exorcist III, there may have been some high-frequency roll-off to ease the compressionist's task in fitting this 118-minute film onto a BD-25, with an average bitrate of 20.96 Mbps. The Blu-ray presentation is better than the DVD, but it certainly doesn't reproduce the experience of film.

Exorcist II: The Heretic Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Exorcist II: The Heretic's original mono soundtrack is reproduced on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA 1.0, and it's a surprisingly robust and effective track for a film from 1977. The dialogue is clear, and the elaborate sound editing that encompasses all manner of jungle sounds (tiger roars, buzzing of locusts, roaring of winds) as well as the electronic tones used for the "synchronizer" and a forceful thunderstorm summoned by the forces of darkness all pack enough punch to contribute whatever they can to the narrative. (Sound effects can only do so much.) The score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone isn't one of his most memorable, but it does contain a lovely theme for Regan that also plays over the menu.

Exorcist II: The Heretic Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Alternate Opening Sequence (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 2:13): Although a quotation from this opening is described at IMDb as "pre-release version", I believe it to be the new opening that Boorman added when he recut the film after its premiere. It provides a brief recap of key portions of the original film, then cuts directly to the South American scene with which The Heretic now opens.



• Trailer (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 1:48): If the film doesn't make you laugh, this trailer certainly will. The music sounds like it was written for a parody.



• Teaser (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 1:19): The teaser sounds promising, but it doesn't show any footage.

Exorcist II: The Heretic Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Exorcist II: The Heretic has several memorable scenes that I always recall fondly, including Regan's healing of the autistic child and every moment featuring James Earl Jones. But whenever I watch the film, I'm reminded of how brief those engaging instances are in the vast stretches of nonsensical filler that occupy the bulk of the running time. If ever a film deserved to be compressed into a highlight reel, it's The Heretic. Still, the film has its fans, and Warner should have treated it better than they did. Buyer's choice, but purchasers of The Complete Anthology will get it as part of the package.