The 1973 Exorcist is probably my favorite horror film, it's a film that I love and I always like to know or learn more about it, and even though I knew the sequel was bad, I didn't know it was SO bad. The existence of this film makes no sense, The Exorcist had already closed the story it presented to us, so I see this sequel as a clear attempt to build on the success of the first film.
About the film, as difficult as it was to reach the end, I resisted, and I can say that it is an atrocity on several levels and in different contexts, trying my best to give meaning to its existence with motivations and plots that are ridiculous from the start from them. There is no way to justify director John Boorman's decisions.
There are moments when you might laugh because they are so absurd and poorly produced that they are actually funny, like the scenes involving the hypnosis device (a horrible concept that gets even worse as the film progresses and becomes more and more pointless), but unfortunately they are moments, the film is not so bad that it becomes funny, they are just moments and laughable concepts, the rest is torture. The most interesting thing is to know that director John Boorman doesn't like the original, I mean, he doesn't like the original, which is a renowned film, but did he like this thing he did here?
The cast is very affected and they are not bad actors. Louise Fletcher had just won the Oscar for her excellent work in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and in this film she is as expressive as a door. Richard Burton, who is a great actor, is terrible as Father Lamont, it seemed like he didn't know what he was doing, what's more his character is terrible and seems more like a madman who talks about demons all the time, I don't judge the characters who don't take him seriously. But the biggest bad highlight of the cast is Linda Blayr, totally affected by the stardom that the first film gave her (she was incredible in the first film), she is as bad as everyone else and even worse. And her character can feel what Father Lamont feels and even heal mute people, 4 years have passed and Regan has gained superpowers, how incredible, right?
All the ''horror'' scenes in this film have the opposite effect, it was supposed to be something tense, but it is laughable and has one of the worst visual constructions in the horror genre, from the makeup that is much inferior to the first film (where it is clearly a double instead of Linda Blayr... and what a horrible stunt double), even those grasshoppers or isolated exorcism scenes without minimally acceptable contexts. The plot progresses as if it had several ideas brought together in some way without continuity and coherence. Concepts that were formed in the first film, such as the demon being persistent and difficult to defeat, are completely forgotten, and here the demon not only disappears in the blink of an eye but also introduces himself by saying his name.
For much of the film I was asking myself, what is happening? How did they get to that level? Because nothing has the slightest logical coherence and justification for happening, and when it does, it would be better not to have it. The editing of this film is terrible, there are transitions and overlapping images that are really amateurish, and if you isolate it scene by scene and stop little by little, you realize that it doesn't make sense.
To be fair to the film and to Ennio Morricone, the film's soundtrack is good, but even if it is good, it is very poorly used, and is affected because it doesn't match the badness of the scenes where it is inserted.
Exorcist II: The Heretic is everything the first film wasn't, even though it was an attempt to capitalize on the original, how did they reach this level in just 4 years? One of the worst sequels I've ever seen considering the quality of the first film and one of the worst films I've ever seen too. I couldn't express half the contempt I feel for this film in this review.
About the film, as difficult as it was to reach the end, I resisted, and I can say that it is an atrocity on several levels and in different contexts, trying my best to give meaning to its existence with motivations and plots that are ridiculous from the start from them. There is no way to justify director John Boorman's decisions.
There are moments when you might laugh because they are so absurd and poorly produced that they are actually funny, like the scenes involving the hypnosis device (a horrible concept that gets even worse as the film progresses and becomes more and more pointless), but unfortunately they are moments, the film is not so bad that it becomes funny, they are just moments and laughable concepts, the rest is torture. The most interesting thing is to know that director John Boorman doesn't like the original, I mean, he doesn't like the original, which is a renowned film, but did he like this thing he did here?
The cast is very affected and they are not bad actors. Louise Fletcher had just won the Oscar for her excellent work in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and in this film she is as expressive as a door. Richard Burton, who is a great actor, is terrible as Father Lamont, it seemed like he didn't know what he was doing, what's more his character is terrible and seems more like a madman who talks about demons all the time, I don't judge the characters who don't take him seriously. But the biggest bad highlight of the cast is Linda Blayr, totally affected by the stardom that the first film gave her (she was incredible in the first film), she is as bad as everyone else and even worse. And her character can feel what Father Lamont feels and even heal mute people, 4 years have passed and Regan has gained superpowers, how incredible, right?
All the ''horror'' scenes in this film have the opposite effect, it was supposed to be something tense, but it is laughable and has one of the worst visual constructions in the horror genre, from the makeup that is much inferior to the first film (where it is clearly a double instead of Linda Blayr... and what a horrible stunt double), even those grasshoppers or isolated exorcism scenes without minimally acceptable contexts. The plot progresses as if it had several ideas brought together in some way without continuity and coherence. Concepts that were formed in the first film, such as the demon being persistent and difficult to defeat, are completely forgotten, and here the demon not only disappears in the blink of an eye but also introduces himself by saying his name.
For much of the film I was asking myself, what is happening? How did they get to that level? Because nothing has the slightest logical coherence and justification for happening, and when it does, it would be better not to have it. The editing of this film is terrible, there are transitions and overlapping images that are really amateurish, and if you isolate it scene by scene and stop little by little, you realize that it doesn't make sense.
To be fair to the film and to Ennio Morricone, the film's soundtrack is good, but even if it is good, it is very poorly used, and is affected because it doesn't match the badness of the scenes where it is inserted.
Exorcist II: The Heretic is everything the first film wasn't, even though it was an attempt to capitalize on the original, how did they reach this level in just 4 years? One of the worst sequels I've ever seen considering the quality of the first film and one of the worst films I've ever seen too. I couldn't express half the contempt I feel for this film in this review.