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Boorman and the Devil review – enjoyable re-evaluation of the disaster that was Exorcist II: The Heretic

John Boorman generously details the mortifying experience of making a sequel to 1973 hit horror The Exorcist, which was widely and unfairly panned David Kittredge gives us a thoroughly enjoyable, detailed account of the catastrophe that was John Boorman’s 1977 film Exorcist II: The Heretic, the deeply ill-conceived and widely derided follow-up to The Exorcist, a bizarre but ambitious fantasy supernatural rhapsody, brimming with unintentional comedy. Yet it was visually bold and even brilliant, pioneering in its use of Steadicam; Linda Blair and Max von Sydow were persuaded to return; Richard Burton was cast as a troubled priest, and Louise Fletcher as a psychiatrist whose weird “mind-reader” contraption was entirely ridiculous. At the first film, people screamed. Now they screamed with laughter. According to an apocryphal tale gleefully repeated by William Friedkin, director of the first

Image from linked report: Boorman and the Devil review – enjoyable re-evaluation of the disaster that was Exorcist II: The Heretic
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John Boorman generously details the mortifying experience of making a sequel to 1973 hit horror The Exorcist, which was widely and unfairly panned David Kittredge gives us a thoroughly enjoyable, detailed account of the catastrophe that was John Boorman’s 1977 film Exorcist II: The Heretic, the deeply ill-conceived and widely derided follow-up to The Exorcist, a bizarre but ambitious fantasy supernatural rhapsody, brimming with unintentional comedy. Yet it was visually bold and even brilliant, pioneering in its use of Steadicam; Linda Blair and Max von Sydow were persuaded to return; Richard Burton was cast as a troubled priest, and Louise Fletcher as a psychiatrist whose weird “mind-reader” contraption was entirely ridiculous. At the first film, people screamed. Now they screamed with laughter. According to an apocryphal tale gleefully repeated by William Friedkin, director of the first

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According to The Guardian’s source item, Boorman and the Devil review – enjoyable re-evaluation of the disaster that was Exorcist II: The Heretic, John Boorman generously details the mortifying experience of making a sequel to 1973 hit horror The Exorcist, which was widely and unfairly panned David Kittredge gives us a thoroughly enjoyable, detailed account of the catastrophe that was John Boorman’s 1977 film Exorcist II: The Heretic, the deeply ill-conceived and widely derided follow-up to The Exorcist, a bizarre but ambitious fantasy supernatural rhapsody, brimming with unintentional comedy. Yet it was visually bold and even brilliant, pioneering in its use of Steadicam; Linda Blair and Max von Sydow were persuaded to return; Richard Burton was cast as a troubled priest, and Louise Fletcher as a psychiatrist whose weird “mind-reader” contraption was entirely ridiculous. At the first film, people screamed. Now they screamed with laughter. According to an apocryphal tale gleefully repeated by William Friedkin, director of the first

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Primary source: Boorman and the Devil review – enjoyable re-evaluation of the disaster that was Exorcist II: The Heretic via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.

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