alexanderdavies-99382 "The Exorcist 2: The Heretic," is not a good film by any means. People like William Freidkin and Ellen Burstyn are sorely missed, the reduced budget is all too obvious, the script is poor and the plot in general is ridiculous. Richard Burton made a wise move in making this film just for the money - divorce settlements can be costly! He does his best to add something to this "Exorcist" film but his efforts are all vain. The same is true of Linda Blair. It certainly made sense for her to reprise her role from the 1973 film but her best efforts can't save this one.

kamcjm Exorcist II is terrible. It is proof of trolling and people who must be paid to give positive reviews to horrible movies. I have seen this before here. A truly bad movie like The Heretic is being given its dues by real reviewers, who are all giving it a 1, 2 or 3 out of 10; when suddenly along comes a bunch of people who claim the movie is actually great and under-rated. They just "can't believe" all the terrible reviews. Well, the truth is there aren't that many people with horrible taste in movies. There just aren't. Only a very special person could find good in this movie. And the world isn't full of that many special people as are commenting here. The trolls are ruining this site for the real movie lovers. And anyone who loves movies would most certainly not love this one.

RanchoTuVu Exorcist II the Heretic presents a vividly colorful travelrama to Africa in order to ascertain what exactly happened to Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) of the original Exorcist. This version features a sort of anthropological element to arrive at the source of the evil demon that still lurks inside Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair). It's way out of the range of her well-intentioned psychiatric professional (Louise Fletcher), who employs a device known as a synchronizer that locks the two minds together in order to return to the room on the night Merrin dies. The Catholic cardinal Paul Henreid dispatches father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) to finally close the case on this incident of demonic possession after a stunning opening to the movie in swirling visual detail that introduces the viewer to the style that somehow lifts this film to an unexepected level of borderline greatness for its overall bizarreness.

venusboys3 I think I tried watching this movie when I was a teenager. I was hoping for horror and gore of course... or at least more of the same as the original Exorcist. Instead I got this wackadoodle fantasy story about magical children and demons trying to destroy them. Lots of spectacle and overwrought acting. It didn't work for me at all and I probably didn't pay much attention to it... I might even have fallen asleep. So, flash forward a decade or so and I see it on TCM and decide to give it a second shot, if for no other reason than to laugh at an infamous turkey of a movie. Surprisingly, I liked it. Yes, it's still the same crazy-ass movie I saw as a kid... but I've changed and am much more willing to glean the gold from the ashes. Boorman made some wonderfully kooky movies, some worked better than others but ALL of them were trying to be something more than the average. Exorcist 2 is NOT the original, in a lot of ways it stands apart and I suspect if it had been an Italian production with different stars that made no reference to the original it would be considered a minor classic. Not that it's a great movie, not at all. It's got some bad dialogue and badly delivered dialogue. The sets are a 70s sort of weird... more scifi and disco influenced I suspect. And it's not really a horror movie at all. Instead it's a mystical epic... concerned with psychic kids and evil spirits and pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo and gadgets. I think it would make a fun double-feature with another wild 70s movie, The Visitor. Also packed with some famous actors and also kooky as can be. But my enjoyment of Exorcist 2 didn't come from how bad it was. I don't think it would work as an MST3K subject. I liked it because, despite its flaws, I could see through to the story it was telling and it's a compelling tale... full of bizarre imagery and mythic implications. I'm sure most people of the time would have preferred a by-rote rehash of the original horror film... instead they got this spiritual and futuristic epic that was free of most all the salacious and 'naughty' bits of the original. It was also pretty much free of Catholic superstition and Christian imagery. The story it's telling leaves all that behind in favor of something strikingly new. That, more than anything, is why I think it has the awful reputation it does. But seen outside the limiting context of being a sequel to a famous horror film I believe it delivers on being an interesting and compelling tale of its own. Give it a shot.