Given that The Exorcist was embraced by critics and audiences alike – earning Oscar nominations, serious critical discourse, and box office numbers that would translate to astronomical figures today – a sequel was inevitable. Well, we got that sequel alright, and a few more to boot. Though, perhaps, not as many as you might think.
Released in 1977 and directed by John Boorman, Exorcist II: The Heretic is not so much a sequel as it is a conceptual betrayal. Where The Exorcist was grounded, procedural, suffocating in its realism, Heretic floats off into cosmic mysticism and new-age absurdity with the confidence of a film that has absolutely the wrong idea about what made its predecessor work.
From its very first frame, Heretic seems utterly lost, unsure whether it’s horror, metaphysical thriller, or a fevered acid trip. Rather than continuing the taut, grounded terror of the original, Boorman and writer William Goodhart hurl the story headlong into a mire of hypnotic trance machines, African mysticism, and pseudo-spiritual gobbledygook.
We again follow Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), the girl whose demon-possessed, contorted face terrified an entire generation of moviegoers – and anyone stupid enough to play those Flash maze games in the early 2000s (that’s me, I was that guy).
Regan’s all grown up now. The film reminds you of this at every opportunity, by tarting up this traumatised teenage girl in practically every frame. Regan is also in psychiatric care: because Ellen Burstyn who played her mother went on to star in good films and wouldn’t be seen dead in this. It turns out that Regan’s memories of her possession are repressed and she dismisses the whole thing as having a bad cold or something.
Meanwhile, Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) investigates the suspicious death of Father Merrin, who died in the previous film confronting the demon Pazuzu. Merrin has been posthumously declared a heretic for his writings on Satan, as the Church don’t want to be seen talking about such matters. They’re happy to tell you that you’re going to Hell for not washing your hands after taking a shit though.
Troubled by his own past – where he saw a possessed woman burn herself to death in Latin America – Lamont seeks confirmation of Merrin’s experiences, perhaps as a form of validation. He comes to meet with Regan – now sixteen – who is living in New York. As she claims to remember nothing about her ordeal, her analyst, Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher), uses a “synchronizer” to link their minds and unlock buried memories. Yeah it gets a bit out there this one.
Through this magical bullshit device, Lamont psychically connects to Regan’s past and…to Pazuzu’s! We see Merrin’s earlier encounter in Africa with a possessed boy named Kokumo (Joey Green). Looks like Pazuzu’s been getting those airmiles in. Lamont then travels to Africa to find the adult Kokumo, who has grown up to be fucking James Earl Jones and is now a scientist studying locust swarms.
Back in the U.S., Regan discovers she can telepathically reach into the minds of others – even helping an autistic girl speak. What is it about horror films and psychic teenage girls? Lamont becomes convinced Regan remains spiritually significant – not merely a former victim, but a nexus point in some grand metaphysical struggle. He returns to protect Regan as the demon’s influence stalks them back in the original film’s Georgetown setting.
Pazuzu appears to Lamont as a seductive doppelgänger of Regan, tempting him with unlimited power before a climactic crash into the old MacNeil house. A deluge of locusts and collapsing walls frame a final battle where Lamont kills the Regan impostor and Regan herself repels the swarm (and therefore Pazuzu) using a crude ritual created by Kokumo. Lamont – battered, confused, and spiritually unwound – is left to watch over Regan as they walk away from the dismantled house of horror.
Exorcist II sits on critic aggregator sites with abysmally low scores and is frequently cited among the worst sequels ever made – and not just in the horror genre, but in cinema history. Even William Friedkin, director of the original, reportedly called it “a horrible picture” and a “disgrace,” sentiments echoed by critics and audiences alike.
And the prevailing opinion about the film certainly has merit. There’s a real sense that the whole thing feels off, like they fucked up at every opportunity. You want dread? Here’s synchronised hypnosis with glowing metronomes. You want theological weight? Here’s locust telepathy. You want spiritual terror? Here’s Richard Burton sweating through dialogue that sounds like it was generated by shaking a Ouija board.
Poor Linda Blair is asked to transform Regan from traumatised survivor into vaguely psychic wellness influencer, and it’s like asking a lamb to perform Othello. Meanwhile, Richard Burton delivers every line as though he’s trying to escape the film by sheer force of theatrical projection.
One of the original film’s greatest strengths was its atmospheric dread delivered through practical effects and cinematography that felt real. This was helped by Friedkin’s signature documentary style approach, as seen in The French Connection.
But for the sequel, Boorman favours stylisation over realism. There’s an artificial glow to his frames that, coupled with the very Seventies retro-futuristic aesthetic of the sets, makes it feel like a pop video. The hypnosis scenes drift into slow-motion abstraction, all shimmering light and symbolic posturing. Instead of invasive, intimate terror, we get operatic mysticism and cosmic pageantry.
Nothing connects. Nothing coheres. Scenes drift in and out like half-remembered dreams after a bad cheese binge. The tone goes from solemn to absurd to unintentionally hilarious.
But here’s the thing: I do not think this is a bad film. It’s just a terrible sequel. Divorced from The Exorcist, it plays like a weird, proto–’80s schlock horror flick that arrived a few years too early. When it leans into the visceral imagery and excess, there’s a certain charm to it. The possession imagery is striking. The hypnosis sequences are hypnotic in their own bizarre way. The film is never dull, merely baffling.
The problem, then, isn’t that it’s without merit. It’s that it had the misfortune of attempting to follow a masterpiece. On its own, it’s odd, ambitious, and messy. As a sequel to one of the greatest horror films ever made, it never stood a chance. Of course, despite this film’s failure, we eventually got an absolute banger of a sequel in the form The Exorcist III. But that’s a story for another day.
In conclusion, if the original film was a cathedral of horror designed and built by master craftsmen, then Exorcist II is a toddler squatting in the nave, enthusiastically stacking handfuls of its own shit into something it insists is “also a cathedral.”
