Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

People are voting emotionally.

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Some bad films are good to watch because they are 'bad'. Exclude this film from that type...

Exorcist II:The Heretic is the sequel to worlds famous film The Exorcist which takes place four years after The Exorcist and explores Regan who know goes to Doctor Tuskin who is curious about what she remembers after the disturbing exorcism performed four years earlier and soon,she finds out Pazzuzu is back from Hell ready to get in to Regan again and with the help of a priest and Regan's guardian for now,they must all drive the demon back to Hell forever one more time! John Boorman is a director I don't know much about except that he made the brilliant Deliverance and according to him,he didn't actually like the first film(I hate him in a way for that)and he decided to make this(probably cause of all the money it made)and here I am..forty years after reviewing it. I think Exorcist 2 is good because it's a very creative film and it has a bunch of new Hollywood actors and actresses such as James Earl Jones(Star Wars:TFA) and Richard Burton. One thing I loved about this,is the music,the music is some of the most peaceful and beautiful I've ever heard and Linda Blair also did a splendid return who even grew up to star in more movies such as Savage Streets,Repossessed and even,Scream! Exorcist 2 is very good!!

I have all the respect in the world for John Boorman--his 'Point Blank' and 'Deliverance' are excellent--but this sequel to one of the greatest horror movies ever made simply falls listless and flat. Of course, the script is extremely talky and lifeless--as if it had been 'exorcised' of all the wonder and shock that William Friedkin's vision of the battle of good vs. evil would entail. Yes, Sir Richard Burton was a great actor--yet when shoehorned with a crappy script and with his more irritating peccadilloes left unrestrained, he can be such a chore and bore to watch. Though I have not seen the two more recent 'prequels' for the 'Exorcist' franchise, I can safely say that while 'Exorcist II' is not the worst horror movie ever made (that, by the way, never seemed its intention), it's certainly the worst of the original trilogy--and by a country mile. This is a work that would probably bore the demons so much, they would decide to get out of Regan MacNeil's body, and perhaps even leave Earth's plane altogether, never even wanting a return ticket.

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.