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| Somehow, I gotta stay awake through this. |
Director: John Boorman
I'm going to begin with a piece of local color that has nothing at all to do with "Exorcist II:The Heretic" and, as such, will likely be the best thing about this whole blog post because the rest of the post will be about "Exorcist II: The Heretic."
I live across the street from a home/school for blind folks. As I was standing on my front stoop smoking a cigarette, I watched a grown Woman step behind the trees on the blind people homes' property to urinate. Her friends saw me and I looked away, because who wants that kind of action, and all I could think of was "Hey, at least she doesn't have to worry about anyone seeing her."
Hey-oh.
So, "Exorcist II: The Heretic." I now realize that one must say the whole title when referring to the film. I've seen this once or twice before and I could tell you very little about it if asked. Usually, I feel like I have trouble staying awake through the whole thing. I remember Richard Burton over-acting...there were some flashbacks to the African Boy Possession from Merrins past...Linda Blair wears a white nightgown a lot with feathered hair and music-video wind blowing around her...wow, that's pretty much all I remember. Were there bees or something? I feel like there were Bees. No, Locusts, right?
Ah, hell, let's just get on with it.
I had no memory of Max von Sydow or Kitty Winn coming back for this film. Y'know, I never talked at all about Kitty Winn or her portrayl as Sharon in the original film. I mean, Sharon didn't do much in the original film, and I'm wagering doesn't do much here either, but Winn did a thankless but nevertheless important job of being a foil for Ellen Burstyn. Sharon didn't get much more in the novel-other than a pseudo-flirtation with Karras that the demon brings up to mess with the good Father during the exorcism and aiding in the medical care of Reagan-than the film, but the character was always there as a sort of objective witness to the events. Sharon did have the spooky scene of summoning Karass to the house to observe the weird writing on Reagans body, so there was that.
It may be crass to say, given the context of the scene, but I feel like I might set myself on fire, too, if Dick Burton walked into a room to shout at me.
Three scenes and no cohesion whatsoever. Ritual in...Africa, maybe? Reagan tapdances flirtatiously with a sax player (quite possibly as a side effect of being possessed. I can only assume poor judgement is a lingering symptom), and then we're at a Psychiatrists office with deaf people. The office is very seventies. Then we're in Ken Russell's "The Devils." I got a bad feeling about this.
This sequel really doesn't make a lot of sense. So The Cardinal is sending Richard Burton to investigate the death of Father Merrin? Wouldn't Merrin have been tossed in with Burke Dennings are victims of Damian Karass, as Kinderman would have eventually reported? And even if not, who the hell is Burton going to talk to? God doesn't usually provide answers, and usually when he does it involves a Taco or something. Merrin is pretty dead. But the scene is filled with wonderfully hammy acting. "I'm not WORTHY!" "YOU are a SOLDIER of GOD! YOU MUST MAKE YOURSELF WORTHY!"
Really, movie? Do you have any sense of scene-cohesion or even time? Richard Burton apparently teleported from Rome during the time it took for Reagan to have a mostly meaningless conversation with...someone, the movie wasn't clear who she was. Really, nothing here is really clear. I mean, we know Burton is here to talk to Reagan (apparently many, many years after the fact...you'd think they would have checked up on this sooner?), and Reagan is in therapy with Louise Fletcher who wants to use a machine made out of spare parts....holy crap, movie, stick with a scene!
Reagan was hanging with Sharon watching TV about Psychics and then we're smack in the middle of using some sort of voodoo machine that causes some sort of psychic hypnosis that, apparently, people instinctively know how to use when hooked up to it. If I could get screen grabs, all of this blog would just be of Richard Burtons facial expressions. How does Burton understand this voodoo? "I know what to do" he says, strapping his head into the machine, and then there's some watered down versions of the exorcism scene that look basically like a bad school play. Reagan knows how this all works? Burton knows how this all works? The Psychiatrist psychically projected into Merrin in the past via Reagans memories? Those memories continued while no longer actually connected to Reagan?
Oh, man, Richard Burton actually has a fight scene with a small box fire. Forget what I said before, this movie is amazing.
Y'know, every so often I find myself thinking this might be a well-directed interpretation of a terrible script. John Boorman is obviously pretty inspired by Ken Russell here, which isn't really a bad thing. The other-worldly close-ups of Locusts, the sparse but rich depictions of the African village, the ethereal walk of Reagan through her loft, with the Doves flying around...it's really not too badly presented. Almost stylish, really.
I forgot entirely about Burton and Sharon returning to the set of the original. Burton has one mode: walk a few feet, spit out a line, look around, take a few steps, repeat. While the director had a handle on visual stuff for the most part, he really didn't have a way with actors. Kitty Winn gives a really poor performance here. Boorman doesn't have a very good sense of pacing (or, at the very least, how to hire a good editor): the entire scene in the original house sputters and dies like every other scene without ever accounting for itself.
Again, the dream-sequence showing the exorcism of the African boy is fairly well done. It looks pretty good. It's surreal and artsy. I mean, then we cut back to a sedated Linda Blair with a strap-thing on her forehead and expository dialogue from Burton, but there's still some very strange cinematography happening here, good sound effect editing...just terrible dialogue and a garbage plot. I don't even want to hate Blair here...she's charming and sweet seeming. I mean, I don't think I needed Reagan the saint, even though it does provide an (albeit unnecessarily) interesting reason why the demon went off and possessed her.
"I'm not obsessed! I mean, I'm fascinated but..." This script just snaps, crackles and pops. Every line Burton has seems like he's just thinking out loud...on a stage...in a cheesy shakespeare play. Sometimes I think he skips lines, too.
Interestingly enough, I'm noticing something about these blog posts. Since they are written in real-time as the movie is watched, they become indicative of the film in question. This post is all over the place, sometimes lacking in internal logic or cohesion...and so is the film. "The Exorcist" kept itself together and, at least I'd like to think anyway, so did the post.
I have no idea what the hell is happening in this movie anymore. It's just become some sort of weird, brownish, strobe-effect blur. I mean, now there's James Earl Jones in a head-dress and...Burton over-acting some more and...man, this one is tough.
I've resisted, until now, making any Beach Boys "Kokomo" jokes. I wish someone was here watching this with me so I could just turn to them during any of the long, sprawling scenes of Burton wandering around the undisclosed countries within Africa and say "Y'know, he'll get there faster if he takes it slow." Maybe once just sing in a high-pitched voice "THAAAAAAT'S WHERE HE WANTS TO GO-O-OAH" whenever he says "Where is Kokomo?!" Instead, you're stuck with the textual version.
Oh, no, they took the synchro-gyro-scopical-amaphone. How does a guy in a trance get onto a train? Oh, wait, it was the seventies. Everybody was probably in a trance while, well, doing pretty much anything really. I'm pretty sure everybody on the set of "Exorcist II: The Heretic" was probably pretty tranced out by something. In particular, the screen-writer.
I think I was writing the Kokomo joke while James Earl Jones discussed Locusts-as-metaphors-for-humans...I feel like I spent that time well.
So, wait, the train and the plane got to Washington D.C. at the same time? Does the director have any sense of the passage of time? And why does the film continue to make the baffling decision to have various obstacles in the way of all of the central protagonists getting from point A to point B? Crabby public transportation, difficulty getting a cab, car accidents, and barbed wire actually prevent the characters from getting to the climax. Y'know, some of us have stuff to do, movie.
Okay, so we finally got there and...Sharon is Pazuzu now? Reagan is doing something...Burton is...wait, what? Pazuzu's Reagan is the only Reagan and now Burton is just all over that...and Sharon is set on fire...what in the blue hell is happening? I think Burton is probably actually hurting Linda Blair by smashing her against the closet. I don't know why, but I find it kinda funny.
Totally lost. Burton chose good Reagan, then decided to choke out bad Reagan and the Louise Fletcher watched Sharon die in a fire and...wait, was Reagan possessed by Merrin? Is that what happened? For some reason I find myself hearing a Director yelling "Okay, Dick, that's a cut! Richard? Mister Burton? Hey, that's a cut! Burton, stop that. Burton, stop choking Linda!"
My favorite character is the older guy who runs up to Louise Fletcher and yells "What the hell happened?!"
Okay, so that's over...I have no idea what occurred, really...Reagan and Burton go off to someplace. I assume the human race is now safe forever because choir music.
So, okay. There is some good bits of actual directing, sound editing and design in this film here and there but otherwise it's a confusing mess of poorly acted excrement that is easily one of the worst sequels ever produced by man...
Final Rating: 1 and a half stars.
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