EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC
Underrated? Yeah, sure.
It wouldn't be entirely inaccurate to state that this may well be the most underrated movie in cinema history. Not because the movie's great. This movie is a lot of things, but I don't think great is one of them. No, because it ain't bad; and the movie's reputation is amongst the lousiest ever, right up there with Ishtar. (y'know, one of these days I'm actually gonna see Ishtar)
I saw this one about six years ago; I can't really say that it was very dramatic or affecting, but it was loaded with images that have stuck with me even after all this time. Director John Boorman has stuck some really unforgettable stuff in here, and I rented this baby again mostly to revisit the visuals, although I do have to admit some renewed curiosity about the film seeing as how it actually has some defenders (but then, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things has defenders too, right?).
A 17-year-old Linda Blair returns as that much-abused kid Regan. Priest Richard Burton is looking into what happened with Father Merrin's exorcism at the end of the first film, and just what's become of her in the girl post-possession years, since even though she has no conscious recollection of her abuse at the hands of the demon Pazuzu, she's starting to exhibit some unnatural abilities. Why DID that demon possess her, anyway?
Exorcist II was a movie that just about nobody at the time wanted. When you make a sequel to a modern horror classic, what can be expected but, at the very least, a horror movie? I don't think anybody was expecting - or asking for - two hours of heavy theology, philosophy and symbolism in an art flick. This is most certainly not a horror movie, and I think that fact is most responsible for its reputation as a failure. It's a fantasy with a Catholic backdrop; to try to view the film as anything else is going to result in inevitable disappointment.
This is a movie fraught with problems, and on occasion, it's hard not to sympathize with the audiences that originally laughed it off the screen. That first scene with the hypnosis machine is a joke - very clumsily overlaying images of the "present day" and flashbacks of the exorcism. It doesn't help that the entire setup for the scene smacks heavily of bullshit (Regan might be traumatized well into suicide by being asked about the exorcism which she doesn't remember, but somehow it's okay to try to coax it out of her with hypnosis). And really, this is one of the sillier "shared hallucination" concepts I've seen; granted, the "sympathetic hypnosis" machine is pure science fiction, but it's pretty lame science fiction.
The dialogue is overwrought (sometimes enjoyably, sometimes laughably), and Burton spends half his screen time staring off into deep space. Casting Louise Fletcher as a mental health professional this soon after her Oscar-winning role in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest was just a bad, BAD idea; and it doesn't help that there's so many times when her competence is in doubt. And that dance number 2/3 of the way though...let's not talk about the dance number 2/3 of the way through. 'But mixed in with all this mess, a lot of excellence shines through. Linda Blair (turning into quite the fox, I might add) shines here, in a sympathetic and warm performance. The story is quite intriguing, and impressively carried out; I don?t think I was once bored during this film, since I found myself quite involved with everything. And like I said, Boorman gives us some really fascinating, striking visuals. Anyone more patient than I is invited to delve into all that symbolism and theology; it's really not my bag, so I won't comment too extensively on it.
I've read that Boorman never liked the original Exorcist, finding it quite repulsive (and not in a good way), and that he took up directing duties on this film mostly because he was offered an enormous budget ($14M, as it turns out) and complete artistic control. Hey, that's just what I read. Whatever, he seemed pretty dissatisfied with how it all turned out, considering that he actually kept tinkering with it after its premiere.
Watch for a train conductor who looks just like Joe Pesci. Probably not Pesci himself, since I'm pretty sure he was recording that "Little Joe Sure Can Sing!" album at the time.