SoI finally watched all of Exorcist II: The Heretic. I'd never seen the film in its entirety, and I wanted to see if it really was as bad as the critics say it is.
Of course, film critics are largely a cowardly clowder of weak-willed lemmings who love nothing better than pig-piling on an easy target, so I knew it couldn't possibly be.
And having now watched Exorcist II, I can tell you it's not even close to being "the worst film ever made." It's not even the worst film ever made in comparison to the original, and critics who utter hysterical hyperbole like that should be pelted with rocks and garbage.
But is Exorcist II a good film?
Well, it depends on how you define "good." As popcorn fodder, it's not very good. Neither is it as a would-be blockbuster like the original. But as a kind of proto-David Lynch synchrodelic-psychotronic freakout that is telling quite a few tales out of school, it's a fascinating and worthwhile watch.
Speaking of telling tales out of school, last year's Exorcist Octoberfest really kind of got to me, especially after digging up all that evidence proving that the original Exorcist -- both book and film -- are just an extremely thinly-veiled allegory of a real-life horror and a real-life monster, neither of which have anything to do with the supernatural. Unless, of course, you factor in existential evil.
And I do wonder if John Boorman were hip to what tale The Exorcist was really telling, given what he told WB head John Calley when he was offered the gig:
The film that I made, I saw as a kind of riposte to the ugliness and darkness of The Exorcist – I wanted a film about journeys that was positive, about good, essentially. And I think that audiences, in hindsight, were right. I denied them what they wanted and they were pissed off about it – quite rightly, I knew I wasn't giving them what they wanted and it was a really foolish choice.
The film itself, I think, is an interesting one – there's some good work in it – but when they came to me with it I told John Calley, who was running Warner Bros then, that I didn't want it.
"Look," I said, "I have daughters, I don't want to make a film about torturing a child," which is how I saw the original film.
Yeah, I'm definitely thinking Boorman had been read in on what The Exorcist was really based on.
