After the astonishing success of 1973’s The Exorcist—which won over critics, the Academy, and audiences alike, and is still considered one of the greatest horror movies ever made—the studio decided it wanted a sequel. In 1977, The Exorcist II: The Heretic hit theaters. It is still considered “one of the most famous failures of all time in the cinema,” to quote its director, John Boorman.
New documentary Boorman and the Devil, directed by David Kittredge (Queer for Fear), interviews Boorman and many others in its fascinating excavation of what went wrong. The short answer is “nearly everything,” and the end result is a step-by-step cautionary tale of what not to do, as well as an insider’s peek into a Hollywood that barely resembles its current incarnation.
These days, planning for a sequel after a hugely popular blockbuster would be an automatic next move. Obsession 2 talk started not long after the first film dropped. Same thing with Backrooms 2.
But in the ‘70s, sequels were still something of a novelty. The success of The Godfather Part II helped turn the tide, and Warner Bros. dreamed of riding the wave of Exorcist mania and raking in a fresh pile of box-office returns. In theory, it was a promising idea. Making it a reality proved, well… the documentary is called Boorman and the Devil for a reason.
Kittredge has assembled an excellent array of talking heads to weigh in on The Exorcist II: The Heretic from various perspectives. Looking in from the outside are the likes of horror directors Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body), Joe Dante (Gremlins), and Mike Flanagan (whose own Exorcist franchise entry, Martyrs, hits theaters next year). We also hear from film critics and even someone who was at the very first disastrous Heretic screening.
Insiders who weigh in include Oscar-nominated Exorcist star Linda Blair, still a teen when she was offered a hefty paycheck to reprise her breakout role, and Louise Fletcher, who came aboard after winning her Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest because she wanted to see what it was like making a big studio movie.
We also hear from members of The Heretic crew, including assistant directors, camera operators, and the script supervisor, all of whom share stories of the chaos that plagued the entire production, some of which are enhanced by animated sequences.
With that comes a lot of context; if you’re familiar with the movie—pretty much a requirement ahead of watching the documentary—you will know it makes a lot of odd choices. That includes the very deliberate quest not to replicate the first Exorcist, an artistic and thematic decision that Boorman, who was coming off a hit (Deliverance) and an oddity (Zardoz) at a time when Hollywood allowed more directorial freedom than it does now, very much leaned into.
The Heretic was styled as “an epic, globe-trotting thriller about the next phase of human evolution,” with the original script by William Goodhart undergoing extensive rewrites from an uncredited Rospo Pallenberg. The latter offers an unapologetic recounting of his experiences in Boorman and the Devil and is remembered unfavorably in other interviews, at one point being called “a meddler who made things more complicated.”
Many of those rewrites happened very late in the game, when time was running tight due to a lengthy production pause. As we learn, Boorman became gravely ill after breathing in soil used during the film’s desert sequences, which recreated Ethiopia by way of a California soundstage.
The Heretic’s scheduling woes had already started before it had to go on hiatus, though, and the documentary ticks through a dizzying array of falling dominos that contributed to the head-scratchingly bizarre final product, including one of the most incoherent final scenes in all of horror. That includes studio interference at some points, including the insisted-upon casting of aging star Richard Burton, an erratic presence on set, but a curious hands-off policy at other points. As Boorman recalls it, Warner Bros. was somehow “not at all” involved in the movie’s script or development processes.
As we see, studio execs came to regret this; when The Exorcist II: The Heretic hit theaters, barely making its non-negotiable release date, audiences expecting something in line with the first film greeted it with confusion, anger, and jeers of laughter. Critics were also, shall we say, unkind. In the doc, Boorman recalls his frantic quest to re-edit the film, trimming some of the unintentionally funny moments and doing his best to salvage the ending.
But by then, the damage was already done. Looking back, Boorman takes some of the blame, and he’s clearly got some psychic baggage clinging to him decades later. But he kind of flips it around too, saying that he should have realized the people would have a hard time with what he saw as “a riposte” to The Exorcist—a movie he’d turned down the chance to direct, since he interpreted the book as being about “torturing a child”—rather than the sequel they were promised. He’s still proud of the film’s technical achievements, and he notes that moving forward, he learned to be more respectful regarding audience expectations, something he hadn’t taken into account previously.
As the documentary points out, the failure of The Exorcist II: The Heretic marked “an end to a certain era of taking risks” in cinema. Another era-ender in that regard came in the form of Star Wars, which had released just weeks earlier in 1977 and did a lot to rearrange the DNA of Hollywood priorities.
Boorman and the Devil is truly a must-watch for anyone who has beheld The Heretic‘s bizarre blend of Kokumo, Pazuzu, tap-dancing, locusts, Ennio Morricone’s (brilliant, terrifying) score, the “synchronizer,” the “teeth of the wind,” and every other freaky treasure Boorman’s movie contains, especially if they were left wondering exactly how and why it all came to be. While the director interview is the documentary’s centerpiece, the highlight for many viewers may well be the late Fletcher, who pulls no punches in her wry, hilarious, gently shit-talking recollections.
Boorman and the Devil is now available to rent or buy on digital platforms.
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