"What this film lacks is judgement" -- Paulene Kael.
I wish I had any idea why John Boorman, after the critical and box office success of Deliverance thought it would be worth his time to do a sequel to William Peter Blatty/ William Friedkin's classic film The Exorcist.
The idea behind The Exorcist was brilliant: make a realistic film about a priest losing his faith in which the devil just happens to exist. For me, the amazing thing about The Exorcist, was how much time went by before things really got gory. It is a pity, really, that this great film is remembered not for its sensitive portrayal of the love between a priest and his dying mother, but for the obscene gyrations of a 12 year old Linda Blair.
Blame it on Saturday Night Live.
Perhaps this is what Boorman realized when he signed on to direct the skinking ship that became Exorcist II: The Heretic. Loss of faith. The Devil. Evil. Pazuzu. Innocence. Plagues. These are mythic themes. And the bombastic, over-the-top, booze-addled thespian stylings of a past-his-prime Richard Burton are the perfect vehicle for depicting this.
Richard Burton is so funny, and the ridiculous interplay between him and the kind-hearted woman of science, Jean Tusken (gamely played by Nurse Ratchet, a.k.a. Louise Fletcher) are worth the price of admission. Burton was the undiscovered Leslie Nielson of his time.
In the first film, the Church dusts off father Merrit against its better judgement. He's considered to be a bit of a wacko and a liability. In Boorman's film, however, the Church has finally seen the light. Merrit was right; we were wrong. A concerned Cardinal assigns father Lamont the job of clearing. Merrit, because "Merrit's reputation is in jeopardy." That other priest guy, father Karras -- the central character of the first Exorcist; the guy whose questions of faith made up the entire argument of the first film -- didn't even exist as far as Boorman was concerned.
In a horror film, the audience ignores what it knows to be reality and allows its basest, most carnal fears to run rampant. "That cat's possessed by the devil!" "Don't open that door!" And the filmmaker cues us that this is going on by portraying the world with cartoon-like description. Someone, we don't know who is spying on all the cheerleaders; house doors are shaking in the wind; where did all the kitchen knives go!? You get the idea. This is sometimes justified as spooky foreshadowing -- building a suspenseful mood -- but in fact it is simply reassuring. These clues tell us very clearly that we are watching a horror film, and though he crusty old principal won't believe it until he is hanging by his neck from the school flagpost, bad things are about to happen.
The Exorcist denies us this reassurance. It tries to present a real story, asking for the audience to suspend disbelief on one minor issue: that the devil exists -- a central tenement of Christian faith really, and an idea that can surely be debated in civilized company.
From the first scene, in which a Spanish healing woman performs her own devil-spawned suttee in front of a helpless father Lamont (you wonder, is it even possible for Burton to look at a woman without leering?) there is absolutely no doubt that you're in for a horror film.
Boorman ain't exactly known for his subtlety.
And yet, the mythic treatment somehow works for me. In the first film, the bed scene feels cheezy and flat. It's the only part of the first film that Boorman refers to and he takes it as his ground zero for the sequel. Nothing is real, science religion, they're all the same thing really (check out the scene where Burton's reflection gets replaced by Fletcher's. It's heavy).
So this is the dichotomy again and again throughout the film: Is it scary or is it funny? You never seem to know. The locust shots are visually mezmerizing, and Boorman's fundamental question "does great goodness draw evil upon itself" is interesting. But time and again Boorman puts this incredibly funny stuff into his heavy scenes.
The point is that reality only interferes. This is a horror film. Boorman strives to right all the wrongs made by Friedkin in the first film (in the first Exorcist, the scariest part of that film is not the last 30 minutes, but the treatment of Regan by medical science).
And he just so happens to have created a brilliant comedy at the same time. Enjoy.
Things to note:
