Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

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Director: John Boorman

Screenplay: William Goodhart (and Rospo Pallenberg)

Cast: Linda Blair (as Regan MacNeil); Richard Burton (as Father Philip Lamont); Louise Fletcher (as Dr. Gene Tuskin); Max von Sydow (as Father Lankester Merrin); Kitty Winn (as Sharon Spencer); James Earl Jones (as Kokumo)

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #101

Exorcist II is infamous. I've memories of one of its scenes, set in the artificially depicted, red hued African locations and locusts flying in swarms in the air terrorising the locales, at a young age but its only now like with the rest of the sequels to The Exorcist that I've taken a bullet and viewed it as a film. Crucified by Harry and Michael Medved in The Golden Turkey Awards book. A terrible release history including being pulled from theatre screens and being recut, only for the film to still fail. An infamy alongside its few brave defenders that, even next to the complicated production histories of the future sequels, still resonates the most. It's no way near as bad as its reputation suggests, but from the initial idea of hiring John Boorman, who morally hated the original film and decided to take an entirely different direction, this was going to be a strange detour entirely from the first film. It could've worked...but while it's not an ungodly misfire, it's so far from being a sensible, financially costly expenditure. Four years after the original Exorcist, where young teenager Regan (Linda Blair) was violently possessed by a demon, she's living back in California and a little older, vague on what happened to her due to memory loss and having counselling from Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher), a psychologist who works with pioneering techniques, including a machine that allows trances where memories can be shared between two people, whilst running an organisation that helps the kids with physical and learning disabilities.

When The Exorcist was almost timeless barring some fashion, William Friedkin's gritty realism not inherently stuck in its time period but a depiction of when it was shot, Exorcist II is so seventies some viewers might grow a perm mid-viewing. It means some delectable, gorgeous production design with lots of wood paneling and walls being replaced with glass without regard for privacy, a pigeon feeder also doubling as an art installation on the roof for the sake of extravagance. It also means diving head first into the era's obsession with parapsychology. Not inherently a negative subject to tackle, but between a TV screen showing a man bending spoons with his mind to the narrative having psychic links, the jump to the extra-ordinary is so alien to the world the original novel's author and the first film's screenwriter William Peter Blatty set up, at odds with the Catholicism still permeating this sequel and the two sides never properly connected. Even when the first film hinted at a greater universal depth, the demon Pazuzu an ancient demon who plagued one world before terrorising Catholic priests in the prequels, this sequel suddenly goes into psychic powers that don't hint at Boorman wanting to purposely avoiding everything from the first movie on purpose, but like one of those other infamous sequels to popular movies which fall off the rails in bizarre ways.

The midst of this stumbles forth Richard Burton as Father Philip Lamont, a disillusioned priest who comes to question an older Regan to defend the legacy of Father Merrin (Max von Sydow reduced to flashback and dream sequence cameos, but any excuse to crowbar von Sydow into any film is welcomed). New problems for the girl are brought forth as Burton's character believes she's still under the haze of Pazuzu. Richard Burton s someone from a certain generation of British actor (Peter O' Toole, Oliver Reed) who stand tall and proud no matter what film they are in, no matter how bad everything else is onscreen. Even as the cinematic ship sinks into the mire they draw the viewers' eyes to them with full magnetism. However even here there's periods where his lush Welsh voice falters and becomes occasionally unstuck within this film's convoluted reality. He looks prematurely aged in this role, and even with the knowledge of his alcoholism and health problems a few years before, that sense of concern I had feels like the camera betrays him with incredibly unflattering sheen, betrayed further by the story itself, having to struggle with a character in Father Lamont who's the centre of a plot so illogical that it's in an entirely different dimension let alone a complete hundred and eighty degree head turn from the first film.

He can give lines, like other members of the cast like Fletcher, an incredible weight to them, but even a great actor like him starts acting with a disconnect to his performance, only for the garbled nature of the film's plot to really hit the viewer if they stop and think about it. His character pushes forward the idea that Regan is still "touched" by the demon of the original film, an idea that would've been conventional for a sequel but a great way for a producer to capitalise off the original's success, but there's the fact there is never any point through The Heretic Regan is ever possessed again or threatened by Babylonian demon Pazuzu. With only a (badly made up) doppelganger of her demonically possessed self and locusts being the symbolic form of any threat, Father Lamont's constant prodding into her subconscious become more blamable for any potential harm to her and others, and the only reason the film even exists in the first place with immense contrivance. It's a film which has actually has a Straw Man Argument to justify its existence. 

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From there, Exorcist II eventually stops making sense, but not in the realm of the surreal and dreamlike. Snippets offer hope of an escape into the fully irrational, the artificial African setting where Burton travels to metaphorically and literally having the sheen of classic Hollywood decadentce and artificiality that's compelling; even James Earl Jones in a locust costume forcing Burton to step over a pool lined with spikes has a mystical quality that's worth the film to immerse oneself within. Aside from this however there's a significant difference between its desire to explore the subconscious, as Regan and Lamont are pushed into a metaphysical form of evil, and dull monotonous plotting. Plotting that makes no sense practically in what it's saying but keeps elaborating on said plot in an attempts to make sense of it regardless, so un-confident in itself it has to elaborate itself over and over again to appeal to the viewer. Exorcist II is a stream of consciousness which hasn't the courage to fully embrace the sub-consciousness. As a result its drastic shift from the prequel is even more nonsensical for a sequel narrative, where Pazuzu is no longer really a demon of considerable threat but mainly depicted as a swarm of locusts who causes people to go mad if they "touch their wings", without sense of any real destructive qualities to it. There's talk of a good female locust who can prevent this that means nothing, and the only real change to Regan barring a telepathic link to Lamont is the sudden psychic gifts to even make a young autistic girl talk for the first time, which never goes anywhere further in terms of narrative¹.

Exorcist II is actually closer to Giulio Paradisi's The Visitor (1979), one of those Italian knock off films of this type of seventies cinema, as stuffed in cast like Hollywood films from the time from director John Huston to Shelley Winters, Sam Peckinpah in a dubbed cameo to Franco Nero as Space Jesus, not that absurd compared to the likes of Richard Burton to James Earl Jones in Exorcist II. However,  The Visitor is undeniably a superior film to this like a lot of said Italian films of its ilk, their moments of silliness not detracting from a visual beauty at less of the cost than the notoriously budgeted Exorcist sequel, but also with a film like The Visitor also having the wherewithal to embrace its luridness and utterly weirdness with artistic craft,  giving the viewers their money's worth. A film like it pains itself to go forth with its premise sincerely and as bombastically as many decadent Italian productions do, shutting down the dialogue to let scenes of shock and unintentional camp take place just by the visuals. 

Exorcist II, whilst the cinematic quality is there in production and Boorman's visual eye, is po-faced and constantly has to justify itself in dialogue over and over again in comparison. It's as well a startling reminder, seeing them only a couple of days after each other through these reviews of mine, that the original Exorcist film whilst a serious dramatic film first was such a visceral film up front too. Even if Boorman despised the original material, going as far away from the violence and blasphemy depicted as possible, the first film was both a serious, artistically minded narrative but also visually opulent when needed, pushing boundaries in horrific supernatural imagery alongside its grounded reality. Exorcist II, whilst having momentsof the fantastical which are compelling, such as the ancient temple which needs to be perilously scaled to by way of inching up between tower like natural rock pillars, is so restrained even its desire to be more paranormal isn't properly depicted. Even having Ennio Morricone compose the score, including the cringe worthy disco theme tune from the original trailer, isn't allowed to stretch its (locust) wings due to the plodding tone.

There's a sense instead that I've encountered for the first time a side of the seventies in cinema we'd like to bury in favor of lionising Taxi Driver (1976) over and over again alongside the other New American Wave cinema. That which was likely the films funded more and did well at the box office but also tanked the worse. The type of cinema that gave the Medved brothers and kitsch connoisseurs plenty of ammo -  disaster films like The Swarm (1978) with Michael Caine, follies full of older stars cashing in on memories of films of decades before, excess that had no taste, didn't reign in the scripts enough to make them work, or spent too much on the budgets without having real imagination. How Exorcist II went from Catholic dogma and a priest having to rediscover God, through the evil of demons possessing the innocent, to James Earl Jones having to deliver illogical dialogue about how a good locust would avoid the swarm mentality, and Burton seemingly being able to nearly knock a airplane into turbulence with his mind, is impossible for me to understand unless it was simply the case of producers having too much money to burn. Its further history, the recut version as previously mentioned, or how disastrous it was for public expectations wanting a sequel like the original monster hit, just adds to this dumbfounding moment, of failed pop culture I'm too young to fully understand but look afar at with morbid curiosity. It's not the worst film ever made but still a literal turkey in how garbled it is. Even Zardoz (1974), another of Boorman's infamous seventies films, looks like Citizen Kane (1941) in comparison for its ambition and personal stamp.

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¹. As an autistic viewer, whilst its far from the most egregious depiction of the learning disability, whoever thought autism and difficult for autistic people to talk aloud, to express themselves, equated with stuttering deserves to be chastised. It's a tiny scene in a film which also shows the real issue with Exorcist II on paper. Boorman wanting to make a metaphysical work of overcoming obstacles but chucking in so many details, like psychic powers helping an autistic girl, without any depth and even muddying the surface level in kitsch it falls like a lead balloon on screen.

Zardoz (1974)

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Director: John Boorman

Screenplay: John Boorman

Cast: Sean Connery (as Zed); Charlotte Rampling (as Consuella); Sara Kestelman (as May); John Alderton (as Friend); Sally Anne Newton (as Avalow)

Synopsis: In 2293, the world as we know it has long vanished. Mankind is divided between those that are the have-alls, including immortality, who stay in their own society and everyone else, the Brutals.  Some of the Brutals are partially controlled by a god named Zardoz to be Exterminators, who follow the decree of "the gun is good, the penis is evil" and kill off their fellow Brutal. One such exterminator called Zed (Connery) however manages to get into the Immortal's homeland, and whilst Immortals Consuella (Rampling) and May (Kestelman) argue whether he should be studied or disposed of, Zed himself may be the giver of death to the Immortals as well.

Zardoz as a film, if one wants to get past Connery wearing red bikini briefs, has so many ideas vying for attention in only a hundred minutes or so that it does overwhelm the viewer with a lot to take in. As a narrative it's a lot more concise than its reputation suggests, but there's a lot that's absence in the synopsis above of what Zed witnesses and is part of, some of which has only a few minutes of time to be brought up causing one to be continually barraged with concepts. Boorman, unable to adapt The Lord of the Rings novels but having success with Deliverance (1972), had the moment in his career that thankfully still happens today when producers give a director carte blanche to make whatever film they want. Even if it's a little unconventional or flat-out strange, no one has thankfully learnt from the mistakes of the past. They're a divisive subgenre, but from Richard Kelly's Southland Tale (2006) to Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979), they're some of the most interesting entries in a director's CV, where for every mistake that might be there, every overlong and indulgent aspect, there's plenty of ideas being thrown out and plenty of inspiration to burn.

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Zardoz is about the perils of class, of the community authority over individualism, masculinity against femininity only to suddenly put the macho Connery in a wedding dress and skewer the gender politics. For me as well there's a surprising mood of this representing the sixties counter culture dying slowly and excruciatingly as well, turning into a repressed and emotionally numbed society in the Immortals, melancholic to the point some have become like somnambulists cast away into the outskirts. These sorts of films flummox one in terms of their politics. Case in point for an example, it would be understandably seen that Zardoz is misogynistic as the macho former James Bond overpowers a land ruled by women and men who can't even grow a beard like him, one having to make do with drawing it on and thus proving a felt tip pen still exists in the future. But then there's, again, the image of Connery in a wedding dress. Gender seems useless to the Immortals anyway where they're utterly asexual, no sexuality be it hetero or gay, where its explicitly stated the men cannot have erections anymore. The macho barbarian meanwhile develops humility, wisdom and kills his old self metaphorically in a hall of mirror sequence. Like other films like this overstuffed with ideas the creators, while creating something that's give the producer a heart attack about trying to sell, manage between every  muddy or half-finished idea to create plenty to be interested of in this conflict in their prickliness.

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It helps that there intentional humour in Zardoz as well, a willingness to find absurdity in itself as well as purport serious ideas. Like Nicol Williamson as Merlin in Excalibur (1981), John Boorman can appreciate a magnificently succulent piece of ham, be it Niall Buggy as Arthur Frayn opening the film with a monologue from his felt tip marked mouth suggesting the audience are puppets like him, to John Alderton with his odd high voiced intonations as Friend, eventually doomed to be alongside the Renegades, those who still cannot die but are punished for thought crimes through rapid aging and senility. Connery himself despite his original costume, which is more ridiculous for the ammo belts and ponytail than the bikini briefs, is the anchor that stops the film from becoming silly, not continually asking questions about the world around him but the usually silent witness to the strange behaviour of the Immortals. While the shadow of the Bond films, not long before Zardoz, makes Connery's casting even stranger and unpredictable, the result is less an embarrassment but an odd and curious sight from a decade of cinema where this sort of unpredictability was more common.

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Sadly the film does betray itself to gassy philosophy and Connery trying to fight (wobble through?) the mentioned hall of mirrors, which is the only part of the film where it lives up to its notoriety. It suffers in these parts from the vagueness that exists in modern spiritualism outside the cinema even today, where ten words are used instead of only one. Barring this, Zardoz acquits itself to sci-fi and fantasy ideas which, ironically, are still pertinent now.

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Technical Detail:

A low budget film shot near to his actual house in Ireland, Boorman could've easily made a film entirely of its time, one in look that would've dated badly even if that sort of aesthetic appealed to me anyway. This isn't the case however as the aesthetic is instead one of its best aspects, beautifully put together. It's a mashing of mashing of naturalism in the outdoor environments infused with available buildings, cottages and barns, and poppy acid infused costumes and colours from the sci-fi films from this era. Everything that is of its time - from Connery's bikini briefs to the candy coloured peasant garb of the Immortals - is intentionally exaggerated and within the confines of a visual template that's very carefully considered. It's a colourful film, but not just in terms of its more unconventional sets but also natural colour in general, from a struggle taking place in a sewing room full of multiple colours of thread to the strange sight of green bread being broken at a dinner table.

When you do get to the aforementioned unconventional sets, they're something to behold. Images of amoeba and primitive life printed on the back of an interrogation room Zed is being questioned in. Nude bodies of Immortals, preserved in glass tanks like living wallpaper, being re-grown and cultivated. An archive of the Tate Galley's paintings and corridors of statues of what Friend tells Zed were god and goddesses who died of boredom. No matter how indulgent and erratic these passion projects can be, production design is rarely terrible for them and Boorman has shown a great deal of artistic inspiration in the films I've seen of his, shown here especially. Even if you still find Zardoz gobbledegook, all the content visually is used to carry on the ideas rather than leave them behind. A testament of this is the sequence where Zed is taught an entire world of knowledge, a mix of languages and references spoken aloud as in a meticulous way various images are superimposed on actresses' and Connery's bodies like tattoos. It's an exceptional moment, poetry and mathematics intertwining into a tapestry but uses it to tell a story or mood, one of many moments where the campiness can be pushed back and the serious artistic premise of the film does shine through.

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Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

The only real disappointment one might find in Zardoz is that it's quite conventional and concise in its themes if you strip away all the arty language. It's not a film that enters into unconventional plot structure or fully evokes the mood of an esoteric film like those made by Alejandro Jodorowsky. As a result, contrary to what some might think, Zardoz is one of the more "normal" films I've covered on the blog, where when you stripped the flourishes away it's Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1931) and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) skewered into a strange direction.

What does get it on the list are ultimately the flourishes that even back in the seventies, before I was born, would cause people to scratch their heads, a giant floating head moulded from Boorman's head but looking like Karl Marx the first amongst them, gliding along with an airless grace in the clouds. A young Charlotte Rampling musing about the male erection as a naked Connery is shown erotic images to induce one. The Renegades, elderly and senile men and women, in a perpetual party in dinner suits and night gowns rampaging around a dilapidated hotel. The madness of the end, where there's chaos, orgies and eventually a mass genocide welcomed by the victims wanting to die. That the films still manages to be utterly serious and profound makes these moments even more strange and qualifiable for the Abstract List.

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Personal Opinion:

Revisiting Zardoz is significant because I saw the film when I was young. Like director Ben Wheatley on the extras of the new Arrow Video release, I encountered Zardoz on television. God knows when but in hindsight, I wonder whether this was the film responsible for turning me onto the oddball cinematic tastes I have now. I could recount, while not the whole monologue, the line "the gun is good, the penis is evil" perfectly in my head for decades, and the final image, of a time lapsed metaphor for life to death, was burnt into my memory for that length of time. What stands out seeing the film again after all this time is that, weren't it not for the moment the dialogue becomes more esoteric and New Age by the end, Zardoz is quite a sombre story which has a lot more going for it that being an utter disaster. Whilst not as poetic as Brave New World is depicting someone in an alien, oppressive environment, what you get is a film that's on the cusp of campiness but that can be taken seriously.