[Father Lamont]

Give me some examples Greg. Like, “I was possessed by a demon. But it’s ok, he’s gone now.”

[Greg]

Hi Lamont,

I also did write a humorous review on Exorcist II a few years ago. It’ll give you an idea of what I dispised in it as well as some of the bad lines. Here it is. (This one is longer than the Exorcist III review):
_________

Exorcist II is one of the worst films I have ever seen. I remember this attrition so vividly, and I didn’t even see this recently. Probably in my top ten of the worst with Manos: The Hands of Fate and Jaws: The Revenge. Yet this film has elements in it that would have been gave some hope of potential, but regrettably it all failed painfully. Exorcist II actually has some good actors in it– Linda Blair (she was really good in the original– nominated for an Oscar too), Shakespearean actor Richard Burton of course, James Earl Jones, Paul Henreid from Casablanca!!! (this was his last film, I feel sorry for him), and even Max von Sydow made his return. For a long time, Friedkin had made sure that none of the cast of his original masterpiece would do what he called ‘a rip off film.’

However, Blair who was 15 at the time said when Goldhart’s script came it emerged as she called it, “so amazing, you would be foolish to say no.” I suppose the situations the characters are placed in: cliff climbs, African expeditions, locusts, and exploding houses sounded pretty exciting. Unfortunately, if young Blair and von Sydow took a better look at it would realize how ridiculous the story unfolds. Von Sydow was actually the only one in the film who was not that bad, but I don’t understand how everyone else is otherwise. Louise Fletcher fresh off her Oscar win for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest was so utterly bland and tactless, but very similar in her performance from that winning film. I myself think and everyone else at that time of this atrocity started to realize she really didn’t go past being ever so straight-forward and flat– ergo no more career.

It amazes me that The Exorcist being the incredible masterpiece it is could be followed by this _____ (fill in the blank yourself). Not only was Goldhart’s screenplay extremely horrible with ridiculous dialogue, but also was everything else!! People you wouldn’t expect to do a bad job did just that. People have always said The Exorcist suffered a course of demonic incidents, but unlike those freakish encounters the sequels are just plain doomed from disastrous productions. Too many things just don’t fall into place. Boorman’s direction is unforgivably horrendous. William Fraker who photographed Rosemary’s Baby (another great demonic film) did the most unrealistic, over lit (light coming from illogical places– obviously just stage lights up above) and used bad usages of far away HMIs to double as the sun. Bleh. The production design is to literally die for because it’s so bad. The psychiatric hospital in the film looks like an engineer’s worst nightmare filled with ridiculous octagonal shapes everywhere to make it look scientific and glass that reveals the worst stage direction ever!! Little catatonic kids playing with giant metal nut shaped pillows!!! What the HELL?!! And the ESP machine or whatever it is that flashes lights on people looks like an unpreserved prop of the old Star Trek TV show with little scoop lights attached to it like a 10-year old made it for show and tell. It looks like a cereal box with an antenna attached to it with stupid looking bands for people to wear. The editing is also absolutely terrible with the same shots used again to only give you some idea for something to be established and bad dissolves to somehow simulate morphs (but the lapcuts are slightly off laughably) and blatant cuts in movement to remove makeup off of possessed Kukumo. Sound is bad with dialogue off sync sometimes to people’s lips. Oops. The special effects are also utterly horrible with peanuts doubling as locusts, horrible miniatures, terrible overlay work, and fake hearts being ripped out of people’s— stomachs??!!

This just credits more to Friedkin’s brilliance on the original and his great partnership to original author/screenwriter William Peter Blatty. Friedkin knew that calling the demon from what Blatty described in the book would not work on screen. Goldhart and who ever else felt this was the only last bit of the book that wasn’t used in the original and to use the off-screen death of von Sydow’s character as the motivation for this story. Ok one– the name of the demon (which wasn’t the devil after all in the book) was a Mesopotamian god named Pazuzu. Fine. It’s look good on paper, but sounds utterly stupid when blurted out suddenly by Burton. “Pazuzu!!! Spirit of the air and flight lead me to Kukumo!!!” Plus, you have Jones’ character of some survivor of Pazuzu’s possession named Kukumo. You put the two together in the same line it sounds utterly laughable. “Kukumo can lead me to Pazuzu!!!” “Stop this thing….” “Name it.” (pause) “Pazuzu!”

Second thing that irks me is that you don’t need to know how von Sydow’s Father Merrin was killed. In EII, it shows a witchlike Regan metaphysically reach into his body and tickle his heart to death. “Good god,” mutters Father Lamont with overemphasis. THIS is the whole and only reason that Goldhart gives us as to why this movie was made (outside of more money) and why it was necessary for us to see. Pathetic foundations and grounds for a second attempt. There’s another line that’s just plain laughable. An autistic girl asks Blair why she’s at the hospital and she replies, “Oh I was possessed by a demon. Oh don’t worry, he’s gone.” Was this supposed to be a dark comedy or something?

Burton’s Lamont also seems to know exactly what’s going on at times of danger. He blurts out the cause, which kills off whatever poor attempts there even was at mystery. He also seems to know how everything works being he’s only a priest. There’s a scene where Burton is given a sketch of himself that Regan drew with red markings on it. Suddenly, Burton cries out, “The flames! The flames!” He suddenly gets the premonition that there is a fire in the hospital. Slowly but surely, he finds the fire and then starts to distinguish by the first means which is a pair of crutches!!! Him hitting this box looks like Amateur Night, it’s so funny. We also don’t know why this box caught on fire. It just did. Louise Fletcher’s character finally grabs a fire distinguisher after seeing her POV revealing the representation of what Regan drew showing Burton’s head next to flames. Oooh, real scary…. She puts out the fire that causes the smoke to complete engulf the set. Where did they go? I wouldn’t be surprised if that was an on-set accident. At some point later after all the catatonic kids of the hospital freak out and leave the place (note, some are agoraphobics!!! For you kids, that means fear of going outside), Burton goes on a diatribe saying how Fletcher’s new machine is a miracle that predicts the future!! Huh?! Even Wood wouldn’t go that far, and he has intellectual/political messages in Plan 9. As he spats out his own confession, we cut to a bad back screen projection. Don’t know why, they just did, pretending we didn’t notice as the lighting looks completely inappropriate during this night exterior. This hypnotizing thingy he just grabs at one point claiming he knows “where to reach Dr. Tuskin” when she slips into her own bit of ‘catatonia’ and of course saves her while seeing the heart attack flashback. Yes, it’s a flashback seen quasi-movieish, but with no screen. You just see it. I almost had a heart attack myself.

As I’ve counted, there were ONLY four things I found good about that film– and that’s a REALLY bad thing. One, the film has some interesting names cast wise to make it look somehow interesting, which gives you some compulsion to watch it. I fell for it obviously. Two, Linda looking quite cute in this film– she looks about twenty and acts like it– is used to model off the latest fashions of the time. She spends most of time walking around like a runway model, especially during some ridiculous dream sequence cutting back forth between events she wasn’t around to witness with her in a white nightgown in the inevitable overcranked slow-motion. Three, Ennio Morricone music is mostly incredibly bad and bloated, however the romantic theme he gives to Linda Blair’s Regan is actually very beautiful and loving, but it doesn’t save the movie in the least bit. Four, it brought us back to the house for nostalgic reasons. They didn’t quite figure out the 10 essential rules to sequel success yet. HOWEVER, the house is now a giant studio set (and definitely looks like it too) that is not even designed correctly to the original house’s specifications. We spend so much time in Regan’s room in the original I know where the closet was supposed to be and it is not where it is supposed to be in this sh*tty second movie. Why did they build this house instead? Because they had to blow it up and collapse it at the end of the movie. Go figure.

There were also only two times this film actually freaked me out. At one point, Fletcher and Kitty Winn from the original film (who has no point to be in this I may add) are in a taxi when suddenly the windshield breaks very loudly for no reason. At that exact same time, we crosscut to Burton opening the door to Regan’s room which spews out all these peanut locusts. Here’s where it really makes me laugh– the black driver suddenly must have developed super strength and PUNCHES through the windshield to see!! He of course crashes into the house conveniently and then he is killed for no reason! The second scare was the only intellectual one (there are no other potential scares as I can see). Regan opens the door to her old room again (they moved out of course) and a shot very similar from the original is used slightly showing a reveal of a possessed girl sitting on the bed out of nowhere. I admit it freaked me out for a second until Blair’s convoluted reaction.

There’s only one shot in this film I liked and had no purpose in being in this film. It was 180 degree camera move around Regan on the edge of a building to Morricone’s love theme as she stares out at the NYC buildings for no basic reason. That’s it. The only shot.

The most ridiculous moments of the film includes an ESP scene where Regan is tap dancing (again for no reason) and as Burton is being hit with rocks because, of course the locals in Ethiopia suddenly think he is a devil worshiper, she starts reacting to these invisible rocks on stage and falls over in pain. Pazuzu is evidently also an incredibly bad singer and that is how ‘she’ attacks people. There is this really horrible screamed chant that seems to knock people over for unintelligible reasons. At one point, some dude falls off the cliffs for pure reasons of spectacular showcase and crashes into the sides of the rock, however it is way too obvious that this guy is just standing on something and bashing himself into the rocks as he somehow screams with his mouth closed. He then repetitiously twirls obviously on wires, which does not make him look like he is falling at all. Finally, we have our first ‘real’ shot of a guy falling for epic purposes. The bad singing continues as the poor shmuck jumps down off of hills to look like he is still falling and finally falls into a crevice finished off with a planted perplexed face. I may add that this film never leaves the US to film the international locations. It is all accomplish through sets, and the hopes the audience will get it. Well, we get it, but we don’t believe it. All the African locations are sets (Boorman himself inhaled some bad fungal respiratory disease off these African sets which made him very sick for five weeks, and I believed it must have affected his brain as well) and the Vatican City is just some set with a wall painted of multiple Jesuses crucified everywhere. Ok, that’s where a cardinal will work– to be constantly reminded of visual forms of death??! More ridiculous things happen like Burton walking around in a very fake clay village where the locals mistake him for wanting a prostitute, riding a train with Regan where he stares off into space whilst at the same time Fletcher and Wynn’s plane is struck by lighting for no reason, him meeting James Earl Jones who proclaims, “If Pazuzu comes for you, I will spit a leopard.” Huh???!! How is that??! He instead spits what appears to be a tomato which hits a nail bed floor. Ehhhhh??!! Burton then steps on it (the nails, not the tomato) to prove his love for Jesus, which causes him to fall. I’m not being ethnocentric and disrespectful to religion, but certainly the film does by blasting out religious beliefs in front of different cultures. But instead of a quick death which we want, Burton lands in a lab with no explanation what so ever how he got there with James Earl Jones now as a scientist explaining to Burton’s confusion, “maybe it’s the heat.” Horrible mythological attempts. I’ll add that at this time Jones was voicing Vader for Star Wars while doing this film, which he thought this would be a success and Star Wars the failure. Ha-ha.

The Exorcist is about a possession. But no, Regan is not possessed in this. Instead, we encounter the physical form of Pazuzu which now looks like Regan, only sexier thanks to Boorman’s direction. Burton falls into the spells of the temptress spitting out with great sweat on his face, “The wings!!! The wings are brushing me!!! I must!! I MUST!!!” Suddenly, we hear the real Regan (Yes, they’re two now) talk in the voice of James Earl Jones. Now that’s funny. Picture Vader’s voice talking to Blair’s little cute face saying, “We like to call her to good locust. She will evolve to resist the brushing of the wings.” Hilarious. Then Pazuzu talks back with one of Linda’s worst moments in acting, “Once the wings have brushed you… You’re mine forever!!!” She blurts this as she whips her head in classic Farrah Fawcett method. For whatever reason, the Kitty Wynn character finds it necessary to burn herself alive by standing allowing the fires of a gas spill to slowly burn her. It is so obvious the flames are only in the foreground as she turns slowly more and more red. I would assume she’s embarrassed. Actually, Wynn is my least favorite actor from the original as Ellen Burstyn’s secretary because she’s just… there. She tries so hard as an actress, but all her lines and delivery is just so bombastic. It is rumored that Burstyn was asked to play this role in the film as the mother, but since she fortunately declined, they put Wynn’s character back even though she says she won’t stay with them in the end of the original. They try to work this earlier in the film’s essential plot and message, but all it is just a razor-thin plot with a situational showcase of “wow” without the credibility, equivalent to that of most CG moments these days. Eventually, the house explodes and it’s up to Regan to save the day as she simply twirls her arm in the air like Kukumo did whatever years ago as the film demonstrates and suddenly all the locusts die through horrible means of dissolves. I should mention that they search for Pazuzu throughout the entire film because it’s still lurking around near Regan. It turns out is was a particularly huge locust flying in the corner of her old room (cause they say the devil lives in the corners of rooms!!!) in the Georgetown house the whole time (which I don’t know about you, but I usually would notice a giant bug in the corner of my room buzzing about), and we see it only in the beginning of the second act. They should have a got a really big fly swatter. In the end, Burton mutters some moral to this story, and eventually Regan and him walk off literally into the sunset which is actually a back screen projection. YES, EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC is absolutely hellish garbage, comparable to Jaws The Revenge. I don’t know who even was the ‘Heretic’ in that film!!!!

So I say all this if you were able to get through it, as a warning. Save two hours of your life if you don’t want to suffer a sleepless night pontificating what you had just seen. You may get a stomach ache, a headache, a scarred brain from the experience (as you see with me), and even the potential means to vomit. If you want to see this schlock entertainment, by all means but I still issue this warning. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was entertaining enough to influence you people to watch, but whatever I don’t care. I didn’t enjoy the film, but I enjoyed writing this. No, I take that back– I enjoy making fun of this film now that I am used to its disgusting displays. Whew, I’m glad I got this off my chest. I don’t know why this film is sometimes on Bravo. It’s an embarrassment to all acting and all of cinema.
_________

[Father Lamont]

Hello everyone. I am new here and have just discovered the wonderful Exorcist movies. I have a soft spot for troubled movies and the second Exorcist film fits right into that category. I am using The Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 and trying to make a complete re-edit of The Heretic. My version is simply called The Exorcist II. Like they did with Highlander 2: The Quickening when they did a re-edit.

Anyway, I just finished a newly created pre-opening sequence. This highlights the events in the first film and builds up great to the shot of the fog covering the steps, where the exorcist theme is heard and the credits are played. Hows that sound? The movie begins with “Many years ago, in Africa…” It then proceeds to show (my re-edited version) of the Ft. Merrin scenes as he exorcises the little boy and takes pictures of the locust swarm.

Thats all I have right now. But is takes a really long time to do this. My question to everybody is, “Is there any way I can do make a version excluding the synchronizer machine and the James Earl Jones scenes, and still make a cohesive story? I can use footage from the Exorcist or the Exorcist III to gap up space. I want it to be adleast an hour and a half. The synchronizer is cool but not for this kind of movie.

Anyone have any suggestions.
Also, here is the way the cast and credits are listed in the opeing.

A WARNER BROS Picture

of a JOHN BOORMAN Film

LOUISE FLETCHER
RICHARD BURTON
MAX VON SYDOW
KITTY WINN
PAUL HENREID
BELIHNA BEATTY
DANA PLATO
and LINDA BLAIR as Regan MacNeill

Sound good or bad?

[Author]

Posts