The Exorcist Who Defied the Rules

Could the wild Exorcist II: The Heretic be the first anti-sequel, long before The Matrix Resurrections? Here, it feels like the studio threw together a few vague ideas for a sequel and handed them to the mad titan John Boorman to do whatever he wanted. And so, the director of the bonkers Zardoz and the post-modern crime drama Point Blank did exactly that.

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Welcome to the flip side of the coin, where light and psychedelia replace the chilling grayness of the original. Boorman’s film is hailed as one of the worst ever—and indeed, the absurdity and WTF-ism are off the charts (locusts?!). A wild flight above the trivial, which can hardly be explained rationally, but is deeply felt. It’s certainly not horror, but it has spirit, striking conceptual compositions, and an intriguing reinterpretation of the core premise.

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Here, possession is the uneven journey of a person from one belief to another, shown entirely visually with layers of foreground/background composition. There’s even a literal overlay of two versions of a character in one shot, along with many other bizarre visual ideas. A strange and wonderful example of how the “failures” of great directors can be bolder and more inventive than the applauded, uninspired borefests.

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