PLOT: After a long and distinguished career, director John Boorman looks back at his one massive flop, Exorcist II: The Heretic.
REVIEW: When it comes to making documentaries about movies, there are usually two kinds. There are the ones that celebrate the hits, and then there are the ones that examine the flops. Usually, the latter have to make do with the fact that the people involved with the flops are loath to talk about them. Such is not the case with David Kittredge’s Boorman and the Devil. A feature-length deep dive into the making (and unmaking) of Exorcist II: The Heretic, it benefits from the fact that the movie’s director, John Boorman, is an open and willing participant in the documentary, along with many of the surviving cast members, including Linda Blair and co-star Louise Fletcher, who recorded extensive interviews before she passed away in 2022.
Usually, with flops, it’s easy to blame studio interference or an indifferent market, but Boorman is quick to note that, for his film, he had the biggest budget he’d ever worked with in his career, final cut, and a mostly supportive studio. Where the film (considered one of the worst sequels of all time) went wrong was that he was just the wrong person to make a sequel to something like The Exorcist, for the plain fact that he didn’t like the original film and aimed to make a movie that served as a riposte to it — basically making a movie about the power of good rather than the power of evil. Of course, that turned out to be exactly what audiences in 1977 didn’t want.
Boorman proves to be a highly engaging subject for a documentary. A gifted raconteur, he’s humble and charismatic, with him perhaps more willing to speak about the film in hindsight, having made enough celebrated films over the course of his career, including Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, and Hope and Glory, that his place in the pantheon is guaranteed. Yet, he’s open about the fact that Exorcist II’s failure sent him into a tailspin, to the point that after it opened, in a panic, he butchered the movie, making a new version for international audiences that he begged WB to release domestically — which he later admitted was a huge mistake on his part.
So what went wrong with Exorcist II? Boorman himself admits he was a poor match for the material, with him not understanding, or caring, what an audience wanted from a movie like this. He openly admits that the blame sits on his shoulders, while having high praise for star Linda Blair, who caught a lot of flak for her performance, and Louise Fletcher, who admits she loved making the movie even if it went awry. According to Boorman, the only casting issue he can really note is Richard Burton, but even here he admits the blame falls more on his shoulders than Burton’s. He says the actor was extremely cooperative but had no investment in the film, being content to just give Boorman whatever he wanted without bringing any of his own ideas to the role. He saw himself as a gun for hire, with it being a job to him and little else.
Indeed, watching this documentary, it’s clear that all of the perceived flaws in the movie come directly from Boorman himself, aided by creative collaborator Rospo Pallenberg. They wanted to make a dreamlike film, but almost all the choices they made proved to be disastrous, from Boorman’s insistence that Blair do a bunch of tap-dancing scenes to the long sequences involving the use of a “synchronizer” that almost literally put the movie’s audience to sleep, and more.
Yet, Kittredge does have some talking heads in the film who appreciate the movie, even if they stop short of calling it a “good” film. Perhaps the most interesting interview comes from Mike Flanagan, who is in the midst of directing his own Exorcist movie. They single out the movie’s merits, which include the dynamic cinematography by William A. Fraker and the score by Ennio Morricone. It aims to make its audience appreciate Exorcist II: The Heretic, even if all involved, including Boorman himself, admit that as a sequel to The Exorcist, it doesn’t work.
Still, it was a movie made with good intentions and a lot of passion. Speaking for myself, I’d rather see an interesting failure than a piece of assembly-line junk, such as the most recent Exorcist movie (The Exorcist: Believer), any day.
Boorman and the Devil opens in limited release on August 28th.
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