Exorcist 2: The Heretic Review (1977) Worth Watching?

It's about the continued battle to free Regan from the demon who still possesses her.

Exorcist 2: The Heretic was directed by John Boorman and stars Linda Blair (from Sorceress and Repossessed), Louise Fletcher (from Nightmare On The 13th Floor and Shadowzone) and Max Von Sydow (from Shutter Island and Sleepless).

It's four years later... what does she remember?

This infamously terrible sequel to one of the greatest horror movies of all time starts off in South America where a priest, Father Lamont, is performing an exorcism on a woman who ends up lighting herself on fire while grinning from ear to ear. Cut to New York and Regan, now a teenager, is forced to go to therapy to hash out the trauma of being possessed by a demon. Cut to the Vatican and Lamont is being forced to New York to investigate the death of Father Merrin, the original priest from The Exorcist. Cut to New York and Lamont meets Regan, her shrink Dr. Tuskin, and starts to work the case.

During Lamont's first meeting with Regan he participates in a kind of group hypnosis that allows both him and Tuskin to visit Regan's repressed memories. But here's the thing, when Tuskin visits Regan's memories she gets attacked by the demon Pazuzu that was supposed to have already been exorcised from her. Regan's memories attack Tuskin. Regan gets pulled out and Lamont goes under to help Tuskin. That's right. Thanks to some weird future machine they're both able to interact with Regan's memories without her even being involved anymore.

During the investigation Lamont learns the hard way that Pazuzu is still alive and well in Regan, he's just laying low. He's apparently a "demon of the air" who takes the form of locusts and possesses people from time to time.

Exorcist 2 is one slow ass movie. Some movies are slow burns, others have pacing issues. Exorcist 2 is just scene after scene after scene, most of them needless. The Exorcist was about a little girl possessed and a priest who had to battle evil to save her. There were a lot of crazy scenes and shocking practical effects. Exorcist 2 is mostly just a lot of talking and traveling and learning about locusts. More than an hour goes by with only two short scenes that could barely be considered horror.

I really wanted to like The Heretic. There's a few horror sequels floating around that get hated on, but that happen to be favorites of mine. This is not one of them. The hate this movie gets is warranted.