Saturday, June 25, 2011

Reviews! The Exorcist 2 and 3 (with Special Guest Star Zardoz)

Ah, yes, the lesser-known sequels to the Exorcist. Let us begin with the Exorcist 2: The Heretic. The Exorcist 2 is such a bad movie that it is said that William Peter Blatty who wrote the Exorcist books cracked up in the theater. I can’t say I blame him. Regan has the psychic powers to heal autistic children in this one. There’s this whole bit about locusts in Africa that keeps coming up. Something about an African boy that has the psychic powers to stop locust swarms in Africa. I am not going to write out a plot synopsis for this mess of a film. You get to see James Earl Jones in a locust headdress in a role he probably pretends did not occur. Who thought this crap about locusts and ESP research was going to make a good sequel to the Exorcist? There is very little frightening or even grim about Exorcist 2. Ah, yes…John Boorman. He directed not only the unspeakably bad Exorcist 2, but he also directed the unspeakable film Zardoz. Zardoz is I think two-hours plus of Sean Connery running around in a loincloth and there’s something about these people in ancient Greek robes that suffer from total sexual frigidity but live forever. That’s the one with the floating stone head that tells the barbarians that guns are good and the penis is bad. Those are two of the worst films I’ve ever seen. He is one humdinger of a bad director.
Actually, the original Exorcist, Exorcist 2, and Exorcist 3 all suffer from a common flaw in my eyes. I’m actually not in love with the original. I’m not crazy about the original Exorcist about the same as I am not crazy about Rosemary’s Baby. Those are some slow thrillers if you go back and actually watch them again.
Exorcist 3 makes the wise move of ignoring that Exorcist 2 ever happened. It’s the cop from the first one and goes in for a serial killer related plotline. It makes more cinematic sense then giving Regan psychic powers to heal children with autism and a whole bunch of crap about locusts in Africa. There is a whole lot of smoking that takes place in hospitals in this one, but nothing in it is nearly as silly as anything in Exorcist 2. The general premise is that a serial killer is running around with the same M.O. as a serial killer electrocuted 15 years ago. The same police officer from the first exorcist is on the case. Without giving away too much the investigation takes the cop into a psychiatric ward and- surprise, we have the priest who fell out the window and died in the first film inside a padded cell. The demon from the first movie put the soul of some demented serial killer in the body of the priest for revenge. It’s a cut premise that makes me chuckle to myself as I write it down. As I said, makes more sense from a cinematic perspective then the crap with the psychic research and the locust swarms in Africa. The serial killer in the priest’s body has the power to control the senile old people in the hospital around him, also a very clever plot development. The serial killer is absolutely demented, which helps. Hey, scarier then ESP research and locusts. Helps that it wasn’t directed by the man behind Zardoz.

1 comment:

  1. There were TWO great things in Exorcist 2 - Blair's sweater pumpkins :) -Swift

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