By David Dent
It’s been a long-held view that The Exorcist II: The Heretic is one of the worst big budget horror
movies, or the most egregious squandering of a star cast, or indeed the least appetising sequel to a
major motion picture, ever made. Phew!
As the documentary’s title suggests, John Boorman is your guide through the gestation, filming and
critical aftermath of his seventh feature film. Using a series of to camera pieces filmed when the
director was 85 – eight years ago – it’s supplemented by interviews with two of the film’s leads,
Linda Blair and Louise Fletcher (who died in 2022) and a host of behind-the-scenes people, including
the villain of the piece, uncredited writer and script butcher Rospo Pallenberg, other directors like
Mike Flanagan and Joe Dante, and a handful of critics.
Kittredge eases us into the story with a brief career retrospective of Boorman’s career up to 1975,
demonstrating his commitment, idiosyncrasy and willingness to stick his neck out (Sean Connery in a
mankini for his 1973 sci fi oddity Zardoz, anyone?).
Boorman wasn’t particularly happy with William Goodhart’s original script, seeing it as overly
intellectual and lacking in ‘jolts’, and co-opted Pallenberg, who in the later stages of the movie took
the opportunity of Boorman’s prolonged absence from the shoot through illness to considerably,
and more ambitiously, alter the plot.
BatD follows the casting of the film, with Max Von Sydow persuaded back by the prospect of a
“beautiful, poetic, healing” script (ahem) and a very unwilling Blair similarly seduced, both by
Richard Burton joining the project and a rumoured million-dollar salary. The gradual derailing of the
project began with the unexpected death of Lee J. Cobb, preventing his Lt. Kinderman character
from returning in the sequel, which required a radical script rewrite (the first of many); and the
movie’s multi continent location plan being nixed in favour of filming everything on the Burbank
sound stages.
A combination of Blair’s constant lateness to the set and Burton’s acting and alcohol related
limitations compounded problems, but it was Boorman’s illness, causing a 5 week shoot shutdown,
that gave Pallenberg the opportunity for an unauthorised intervention, making character changes in
the script and setting out a more ambitious ending, subsequently scrapped because of the need to
wrap the movie.
The documentary effectively charts the movie’s nosedive as it moved towards completion; its
eventual terrible critical reception is therefore unsurprising, but Boorman’s tenacity and frankly
charming ability to find some positives in the work adds an almost upbeat element to this cautionary
tale. Boorman and the Devil elevates itself above the usual talking heads documentaries through
Boorman’s sage voice but also because it’s both a great – if appalling – story and a salutary lesson for
budding filmmakers of all generations.
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Boorman and the Devil is released in cinemas from 25 September.
