Listen, John Boorman:

You made Deliverance, you made Hell in the Pacific (yeah! Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune, that's right), you made Point fucking Blank.

What the fuck, man?

…is... is everything okay at home?

As a sequel to The Exorcist? - Yes, it's a dismal failure.
Viewed as a stand-alone, loopy, mystical/sci-fi/horror hybrid dragged along by a manic Richard Burton performance? - It's actually quite fun.
Somehow I missed out on(avoided...) seeing this until very recently, but finally got my opportunity to view it on the big screen as part of the BFI's John Boorman retrospective.
Seen in a Boorman context alongside the likes of 'Excalibur' and 'Zardoz', it made a lot more sense to me than as a direct sequel to 'The Exorcist'.
I also think that my expectations had been dragged so low due to constant critical derision over the years, that anything - at least - watchable would've impressed somewhat.
What I found was a flawed, but entertaining oddity.

Burton. Blair. Bugs. Not the roller coaster of thrills the first film was, but so craftily conceived that it doesn't need to be - take a zen ride on the wings of the locust, let them brush your mind and you will never be the same. A meditation on good, evil, and Richard Burton's massive alcoholism. Also Scientology and/or Twitter. I might (definitely) be in the minority on this one, but that usually just means I'm right.

I want to like this movie so, so badly. It's exactly the kind of universally-maligned but quality-pedigreed film I often respond to, but there is just too much drudgery mixed in with the moments of refreshing batshit insanity for me to give it my endorsement. Maybe one day it will click with me, but until then I'm going to have to keep going deeper.

So… ‘Days of Heaven’ was shot around the same time as this, I wonder if they used the same locusts??

Unfortunately this film is doomed by the ‘sequel curse’: It will always suffer from its constant comparison to ‘The Exorcist’. As a stand-alone film I think it only just holds itself up. Its filled with a few great ideas that do their best to be expressed and its shoehorned consistencies with the first movie are almost seamless. Credit to that! All in all it’s a lil’ slow but it builds up to a pretty spectacular finale that’s hell a bit o’ fun.

Yes, Regan was really put through the wringer in the first film, but she wasn't the only one that had it tough. Exorcist II courageously shows us how things were from the point-of-view of Regan's crucifix, in-so-much as, it's a bloody mess from beginning to end.

No where nearly as bad as everyone makes out, this film introduces some really interesting ideas and builds upon the first film. Though it doesn't really get going until about a third of the way through the film, performances are pretty genuine and the film is only let down by the bizarre light machine that induces both hypnosis and completely uncinematic scenes.

As a sequel to The Exorcist? - Yes, it's a dismal failure.
Viewed as a stand-alone, loopy, mystical/sci-fi/horror hybrid dragged along by a manic Richard Burton performance? - It's actually quite fun.
Somehow I missed out on(avoided...) seeing this until very recently, but finally got my opportunity to view it on the big screen as part of the BFI's John Boorman retrospective.
Seen in a Boorman context alongside the likes of 'Excalibur' and 'Zardoz', it made a lot more sense to me than as a direct sequel to 'The Exorcist'.
I also think that my expectations had been dragged so low due to constant critical derision over the years, that anything - at least - watchable would've impressed somewhat.
What I found was a flawed, but entertaining oddity.

Richard Burton is looking into the Regan(Linda Blair) possession. Using some flashing lights device plays alot into the film. Some call it very over the top stuff and I like it for that reason, the soundtrack is great but adds to the over the top feel. Alot of tap dancing and other things pad out the movie. I liked the old CBS late movie cut, around 90 mins. I really had a crush on Linda Blair after this movie and her sexy possessed version.

I had heard many bad things about this sequel to undoubtedly 1 of the scariest and influential horror films of all time and indeed it did deliver on bad stuff but does include some engrossing and fascinating parts too. It tries to deal with the metaphysical.
Whilst most reviews will focus on the bad. Here is what I liked.
1/ the orange dust setting of Africa (shot in Arizona) v creepy and beautiful at the same time
2/ Morricone score
3/ James Earl Jones in a bee suit!
4/ the locust swarms
5/ Linda Blairs pert boobs

Thank you.

I suppose the best way to describe this is a quote from the constantly sweaty Father Lamont (what a performance from Burton)..."Utterly horrible... and fascinating." THAT is the perfect quote to describe the insanity here.

One of my favourite bad films. Actually, it's not really bad, it's more just incredibly scattershot. It's like John Boorman had all these great ideas bubbling away, just decided to throw them into the next film he was offered, and said film just happened to be a sequel to the Exorcist. If he'd done Omen II or Godfather II there's a fair chance he'd have contrived to throw clouds of locusts and priests walking on beds of nails into the thing.

Add in Richard Burton in late-career ripeness, Linda Blair desperately trying to act, Louise Fletcher basically carrying around a sign saying "Not Nurse Ratched" and you have a film that's never less than interesting even if it's often a bit too funny. More of a fantasy film than a horror movie, this one did at least annoy a whole load of humourless Exorcist evangelists.