Martin Scorsese Says This 'Exorcist' Sequel “Scared the Hell” Out of Him and Is Actually Than the Classic Original

If The Exorcist is still remembered as one of the scariest and most influential horror films of all time, then its sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic, is regarded as one of the biggest disasters in film history. After The Exorcist became one of the highest-grossing releases ever and the first horror film to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, Warner Bros. grew desperate to make a sequel. Since the original film’s director, William Friedkin, had expressed no interest in the project, the duties were passed to John Boorman. Despite having initially stated that he would never see it, Friedkin later claimed that Exorcist II: The Heretic was so bad that audiences revolted in the theater. Although it became an object of ridicule from critics and bombed at the box office, Exorcist II: The Heretic has steadily earned its passionate defenders, including Martin Scorsese.

Scorsese, who has never been shy about discussing his faith, admitted in an interview to Film Comment that he admired Friedkin’s film “because of the Catholic guilt” perspective that he related to. However, Scorsese felt that Exorcist II: The Heretic had “surpassed” the original film that had “scared the hell” out of him, and claimed that it “deserved better than it got.” Scorsese was willing to admit that “maybe Boorman failed to execute the material,” but he has not been alone in his defense of Exorcist II: The Heretic. Critic Pauline Kael stated that “the film has a swirling, hallucinogenic, apocalyptic quality,” and praised the performances of Linda Blair and Richard Burton (Ellen Burstyn had no interest in returning). Scorsese was moved by how Exorcist II: Heretic questioned whether “great goodness” would “bring upon itself great evil,” and his appreciation for the sequel suggests that perhaps we should give it another shot.

Martin Scorsese Came to the Defense of ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’

Exorcist II: The Heretic was always going to face impossible expectations given the unprecedented cultural impact that the first film had; dubbed “the scariest film ever made,” The Exorcist literally made some audiences sick with its graphic, disturbing scenes. Although The Exorcist is an intimate story about a mother (Burstyn) trying to shield her daughter from evil, Exorcist II: The Heretic is a supernatural adventure that dives deeper into religious doctrine. Since it takes place several years after the first film, Exorcist II featured Blair returning to play an older Regan McNeil, who claims not to remember anything about her experiences with demonic possession. Scorsese thought it was compelling to depict Regan as “a modern-day saint,” comparing her to Ingrid Bergman in Europe ‘51, and felt that the story of “God testing the good” was a fascinating direction for the sequel to go in.

It’s not all that surprising that Scorsese was affected by the material, as he’s focused on stories of fundamentally noble people having to cope with the violence and evil that surrounds them in many of his best films. Although Scorsese specifically compared Regan to Harvey Keitel’s character Charlie in his crime masterpiece Mean Streets, he would go on to make movies with more explicit religious themes, such as the Biblical epic The Last Temptation of Christ, the New York horror thriller Bringing Out the Dead, and the biographical historical drama Silence. Exorcist II: The Heretic transformed the character of Regan from a relatable young girl to a protector of the faith, and suggested that it was her inherent goodness that attracted the attention of evil. While it may not have been as relatable a premise as the first film, which often felt like a confined family drama, Exorcist II: The Heretic grappled with complex religious themes, sparking Scorsese to compare it to The Book of Job from the Hebrew Bible.

‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’ Has Grown a Cult Fandom

It’s often that horror sequels decline in quality when the original filmmaker does not return, which certainly occurred with the Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises in the absence of John Carpenter and Wes Craven, respectively. However, Boorman was a very talented filmmaker in his own right with a stacked list of credits to his name at the time he was hired to direct Exorcist II: The Heretic, including the groundbreaking noir thriller Point Blank, the Oscar-nominated survival drama Deliverance, and the cult classic science fiction epic. Zardoz. Boorman tends to tell more maximalist stories with broad, exciting scenes and excels in finding interesting and exotic locations. Even though Boorman had been praised by critics as a director, his style was radically different from Friedkin, who had insisted upon realism in his films like The French Connection and Sorcerer. No matter how talented Boorman was, he wasn’t Friedkin, which rang his sequel’s death knell.

Exorcist II also came at a time when sequels were rarer, as it was released prior to the growth of franchises like Star Wars and Rocky that would spawn multiple installments. Although audiences would eventually accept the idea of getting multiple sequels to horror films in seris like Friday the 13th, Hellraiser, Child’s Play, and Phantasm, Exorcist II: The Heretic was seen as a “cash grab” by a studio that was trying to recoup its biggest success ever. It didn’t help that 1977 happened to be a stacked year for horror films, as Exorcist II had to contend with classics like Capricorn One, Suspiria, Eraserhead, and The Last Wave. The film also may have had a target on its back due to the involvement of Burton; despite being a great actor with seven Oscar nominations, he had appeared in so many bad films in the late stages of his career that critics and audiences had grown tired of giving him chances.

Exorcist II: The Heretic has a fascinating legacy because it spawned one of the most interesting horror franchises of all time. Exorcist III, which was directed by the original author William Peter Blatty, was a terrifying legacy sequel that turned the series into a paranoid investigative thriller. Exorcist II: The Heretic now looks even better when compared to the most recent sequel, Exorcist: Believer, which felt like a complete rehash with no worthwhile ideas of its own. Scorsese may be in the minority in believing that it’s better than the first film, but that doesn’t mean that Exorcist II: The Heretic isn’t a fascinating, interesting horror classic in its own right.