EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977)

"It was horrible, utterly horrible... and fascinating!"

I have a feeling that the makers of EXORCIST II had no idea what the public wanted.  If they had, they damn sure wouldn't have made this mess!

A few years after the events of the original film, Regan is in therapy and the Vatican wants to know why Father Merrin died.  So they send in Father Richard Burton to investigate.  He meets Regan and her therapist and even sits in on a session where they use a "synchronizer" that connects two people's brainwaves (...it's all very silly) and low and behold Pazuzu shows up!  Burton has a vision of a younger Father Merrin fighting Pazuzu in Ethiopia, so he travels there for answers.  Does he get them?  I have no idea, because by this time my eyes had already rolled back in my head six hundred and sixty-six times and I was getting dizzy.

I'm sure the filmmakers had they hearts in the right place, but unfortunately they didn't have their brains in the right place, cause if they had they would have just made another film just like the original except make it even more violent and more perverse!  The original shocked the money out of audiences pocketbooks with a creepy atmospheric buildup that boiled over into a final act exploding with blasphemy, perversion and sickness.  None of that happens in the sequel.  The closest we get is at the end when Regan goes back to the house and wears some yellow contacts.  Wow.

Every film has it's fans and I'm sure E2TH is no different, but from a horror standpoint this film is a complete waste of time that's full of metaphysical baloney, absurd dialogue, Richard Burton putting out a roaring fire with a crutch(!!!) and dreamy imaginary instead of gooey demon makeup, crucifix fucking and projectile vomit.

Not a bad film but the fans deserved better.  Worth watching for the curiosity factor alone.

Original trilogy
Part 1 - The Exorcist (1973)
Part 3 - Exorcist III (1990)

Prequel films
Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)

Sequel trilogy
Sequel 1 - The Exorcist: Believer (2023)

CANDY (1968)

Very hit-or-miss string of surreal vignettes about a sexy teenage girl who comes from space and ends up messing with a whole bunch of dudes. That might sound like the plot to a porno, but unfortunately CANDY is very tame.  There's not even any nudity!

A wiggly light comes down from outer space and lands in the desert. It takes the form of an attractive teenage girl. Then bam! She's in high school.  A great poet (Richard Burton) shows up and before long she's half naked on the pool table in her basement kissing Ringo Starr while Burton gets busy with a mannequin on the floor.  Suddenly Gomez Addams walks in! And that's just the first few minutes of the movie! It only gets weirder, much weirder, from there on. Everything but the kitchen sink is thrown in and somehow it actually works for the most part, especially the final few minutes which, I thought, were pretty awesome.

Some people might complain that it's bewilderingly incoherent mess and they would be 100% correct, but looking at it from a historical viewpoint, CANDY is a remarkable look into whatever kind of weird counter-cultural bullshit was going on back in 1968. If you are at all curious about the stranger, more psychedelic corners of 60's cinema then you should check it out.  Also, Richard Burton's crazy hair looks a lot like Bill Murray's crazy hair at the end of KINGPIN.