BOORMAN AND THE DEVIL (2025)

Entertaining, if self-indulgent/soft-pedaled look at the 360° of hubris that led to the critical & commercial drubbing of THE EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC, director John Boorman’s risible response to William Friedkin’s fright phenomenon of four years back.  This pic-bio peppered with smart interviewees (including an 85-yr-old Boorman) all looking back more in sorrow than in anger at their ‘contributions.’  (Only one happy-talk critic to ignore.)  Easy in hindsight to see what went wrong . . . EVERYTHING!  Less investigated, and far more interesting are two stories we don’t get in this well-reviewed autopsy.  The first miss perhaps inevitable as the Warner studio execs of the day, the guys so eager to milk a putative franchise they ran their empty promise up the flagpole, are no longer around for debriefing.  They’re the ones who started the chain-reaction by hiring visionary director John Boorman instead of a journeyman hack.  (Say, next year’s OMEN II director, Don Taylor.)  Or in imagining chipmunk-cheeked Linda Blair, dead to the touch Richard Burton or know-the-face/can’t-place-the-name Louise Fletcher could ‘open’ a big-budget film in 1977.  (Had they ever?)  Then approving a high caloric, thrill-free script; Corporate Group Think at its worst.  With lemmings like this, who needs hindsight?  And a second missed storyline; mentioned, but undeveloped; ironically involves director of the original EXORCIST William Friedkin, who turned this down to make SORCERER for Universal/Paramount, released concurrently.  Costing far more; bringing in even less.  There were two very different outcomes: SORCERER now a belatedly acknowledged masterpiece whereas HERETIC remains, at best, a minority acquired taste.  Yet it was Boorman who went on to make some of his best work, and Friedkin who never really recovered.  That’s the story that should have been made out of this material.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK:  Quick jumps to the films mentioned above.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-exorcist-ii-heretic-1977.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/12/sorcerer-1977.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/05/hope-and-glory-1987.html   Note all the jokes repeated here (without a prompt, honest!) from our EXORCIST II write-up.  Boo!