The Exorcist II: The Heretic

Let's discuss this disaster, I saw bits of pieces of this last night for the first time in about 20 years. I am still amazed that anyone thought this movie was a good idea. John Boorman wanted to make a more philosophical film about Reagan's possession since he publicly detested the first film. That was a tipoff right away that he shouldn't have bothered to make a sequel. According to Linda Blair, the original script was very good but then it was changed a ton of times. And what ended up on screen is baffling, hilarious and infuriating all at the same time. All the dialogue sounds like it comes from a Dario Argento movie, as if it's all been dubbed. Maybe if the movie was in a different languge, it would be easier to take seriously? No, who am I kidding. There are maybe two or three interesting scenes in the whole scene, the best being the one where Linda Blair is walking on top of her roof in Manhattan and it looks like she may jump. If there were more eerie scenes on that level, it really could have been a great film. The scene with James Earl Jones wearing the locust costume is probably one of the most laughable things I have ever seen. The acting is universally horrible, the worst offender being Richard Burton. Everything he says is spoken with such seriousness --he's meant to be haunting but he's just campy. How bad was this movie? According to many reports, it was laughed at when it premiered and people in different cities threw things at the screen when watching it (in Italy, I've read some people threw tomatoes). The author of the book that the first film was based off of was reportedly laughing within 10 minutes of seeing it. I wonder what it was like being John Boorman (a director who has made some great movies) and Linda Blair walking around NYC or wherever after THAT premiered--it must have been humiliating. What are your thoughts on the film? If any of you saw it in theatres, what was that like? The scene from the movie attached is also very stupid.