Believe it or not, there was actually a reference question here at the library and I accidentally ended my HERETIC review mid-rant. I know that nobody really cares, but just for my own amusement I’m going to finish it off.

Linda Blair is joined this time out by Richard Burton, who seems to be only partially there for much of the film. The man does have some acting chops left at this point in his career, but it is pretty obvious that he’s just paying some bills. Anyway, Burton goes around looking grim and then will explode, chewing up the set and anything that gets in his way. You can almost feel the spittle hitting you from the small screen. I’d love to know what the seventeen-year-old Blair must have thought, being jumped by the aging Burton in the final scenes. Since poor Regan actually becomes two separate beings (one the innocent Regan, the other the demon who killed Merrin and continues to exist in Regan), Burton gets to nuzzle the neck of the ‘evil’ Regan and then leap up to strangle the ‘good’ one.

Easy to see why the preview audiences laughed at this fiasco, which isn’t saved by the last minute editing of director John Boorman. Sydow and Blair seem to be the only ones who are taking this halfway seriously, and I really can’t blame either of them for the results. You’ve got to pity poor James Earl Jones, who portrays Kokum, an African priest/witchdoctor, who survived a possession by the same demon who now lives within Regan.

The special FX are about the only enjoyable things here and I’m almost (but not quite) interested in seeing what this film is like without the editing for television. One odd thing (so okay, there were a lot of odd things going on in this film, but this one was too blatant to ignore) was that in one scene where young Regan is sleepwalking, she is wearing a long, white nightgown. Apparently, someone at SCI-FI or elsewhere, felt that Blair’s outfit was a bit too revealing, since she spends half the scene with her bosoms obscured by a very, obvious white haze.

Not the most productive way to spend the morning, I’ll grant you, but I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy myself.