John Boorman's legendary misstep "Exorcist II: The Heretic" (1977) gets the documentary treatment it arguably deserves in "Boorman and the Devil," a film that transforms one of cinema's most notorious failures into something resembling a Christopher Guest satire.
The documentary captures Boorman and his collaborators as they grapple with the wreckage of their ambitious sequel to William Friedkin's 1973 horror masterpiece. What emerges is less a mournful postmortem than an unintentionally hilarious examination of creative delusion. Boorman and company acknowledge their film tanked spectacularly. They simply cannot fathom why.
This gap between self-awareness and self-knowledge forms the documentary's dark comedic core. Boorman's directing the sequel with swagger and artistic pretension, armed with high-minded concepts about possession, spirituality, and cinematic scope. He approached "Exorcist II" as an intellectually rigorous follow-up, not a commercial cash grab. The result bombed with both critics and audiences, becoming a punchline in film history. Yet Boorman's fortitude in defending his choices reads less as principled conviction and more as textbook delusion.
The original "Exorcist" defined the horror genre for generations. It dominated the box office, earned multiple Oscar nominations, and cemented Friedkin's reputation as a master craftsman. Friedkin's film achieved cultural penetration few movies reach. The pressure on a sequel was immense, and Boorman's approach to managing that pressure tells you everything.
Rather than honor the stripped-down terror of Friedkin's approach, Boorman went maximalist. He pursued cosmic spectacle and metaphysical grandeur. Linda Blair returned as Regan MacNeil, but the film spiraled into absurdity, complete with locust attacks and paranormal mumbo-jumbo. Critics shredded it. Audiences stayed away. The film earned only $30 million domestically against its substantial budget.
What makes "Boorman and the Devil" compulsively watchable is precisely what it refuses to do: validate Boorman's perspective. The documentary presents his convictions straightforwardly, without protective framing. His genuine belief in the film's artistic merit, combined with the undeniable reality of its commercial and critical failure, creates cognitive dissonance that registers as tragicomic.
This is not a hagiography. It's an anthropological study of a brilliant director (Boorman made "Point Blank," "Deliverance," and "The General") who collided with a project too big, too scrutinized, and too creatively misconceived for his particular talents. His vision for "Exorcist II" prioritized what he wanted to make over what audiences needed from a horror sequel.
The documentary arrives during peak nostalgia for '70s cinema excess. Recent years have seen reassessments of unfairly dismissed films, prompts by streaming platforms and critics eager to complicate film history. Yet "Boorman and the Devil" largely resists romantic rehabilitation. It respects Boorman's artistic ambitions while plainly documenting their spectacular failure.
The film operates as both tragedy and comedy. Boorman's relentless self-justification, paired with documentary footage of the production chaos and box-office indifference, constructs something rare: a movie about filmmaking that lands closer to dark satire than tragedy.