Nerds That Geek Movie Review – ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’

Written by Scott Edwards

The endless search for the truth can wind up making people go mad. Sometimes the answers that they are looking for should never be uncovered. When looking for what really happened in the past or present, you must be prepared to face finding something that you may not want to believe. There are so many people that refuse to accept their findings when it is not what they expected to find and continue digging to prove it wrong. Sometimes it is easier to accept the truth and move on, if you continue to dig, you could wind up digging your own grave.

Father Philip Lamont has been on his travels for many years and has seen things that have made him believe that evil is coming back to the world. Upon returning home, Lamont is charged with looking into the death of Father Merrin since the police reports do not shine enough information for the church to accept. Needing to prove that Merrin had not fallen under the spell of evil before his dying breath, Lamont travels to New York and finds Regan MacNeil being treated by Doctor Gene Tuskin. The good doctor has developed a new way of looking into the minds of the sick and disturbed, but when Regan gets attached to the machine, she soon finds out that the girl is holding on to many more memories than she is willing to admit.

Regan is staying in New York and attending these sessions with Doctor Tuskin to appease her mother’s fears while she is working. Doctor Tuskin is curious of what really happened in their old house in Washington that lead to three people’s deaths.  Although Regan will not admit to remembering any of it while she was possessed, she opens her mind when meeting Father Lamont at the center. Being hooked up to the sync machine, Doctor Tuskin is taken into the old house and witnesses the death of Father Merrin but is not able to make it out of the memory. Father Lamont is forced to jump in and see what hell on earth looked like and sees that the demon is still hiding in Regan’s subconscious. Being able to pull Doctor Tuskin out without harm or memory of what she saw, Father Lamont remembers everything and needs to sync with Regan again to find out what happened with Father Merrin.

Regan is now suffering from dreams that are not her own and cannot escape them. With Sharon keeping an eye on her friend, she starts to understand why she needs to be around the girl but will not admit it out loud. Regan agrees to be synced with Father Lamont and the two are whisked away to Africa during Father Merrin’s aid trip where he saved a young man’s life from the demon Pazuzu. Seeing what frightened the demon in the vision, Father Lamont has to find this man who may still live in the same place and find a way to battle and vanquish Pazuzu from the earth once and for all. Being told to end his search by the church, Lamont carries on to Africa to find the young man, but the mention of Pazuzu makes him look like a Satan worshiper and no one will help him on his hunt. Being synced with Regan, Lamont is able to call on the help of Pazuzu to find the man, but the deeper he gets in with the demon, the more his faith in God gets transferred away. With his hunt underway, Lamont is forced to make the decision of his life that will bind his faith to one of two powerful beings, but which one will want him more?

At a glance it is difficult to see why this sequel had such a hard time getting off the ground, the story is sound, the actors are great, but it did just not get that much love. It is how the story was told in my opinion, with Pazuzu taking flight on the wings of the locust, it just seemed like they tried too hard with the special effects they had. Regan had to be my favorite character in this movie since she had to deal with her past that could have just stayed dead and buried. With the old feelings and memories being forced back into her head, she was still focused on doing the right thing in the end and even helping people along the way.  I really wish Sharon would have been written better, I wanted so much more for her in the first movie, but the additional screen time did not help with telling the story. Doctor Gene Tuskin was just crazy good since she has been able to create a technology to enter people’s minds, she can change the world in so many ways, but not willing to take it that far yet. Her interactions with Father Lamont were great, you truly believe they did not trust each other from the very beginning. Well as always, the second movie is not as good as the first, the one change I would make is take out all of the craziness surrounding the locust, I understand it is part of the seven plagues and all, but it was featured way too much in this movie, it was pretty much the star. Stay Scared.

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