"Boorman and the Devil"

☆☆☆☆☆

Among the many seemingly impossible tasks accomplished by the remarkable documentary Boorman and the Devil is its refusal to turn 1977's Exorcist II: The Heretic into a good film that has been unfairly maligned. Instead, it examines how intelligent, talented, dedicated people created a disaster. If you watch Exorcist II after seeing this film, you'll still watch an incomprehensible mess. But you won't watch it the same way.

Boorman and the Devil is enticing to movie fans because it promises to deconstruct one of the most notorious flops in movie history, a movie so reviled by audiences that riots broke out at some movie theaters where it played. In the 49 years since its release, some people — Martin Scorsese among them —have tried to reassess it as a masterpiece.

Director John Boorman isn't one of them. The director of Excalibur and Deliverance and Hope and Glory, among others, spends a great deal of time on screen in Boorman and the Devil, and he knows the film was a catastrophe. He also remains proud of its accomplishments. Exorcist II: The Heretic has become for him something deeper and more profound than a failure: it is a wound that has never healed. It is the mistake of a lifetime.

Many of the people involved in the film view it that way, or at least as something far deeper, far richer, far more meaningful than simply a bad movie. It was an arduous, impressive effort. Everyone did the best work they could on it, from the actors to the technicians to the administrative crew. A number of them are interviewed in Boorman and the Devil. What they say about the film is revealing and sometimes actually heartbreaking: they knew there was a high risk of failure, but they are proud of what they did.

Boorman and the Devil is a work of passion and care from director David Kittredge, who seems almost painfully aware of how close Exorcist II: The Heretic is to camp, and wants to retain reverence while acknowledging the truth of the matter. Walking that fine line turns Boorman and the Devil into an uncommonly entertaining movie. It's funny, zany, wildly engaging, and endlessly fascinating.

Filled with clips not just from The Heretic but from dozens of other films that illustrate not just Boorman's history but the history of the time (summer 1977 turned out to be a momentous summer, as most movie fans will remember, but not because of the Exorcist sequel), it's a cinephile's dream. This is what you always hope movies about movies will be like, but too rarely are. It's ambitious, generous, and revelatory.

Yet Boorman and the Devil achieves something so much more than being a great documentary; it really is one of the very best films of 2026, of any kind (and this has been an uncommonly good year for movies) because of the rich, complicated, painful humanity at its core. Exorcist II: The Heretic wasn't a work of hubris. If it had been, the documentary would have become a sly, winking cautionary tale. Exorcist II: The Heretic was the work of deeply passionate people who were committed to creating something great ... and didn't. They all understand why, but none can quite explain it.

Actress Louise Fletcher, interviewed before her death in 2022, comes closest. Smiling through difficult memories, she professes a deep and believable lack of regret, but acknowledges the fundamental pain. She finds a metaphor in a great spaghetti dinner, in which all the good stuff and all the bad stuff is so tangled together the only thing to do is enjoy it all.

Hers is the best explanation, but Boorman is left with the deepest imponderable. The film bears his name. He made the decisions. He stands by them, wishing that he didn't have to. Boorman's genuinely remarkable interview, like this unmissable film itself, turns making a bad movie into a dissection of pain, regret, pride and self-awareness that will move everyone watching, artist or not, true believer or heretic.

Viewed August 18, 2026 — American Cinematheque / Aero Theater

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