222 - Exorcist II: The Heretic

Your Stupid Minds

Your Stupid Minds is back with more spooky fare for Halloween. At least, it gives the air of spookification. If you find mind meld hypnosis machines, panopticon-like modern interior design, and fever dreams about locusts spooky, then you’d probably find 1977’s Exorcist II: The Heretic adequately spooky.

After a botched exorcism in Latin America leads to a woman “accidentally” setting herself on fire, Father Lamont (Richard Burton) is tasked with investigating the life and work of the late Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), who gave his life performing the exorcism in the first movie. He travels to New York where Regan (Linda Blair) has no memory of her past possession, and undergoes psychiatric treatment at a cutting edge facility led by Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher).

They use an experimental “synchronizer” machine to mind meld each other to relive past trauma in order to treat it. Instead, it unlocks the dormant Pazuzu, the demon from the first movie. Now Lamont must travel from Washington D.C. to Africa to Washington D.C. again to investigate this demon and defeat it once and for all. His travels involve seeking out a man named Kokumo (James Earl Jones), once-possessed by Pazuzu and exorcised by Merrin, who may hold the key, and special powers, the defeat the demon once and for all.