would receive a hefty advance plus a huge per- centage of the sequel’s ticket sales. The agree- ments also contained an astonishing clause requiring the theaters to run the film for a mini- mum of twelve weeks. Still, given the buzz of its predecessor, THE HERETIC easily got booked into 707 theaters nationwide.
The sound mix was completed in Burbank, California in early June. Boorman urged the stu- dio to hold a sneak preview in Tucson, Arizona but Warners felt the film was a guaranteed hit and refused. Thinking that his work on THE HERETIC was finished, Boorman returned home to Ireland on June 12 and began working on another draft of MERLIN. But less than a week later, the director would be working harder than ever on THE HERETIC.
Four million dollars were spent on prints and promotion. TV and radio spots and full-page news- paper ads—with the final, last-minute title of EX- ORCIST II: THE HERETIC—were ubiquitous. Excitement was especially high in Manhattan where, despite mostly-poor reviews, the original EXORCIST had played for months to mobs of ticket buyers. A huge HERETIC billboard with Blair’s face loomed over Times Square as the film opened in 81 area theaters. Boorman had told LOS ANGELES TIMES at the beginning of production: “It will be terrifying, a frightening experience, almost unbearable.” But the quotes given at the time of release tried to prepare the public for a film different than THE EXORCIST. Blair, who was sent on an extensive publicity tour, said, “It’s tamer than the original, not as much the shocker.” Co-producer Richard Lederer explained, “It’s a shocker, too, but it’s not as concentrated in its intensity as the first movie was. It’s more a search movie, a suspense movie. It’s not a rip-off movie. It doesn’t attempt to top the shocks of the first one—it’s a different kind of film, a thriller, and a very effective one.” Private press screenings for EXORCIST II: THE
HERETIC were held in New York and Los Angeles on Thursday, June 16. At the Academy Theater in Beverly Hills, press members snickered through- out the film and laughed uncontrollably at the bi- zarre ending. One viewer remarked, “This was one of the worst studio screenings I’ve ever seen.” The next night, when the film opened to the public, the 1400-seat Westwood Village Theater in Los Angeles was packed. But those that left each screening were vocal about their hatred of the film and told the incoming patrons not to go. Some of the more rowdy in the disgruntled crowds tossed popcorn boxes and soda cups at the screen.
The manager complained, “It was really getting out of hand—I stopped wearing my tuxedo because I thought I was going to get lynched.” Pallenberg was in Los Angeles on opening night and called Boorman in Ireland early the next morn- ing to give him the bad news about that area’s angry audience reaction and to read him the local reviews. Kevin Thomas, LOS ANGELES TIMES: “Min- utes into EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC, it gets per- fectly clear why Warners held back press screenings of the film until the day before it opened to the public. All of the considerable talent, time and money poured into the picture, and all its vast scope and rich production values serve only to underline the frequent unintended and therefore devastating humor.” VARIETY: “Boorman has somehow managed to transform it into ‘Gidget meets Mothra.’”
Also that morning, Tommy Culla, Boorman’s personal assistant during production, phoned the director from New York with more negative reviews. John Simon, NEW YORK Magazine: “There is a very strong possibility that EXOR- CIST II is the stupidest major movie ever made... a foul-smelling witch’s brew of meaningless tur- bulence.” Vincent Canby, THE NEW YORK TIMES: “EXORCIST II begins by looking foolish and slowly becomes a straightfaced film of the ab- surd.” Canby called the film a “desperate con- coction” with “spectacular fatuousness.” Pauline Kael, THE NEW YORKER: “It’s winged camp—a horror fairy tale gone wrong, another in the long history of movie-makers’ king-size follies.”
Once the devastating reviews and (more importantly) the intensely negative word-of-mouth spread, the grosses dropped considerably for the Saturday shows. Boorman recalled, “There were mass walkouts. They found the ending particu- larly offensive. Warners panicked. I made a hasty attempt to re-cut the last reel.”
O
Pallenberg told Boorman that many of the thousands of people who saw the film on its first day at the Westwood Village Theater laughed at the climax when Burton emerged completely un- scathed after falling from the crumbling second floor. There were chuckles during the dialogue that followed. The director quickly decided to drop the film’s last 3m by cutting from the shot of Blair emerging alone from the rubble directly to the end credits. Boorman contacted the projectionist at the Westwood Village. He told VARIETY: “I cut it by telephone from 6,000 miles’ distance. I had a print at home. I worked on it, and I called them with the
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