Boorman and the Devil

Kittredge’s film comes neither to bury The Exorcist II: The Heretic nor to praise it. It allows Boorman to exorcise his own demons about the film that almost killed not just career, but also him. But it offers the audience so much more: a fascinating, funny and fully riveting film about the making of one of history’s most notorious critical and commercial failures.

Boorman and the Devil' doesn’t redeem 'Exorcist II: The Heretic'; it speaks about the film openly and honestly, flaws and victories alike, making this documentary infinitely more complete than other, fawning retrospectives about other, better movies.

Perhaps the truth is that Heretic was, like Boorman’s sci-fi adventure Zardoz with Sean Connery in the crazy red mankini: weird, surreal, challenging, a shapeshifting creature vulnerable to mockery, at once monstrous and terribly fragile.

Boorman and the Devil is a funny, surprising, revealing and altogether fascinating document, bursting with crazy details about gonzo 1970s filmmaking.

There’s humor and heart in this often delusional doc that tries to reframe John Boorman’s 50-year-old sequel to “The Exorcist” as a lost masterpiece. Nah. But this anatomy of a flop is powered by something no bad reviews can ever destroy—movie love.

Fundamentally, Boorman and the Devil is a behind-the-scenes documentary with an especially interesting story to tell.

Depending on one’s point of view, that is either self-satisfied indifference to reality or the blind stubbornness required to get any work of art made, even a bad one. Over-zealous and somewhat chintzily produced, “Boorman and the Devil” probably comes down a bit too firmly on the latter perspective. But even those who don’t buy it will nevertheless appreciate this rollicking tale of creative catastrophe.