Exorcist II: The Heretic the Book of Job; it's God testing the good. In this sense, Regan (Linda Blair) is a modern-day saint — like Ingrid Bergman in "Europa '51", and in a way, like Charlie in "Mean Streets". I like the first "Exorcist", because of the Catholic guilt I have, and because it scared the hell out of me; but "The Heretic" surpasses it. Maybe Boorman failed to execute the material, but the movie still deserved better than it got." Author Bob McCabe's book "The Exorcist: Out of the Shadows" contains a chapter on the film in which Linda Blair said the movie
The Exorcist (film) in "The New Republic", wrote, "This is the scariest film I've seen in years—the "only" scary film I've seen in years ... If you want to be shaken—and I found out, while the picture was going, that that's what I wanted—then "The Exorcist" will scare the… (shit) out of you." "Variety" noted that it was "an expert telling of a supernatural horror story ... The climactic sequences assault the senses and the intellect with pure cinematic terror." In "Castle of Frankenstein", Joe Dante called it "an amazing film, and one destined to become at the very least a horror classic.