Exorcist II: The Heretic mind". "Variety" wrote: ""Exorcist II" is not as good as "The Exorcist." It isn't even close." BBC film critic Mark Kermode stated: ""Exorcist II" is demonstrably the worst film ever made. It took the greatest film ever made and trashed it in a way that was on one level farcically stupid and on another level absolutely unforgivable. Everyone involved in this, apart from Linda Blair, should be ashamed for all eternity." Vincent Canby, writing in "The New York Times", was similarly dismissive: Given the huge box-office success of the William Peter Blatty-William Friedkin production of "The Exorcist," there had to
The Exorcist (film series) 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 "was one of the big disappointments of my career," and John Boorman confessed that “The sin I