DEVIL IN THE DETAIL! The deadly booze-fueled curse and eye-watering pay packet that created Hollywood’s biggest horror flop
THE 1973 horror masterpiece The Exorcist scared audiences out of their wits and raked in millions at the box office.
So when movie bosses greenlit a sequel, fans expected to be terrified all over again.
Instead, they were left hooting with laughter in cinema aisles across the globe.
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) didn’t just flop—it collapsed into one of the most agonizing, embarrassing cinematic disasters in movie history. It nearly wiped out the career of its acclaimed director, John Boorman, leaving movie lovers asking: How on earth did it all go so wrong?
Now, a sensational new documentary titled Boorman and the Devil, directed by David Kittredge, has blown the lid off the hellish nightmare behind the scenes.
From life-threatening diseases and rampant alcoholism to an eye-watering payday that stunned Tinseltown, the explosive doc uncovers the true, dark story behind Hollywood’s most notorious flop.
A CURSE ON SET
Making The Heretic wasn’t just a nightmare on screen—it was a dynamic disaster on set.
Production was hit by a bizarre string of bad luck that left cast and crew dropping like flies. Multiple crew members ended up rushed to hospital under horrifying circumstances.
Worse still, director John Boorman himself almost didn’t survive to see the film finished.
The filmmaker contracted a mysterious, crippling illness during shooting that forced production into an extended emergency shutdown. As Boorman fought for his life in a hospital bed, the studio watched their massive investment rapidly turning into a real-life horror show.
“I’ve often felt that I’ve been braver in my filmmaking, and more cowardly in my life,” Boorman, now 93, reveals in shocking throwback interviews featured in the film.
At the height of the fallout, the devastated director even cried out to reporters: “What do you want me to do, immolate myself on Hollywood Boulevard?”
BOOZE BINGES AND BANK-BUSTING CHEQUES
The chaos didn’t stop behind the camera.
Hollywood legend Richard Burton, who signed on as the troubled priest Father Philip Lamont, was battling severe, crippling alcoholism throughout the shoot. The legendary actor’s battle with the bottle left the set plagued with tension, turning every single scene into a high-stakes gamble.
Meanwhile, child star Linda Blair, who terrorized audiences as the possessed Regan MacNeil in the 1973 original, was back for round two.
But it wasn’t a passion for terrifying demonic forces that brought her back into the fold.
The documentary drops the bombshell truth: Blair agreed to reprise her terrifying role for one reason, and one reason only—a staggering, record-breaking paycheck.
The jaw-dropping sum instantly crowned her the highest-paid actress of her time.
Even co-star Louise Fletcher—who stepped in after original mother Ellen Burstyn flatly refused to return—couldn’t hide her disbelief, later dryly joking that she “would’ve been better in the first one!”
THE FATAL MISTAKE
Yet, despite the booze, the sickness, and the astronomical budget, the ultimate secret that truly doomed the film wasn’t bad luck—it was a deliberate choice by Boorman himself.
In a confession that has left movie buffs stunned, Boorman admitted the heartbreaking failure actually stemmed from his own pride.
Having famously turned down directing the original Exorcist because he felt it was merely a movie about “torturing a child,” Boorman approached the sequel not as a scary continuation, but as a “beautiful poetic healing film bearing the hope of spiritual regeneration.”
In doing so, Boorman made one fatal miscalculation. He purposely stripped away the very thing that made the original a sensation: pure, unadulterated terror.
He ripped out the visceral horror element from the film, replacing terrifying demonic scares with bizarre, metaphysical babble about locusts and psychic synchronizers.
Moviegoers didn’t walk into the cinema looking for a philosophical healing journey—they paid to be frightened to death by Exorcist II. Instead, they were treated to an eccentric mess.
When the lights came up on opening night, audiences didn’t scream. They jeered, threw popcorn at the screen, and laughed the director right out of the theater.
It took years for Boorman to climb back out of the Hollywood abyss. And as Boorman and the Devil proves, sometimes the biggest monster on a movie set isn’t the demon on the script—it’s the director’s own ambition.
