After a guided tour by Sharon of the Georgetown house where the exorcism took place, Lamont returns to be coupled with Regan by the synchronizer. Tuskin hypnotizes the girl, to whom she is linked by a "synchronizer"-a revolutionary biofeedback device used by two people to synchronize their brainwaves.
In an attempt to plumb her memories of the exorcism and specifically the circumstances in which Merrin died, Dr. Tuskin, who believes that Lamont's approach would do Regan more harm than good. Father Lamont visits the institute but his attempts to question Regan about the circumstances of Father Merrin's death are rebuffed by Dr. Regan claims she remembers nothing about her ordeal in Washington, D.C., but Tuskin believes her memories are only repressed. Regan, although now seemingly normal and staying with her guardian Sharon Spencer in New York, N.Y., continues to be monitored at a psychiatric institute by Dr. Apparently, Church authorities are trying to modernize and do not want to acknowledge that Satan actually exists. The Cardinal informs Lamont (who has had some experience at exorcism, and has been exposed to Merrin's teachings) that Merrin is facing posthumous heresy charges because of his controversial writings. Afterwards, Lamont is assigned by the Cardinal to investigate the death of Father Lankester Merrin, who had been killed four years earlier in the course of exorcising the Assyrian demon Pazuzu from Regan MacNeil. However, the exorcism goes wrong and a lit candle sets fire to the girl's dress, killing her. Musing on the film’s no acceptance by Exorcist fans, Boorman said ‘I guess I didn’t throw enough Christians to the lions.Philip Lamont, a priest struggling with his faith, attempts to exorcise a possessed South American girl who claims to "heal the sick".
Rather than sample more Mike Oldfield, the film stretches to a terrific music score, mixing liturgical and African themes, from Ennio Morricone. John Boorman, already see-sawing between genius and lunacy, has no interest at all in the spook business, but litters the film with astonishing sights and sounds, especially in the African sequences which include incredible landscapes, an impressive plague of demon mosquitoes and James Earl Jones as a leopard-outfitted chieftain. However, the most entertainment value comes from Richard Burton as the new priest in town, who wears a silly headpiece for telepathic synchronisation with the patient and suffers one truly cringe-inducing horror moment as he treads on a spike that goes completely through his bare foot. Oh, but it's okay, he's gone now!’), while Von Sydow appears mostly in make-up-free flashbacks as the young Father Merrin tangling with Pazuzu in Africa (pre-empting both versions of Exorcist IV) and returning bit-player Kitty Winn explains why none of the other characters are back. A famously disastrous follow-up to William Friedkin’s horror hit, this has never won many admirers – though it now looks like the best of the generally disastrous Exorcist sequels, in that it at least offers a lot of interesting material jumbled together in a frankly incoherent manner.īlair, a few years further into puberty than in her debut performance, is chubby-cheeked and astonishingly nubile as the repossessed heroine (‘I was possessed by a demon.