Reflect on one of the most famous movie failures of all time with Boorman And The Devil trailer

Exorcist II: The Heretic director John Boorman looks back on that famous debacle in a new documentary.

By Danette Chavez  |  July 31, 2026 | 10:41am
Film News Exorcist II: The Heretic
Reflect on one of the most famous movie failures of all time with Boorman And The Devil trailer

Exorcist II: The Heretic is regularly cited as a terrible sequel, its failures somehow put into even sharper relief by all the other bad movies in the Exorcist franchise released after William Friedkin’s powerful original. And yet, as The A.V. Club‘s Nathan Rabin put it, “A flop the magnitude of Exorcist II: The Heretic would kill most franchises, but the series survived to flop again,” so John Boorman’s 1977 follow-up has also proven to be an interesting lens to look at cinematic failures more broadly. Director David Kittredge now embarks on a deep dive into what went wrong in the new documentary Boorman And The Devil.

After breaking out with Point Blank and Deliverance, Boorman was entrusted with a sequel to Friedkin’s massively successful film, a responsibility that would prove burdensome and result in a movie that shaped Boorman’s legacy as much as his hits. In the trailer for the upcoming documentary, Boorman wryly observes that “David Lean said to me once, ‘John, you know, we all make failures. Try not to make a famous one.’ And this became one of the most famous failures of all time.” 

But Kittredge doesn’t have self-flagellation in mind for his examination of this prominent fiasco; he presents Boorman’s work on The Heretic as a story on the importance of taking big artistic swings, whether or not they connect. Boorman is joined in the hot seat by Linda Blair, Louise Fletcher, Karyn Kusama, Joe Dante, Mike Flanagan, and more. Boorman And The Devil will be in select theaters on August 28. Check out the trailer below.

 
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