In 1973, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist opened in American cinemas to record-breaking attendance, widespread acclaim, and – subsequently – a string of award nominations including the Best Picture Academy Award. Three years later Warner Bros appointed British filmmaker John Boorman – then still in hot demand following his hit thriller Deliverance – to develop and direct a sequel. Released in the summer of 1977, Exorcist II: The Heretic was a critical and commercial disaster: laughed out of theatres by audiences, eviscerated by the critics, and becoming the poster child for bad sequels for a generation.

Boorman and the Devil is a documentary directed by David Kittredge that tracks, through new interviews and archival footage, the story of how Boorman came to be involved, the process of writing and shooting The Heretic, and the circumstances that led the film to be described by critic Gene Siskel as ‘the worst major motion picture I’ve seen in almost eight years on the job’.

Honestly I cannot claim The Heretic to be in any way a decent motion picture. It is, however, a fascinating failure to watch at least once, and Kittredge’s documentary now forms the perfect companion for an intriguing double feature. Questions that came to mind while watching Boorman’s debacle can now be accompanied by answers, and for everything in The Heretic that perplexed moviegoers back in 1977 now have explanations in Boorman and the Devil. What is particularly interesting is that the causes of the earlier film’s faults are wide and varied. While there is the usual challenge of studio interference here and there, it is notable that perhaps the biggest flaw in The Heretic was the studio’s active lack of interference: essentially letting Boorman and screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg free rein in developing the most bizarre of ideas until it was too late to stop them. Add in casting mistakes, the unavailability of the original Exorcist cast due to scheduling, recalcitrance, or death, and the public’s unassailable expectations of what the sequel should be and do.

What is particularly worth watching is all of the clever techniques and innovations Boorman employed to realise his vision, including some visual effects work that remain impressive almost 50 years later. The demonstrable talent involved in making The Heretic makes its creative failure all the more perplexing.

It is clear that Kittredge’s documentary has been in the works for some time: John Boorman mentions being 85 years old at one point, which puts his interviews – which are quite illuminating – at eight years ago. Likewise actor Louise Fletcher, who co-starred in The Heretic as a follow-up to her Oscar-winning turn in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, died in 2022. It is lucky Kittredge recorded his interviews when he did. Between Boorman, Fletcher, and Linda Blair (star of both The Exorcist and The Heretic), as well as an assortment of crew and minor cast members, a decent oral history of production is capably achieved.

It is a little too long. Kittredge seems to struggle to find a natural end point, and the last 20 minutes feel bogged down in tracking Boorman’s post-Heretic career. There is also the perennial problem that challenges almost all filmmaking-focused documentaries, which is how to make it transcend the sense of simply being an elevated DVD extra. In that regard it seems he is only partially successful. For fans of The Exorcist and its sequel (which has developed a cult following over the decades), fans of rubbernecking car-crash movie failures, or even those fascinated by Hollywood filmmaking in general, Boorman and the Devil has a lot to offer.

Boorman and the Devil opens in New York on Friday 28 August 2026 before expanding to other American cities.