The Ecological Exorcist

Late 1970's fun

With music by Ennio Morricone, 1970s girlish beauty by Linda Blair, Richard Burton in a surprising turn as the exorcist with the tortured soul, and James Earl Jones in locust headgear, you know that at minimum this sequel is going to provide camp fun. And it does.

But what is such a surprise is what a thoughtful and spacey little film this is. The exorcism plot is re-invented as a flirtatious debate between the fields of religion and psychology. Which is better equipped to heal the ailing mind's of today's children? Which can better explain evil? Can the Prince of Flies be prayed away, or are his wings controllable with revolutionary new biofeedback technology? The shlock horror conventions remain, but are enriched by well-cut trips to Africa, Rome and fancy Manhattan therapy labs, where we meet two characters, Richard Burton's darkly passionate priest, hanging on to hope but just beginning a great fall, and Louise Fletcher's psychiatric experimentalist, all positivist with doses of rapid advancement in science and women's liberation. James Earl Jones turns in a memorable cameo as both locust-themed wiseman of the mudcity and white-coated George Washington Carver for a savannah that just wants to control its locust populations. The inevitable conclusion here is that the ecological metaphor for life, post-Rachel Carson, did become conventional, but that doesn't mean that a stylish handling of it via convention wasn't worth the try. Theater-goers in 1977 probably thought the film preachy and not scary enough, but this true accusation does credit to the filmmakers in 2010.