One Of The Most Controversial Horror Sequels Ever Has One Of The Best Trailers Of All Time

It's generally accepted that the summer movie season as we know it today began 50 years ago with the release of Steven Spielberg's "Jaws." Studios were already obsessed with blockbusters thanks to the runaway success of films like "Love Story" and "The Godfather," as well as the proliferation of multiplexes (which meant screen numbers were exploding all over the world). But when "Jaws" blew past "Gone with the Wind" to become the highest grossing movie of all time, it was game on.

This gold rush mentality led studios to prioritize sequels to their previous hits, even though this approach invited critical scorn. "The Godfather Part II" was one thing, and, sure, "French Connection II" made sound story sense since Charnier got away at the end of the first one, but a follow-up to "Love Story" felt obscene (it was called "Oliver's Story," and it's one of the worst movies ever made). So, when a studio trotted out a sequel, they knew many influential critics would view said offering with extreme skepticism.

One blockbuster that seemed like a fairly emphatic one-and-done was William Friedkin's "The Exorcist." Based on William Peter Blatty's bestselling novel, the tale of young Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) getting possessed by the demon Pazuzu was a harrowing experience that ended with Jason Miller's Father Karras heroically taking the demon into his own body before launching himself out a window and tumbling down those spooky Hitchcock Steps to his death.

You can't end a film more cleanly than that, but when "The Exorcist" wound up becoming the highest grossing movie in Warner Bros. history up to that time, the studio demanded a follow-up. What was initially intended to be a low-budget smash-and-grab (featuring unused footage from the original) turned into a big-budget art film from risk-taking director John Boorman. While I happen to find "Exorcist II: The Heretic" fascinatingly bizarre, Boorman had no interest in serving up a viscerally terrifying ordeal à la Friedkin. His film seems designed from stem to stern to infuriate fans of the original movie. Warner Bros. knew this film didn't have a chance of connecting with mainstream audiences, but it was well aware that Boorman (working with ace cinematographer William A. Fraker) had captured some singularly eerie and evocative imagery. "Exorcist II: The Heretic" might've been a franchise killer, but WB could at least sell the heck out of the sequel with a world-class trailer.

Movie trailers can be every bit as transporting as a perfectly composed three-minute pop song. Whether they're cut by the director or spliced together by professionals who've mastered the art of selling, they can hook into the essence of a film and offer the promise of sheer cinematic bliss. Sometimes, they promise more than the filmmaker can deliver: Renny Harlin's "Cliffhanger" is a solid B action flick, but its trailer, scored to the "Dies Irae" movement from Mozart's "Requiem" (and featuring no dialogue), made the film out to be a symphony of practically shot set pieces. On the other end of the spectrum, Jean-Luc Godard's trailer for "Contempt" used Georges Delerue's lushly tragic score to make the film look like a romantic epic for the ages (when it's still very much a Godard movie, but spectacularly so).

Some movies are so wretched that you can't mask the stench wafting off them, however, and if WB had taken a conventional approach to marketing "Exorcist II: The Heretic," the film might've belly flopped over its opening weekend. But someone watched Boorman's befuddling stew of a horror movie and knew they could splice together a work of art that would stand on its own long after the film was written off as one of the worst sequels ever made (which I think is way too harsh, but that's how "Exorcist II: The Heretic" is still viewed 48 years later).

The secret sauce of Boorman's film is the score from maestro Ennio Morricone. The prolific Italian composer was fond of repeating motifs from film to film, but something in "Exorcist II: The Heretic" turned him on. The chants and shrieks that he used in films like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "Navajo Joe" sound as if they've been spawned from the center of Hell. Do these noises always sync up with what you're seeing on screen? Not really. Boorman conjures some mesmerizing imagery (and gets more terrifying mileage out of swarming locusts than any director in film history), but Morricone is often working overtime to make the saggy parts of the movie sing. He had a penchant for doing this. For example, there's a reason Gregory Nava's "A Time of Destiny" is a forgotten film, while Morricone's score is a fixture in every film music fan's collection (and was used to sell a very different kind of flop in Lawrence Kasdan's "Wyatt Earp").

But Morricone's music was never more effectively weaponized in a trailer than in the theatrical spot for "Exorcist II: The Heretic."

"Exorcist II: The Heretic" was released on June 17, 1977, less than a month after George Lucas' "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope" changed movies forever. Before moviegoers got whisked off to that galaxy far, far away, it looked like this summer would be a sequel battle royale between Boorman's film, "The Spy Who Loved Me," "Bad News Bears in Breaking Training," and, no joke, "For the Love of Benji." And, really, Peter Yates' film adaptation of "Jaws" author Peter Benchley's "The Deep" was sold as a spin-off of sorts to Spielberg's movie with its hilariously similar poster.

Given that Friedkin's film was widely considered to be the scariest movie ever made, Boorman's sequel to "The Exorcist" enjoyed a huge competitive advantage in the marketplace. WB knew this advantage would go poof once mainstream moviegoers saw the film, so it cut a trailer that wedded the movie's most striking images with Morricone's ultra-groovy "Pazuzu" theme. In doing so, it sold what appeared to be a funky, freaky-deaky studio horror movie. It looks like a Funkadelic album cover come to life.

Honestly, the second Boorman and WB saw this trailer, they should've slammed on the brakes and reshot the movie to make what the studio's marketing department was selling. It's basically a highlight reel of the film, but if Boorman could see how trippy his film could be if he harnessed his eye-popping visuals to Morricone's music, he might've been able to refashion "Exorcist II: The Heretic" into a cult classic instead of a cult curiosity, which is what it is now. At the very least, we have this trailer. And we can crank up our speakers and watch it over and over again on YouTube. Hail Pazuzu. (And buy the Arrow Video Blu-ray to hear /Film's BJ and Harmony Colangelo throw down in the film's defense via a video essay!)