For some reason it always surprises me how good this is. I still long for the day William Peter Blatty gets his director’s cut released (hopefully with a nice Mark Kermode commentary/documentary accompanying it—eek … this doesn’t bode well for that though :(), but considering the infamous studio tinkering that went on here, it remains a surprisingly worthy sequel to the original. It’s amazing how well George C. Scott steps into the Lt. Kinderman role (played so perfectly by the late Lee J. Cobb in the original) – really as much a testament to his acting skills as it is to how well Blatty wrote the character to begin with. There’s nowhere near as much repellent imagery here as there was in the first, of course, but overall it’s entirely a different kind of story, more gripping than anything else, though it touches amply on the prevalent themes of Blatty’s more significant works. The studio’s hand certainly shows in the last 30 minutes, but even there it’s kind of worth the sacrifice for one of the last performances from the, again, now tragically deceased Jason Miller. I was amazed to spot Scott Wilson in a fairly prominent role on this viewing, too, I’m sure I never recognised him before. Brad Dourif’s quite amazing doing his typically insane thing too. It’s kind of like a Ninth Configuration reunion. Definitely worth a look, even if you’re not into horror – it’s closer to the serial killer thriller genre than anything, aside from those last 30 minutes.

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