15 Most Insultingly Bad Sequels To Great Movies

11. Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

William Friedkin's 1973 horror classic needs no introduction, though neither Friedkin nor writer-producer William Peter Blatty (and author of the original Exorcist novel) wanted anything to do with this sequel.

Friedkin himself famously called Exorcist II: The Heretic "as bad as seeing a traffic accident in the street", and it's hard to argue much with that assessment. A car crash of competing tones and ideas - most of them bad in their own right - this wildly unnecessary follow-up plays like nobody involved (except a decent Linda Blair) even saw the original movie.

Though the film deserves the most mild credit for not just rehashing what came before, its ambition was ultimately misplaced with a nonsense plot that's more unintentionally hilarious than genuinely terrifying.

At least the Blatty-directed Exorcist III, released in 1990, was a far more worthy sequel. Flawed though it is, it delivered one of the best jump scares in cinema history.