Exorcist: The Beginning

First, let me say that I didn't know Dominion existed until I discovered it going through the program guide. I started watching and man was I confused! I though that there was ANOTHER prequel that I didn't know about, until I continued to watch. Dominion seemed to me like a movie made out of pieces of film on the floor of the editing room. Clara Bellar's acting was awful in my opinion. I was completely distracted by her performance as well as several others.

While not a true horror movie, I really enjoyed The Beginning. I've watched it many times and found it very suspenseful. It kept my attention. I enjoyed the actors and the story. I've watched it over ten times and the scenes where Father M had to choose those to die? Chilling. Who wouldn't lose faith? The boy being torn apart? There were some good scenes.

Peace

In 1949, the British army has stumbled onto a buried Byzantium church in Kenya. The church's date is too early and shouldn't exist. Merrin (Stellan Skarsgård) is a former priest who suffered a traumatic war experience. He's called in to help with the archaeological dig. Father Francis (James D'Arcy) is sent in by the Vatican, and Sarah (Izabella Scorupco) is also trying to escape the horrors of WWII.

This is simply not a scary movie. That's the biggest and really the only measuring stick for a horror movie. At almost 2 hours, it's way too long. The pace is way too slow. The look of the production seems smaller than what the budget would indicate.

The feel of the movie hearkens back to the 70s, and not in good way. Horror movies have moved on, but this one still believes that flies are scary. The CGI is not the best. The blood and guts are acceptable. The baby with maggots looks creepy. But other times, the movie holds back too much. The coyote attack should have been scary, but it's never given a chance. It's just not good enough for today's audience.

Here's a film which had a more interesting story behind the cameras rather than on the screen. This beleaguered production originally had Paul Schrader directing, but studio bosses were unhappy with his more intellectual interpretation of the events so they hired go-to guy Renny Harlin for extensive reshoots that amped up the gore content. What emerges is a troubled, visceral production with occasional flashes of greatness. Overall it's a let down, with a sense of what could have been rather than what is.

The film sets off on a poor footing with some extremely bad CGI work of a huge landscape. These kind of schlocky effects periodically turn up and are laughed off screen every time they appeared; a scene involving CGI-ed jackals is particularly bad. The ensuing story is choppy and disjointed, building up a series of portentous moments and religious iconography and then backing away from them. There's also a lot of bad taste stuff involving plague victims, a stillborn birth and colonial racism.

As the sort-of youthful Father Merrin, Stellan Skarsgard is a bit of a mixed bag. He's suitably tough, but his icy exterior never cracks for an instant, meaning it's difficult to feel any sympathy for him. He's supported by a bland James D'Arcy, a pretty-but-wasted Izabella Scorupco and two cameos from Ben Cross (a neat bit of casting, seeing as he himself played an exorcist in THE UNHOLY) and David Bradley. More fun is Alan Ford (SNATCH) as a delightfully scuzzy deadbeat.

Finally, after a lot of spectacle and not a great deal of sense, the film plays its true hand in the last twenty minutes. Here it becomes a full blown EXORCIST copy, complete with an extended and dramatic showdown between good and evil and not bad makeup effects. In actual fact I didn't mind the ending, it may be cheesy but at least there's stuff going on. I wish, thought, that it hadn't taken so long to get there – it's one of those films which is all build up and little actual climax. This isn't a particularly great film, but it isn't particularly bad either; just kind of so-so.

I have read many of the comments concerning this movie and find that I tend to feel that this movie should not be judged in relation to the first. This movie stands out on its own by reviewing Father Merrin's life long before his fateful encounter with Regan years later. My son Nathan and daughter Ryann both found this too scary for them and felt it was far more scarier than the first. I saw it to be more historical and would judge it on that content. Yes, people are right in their comments about all the gore and vileness, but I saw that in the first movie in 1973 when it came out. I'm going to venture to say that people are turned off by this movie simply because it in no way resembles the original. This is the part where a director steps back and quits trying to leech off the first success. Give him some credit about trying to diversify this movie for the audience. Don't go in with any type of preconceived notion about the original or you will be disappointed like the rest in these comments. It is a good movie and well worth seeing. Mark Lockwood, Lubbock Tx...

Hollywood sure chews 'em up and spits 'em out: one minute, director Paul Schrader is working on a long-awaited prequel to The Exorcist; the next, he's been replaced by Renny Harlin, one-time director of mega-budget action films starring the likes of Stallone and Willis, now reduced to the task of salvaging other people's failed projects (the result of having had one too many expensive box office disasters of his own).

However, despite the film's troubled history, Harlin has managed to turn out a fairly reasonable time-waster. The story is pretty unremarkable, detailing Father Merrin's struggle with his faith and his first encounter with the demon Pazazu in Africa—but the stylish direction, wonderful cinematography, decent gore (gotta love those snapping limbs!), and a strong central performance from Stellan Skarsgård as the emotionally scarred Merrin give viewers plenty to appreciate.

Some of the CGI could have been better—I wasn't very convinced by the hyenas or the insects—and Isabella Scorupco's shower scene is woefully short, but these are minor quibbles for a film that had the potential to be absolutely horrendous.