Exorcist: The Beginning

Director Renny Harlin creates an intriguing, interesting prequel to the events shown in The Exorcist and its two sequels. This film follows Father Merrin to East Africa, initially having given up his priesthood, where his expertise has been called upon to explain some ancient temple that had been unearthed from the sand and dirt at a major archaeological dig site. The temple is in pristine shape and has some major anti-Church motifs abounding. Merrin soon realizes a demon exists and...well, you get the general picture. This film worked for me for a number of reasons: it is story driven as well as effects driven, it has solid acting, great location shots, and a strangely, highly flawed script that does create interest. The last half of the film begins to bog down under the weight of some of the makeup and special effects, but never to the point of overtaking the film and its atmosphere. And atmosphere is one thing this film has plenty of. I especially liked the way the character of Father Merrin was treated. He is a flawed man with an interesting past that the film delves into through flashbacks. These flashback scenes are effectively done and help make Merrin all the more real. The acting of Stellan Skarsgard in the role is the film's principal strength along with some innovative camera-work. Sure, much of the script is hokey hooey and will not make terribly much sense - I'm still not sure what happened in the end, but the film works nonetheless for the aforementioned reasons. I was pleasantly surprised despite some pre-conceived ideas going into the film.

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.

There's no denying that this Exorcist prequel is surplus to requirements in terms of movies that needed to be made; but in spite of that, it's actually not bad at all. The film was never going to be received well, due to the fact that it's a prequel to one of the greatest horror movies ever made, and of course the whole Paul Schrader fiasco; but I'm happy to report that The Exorcist: The Beginning has risen from amidst the chaos and turned out to be a very decent horror movie. The action takes place before the events of the classic 70's movie, but it still follows the same character - Father Merrin, who was played by the great Max Von Sydow in the original, and is brought to life by Stellan Skarsgård in this movie. We follow him as he joins a British expedition in Kenya after an ancient church that has been buried underground for hundreds of years has been uncovered. You know what's coming, and this discovery is a springboard for all kinds of evil to be inflicted on the surrounding village.

The film really falls down on the character side, as we never really get to know any of them and with the possible slight exception of the lead; not a single one has any depth. That's unimportant, however, as this film's main focus is definitely the atmosphere; and it's suitably malevolent throughout, which does the film no end of favours. The action is very slow, especially for the first hour, but it hardly matters as watching the plot bathe in the atmosphere is always entertaining enough, and while it is slow you can always count on something to happen that will get the excitement levels back up. The film features several shocking and disturbing sequences, my personal favourite being the hyena attack; with the stillborn birth coming a close second. The CGI in the film leaves a lot to be desired, especially on the aforementioned hyena attack, but the effects aren't too much of an important element anyway. When the film boils down to it's ending is when it really lets rip, and the final fifteen minutes or so deliver some really great horror. While this film doesn't even nearly touch the original; it's much better than you would think considering all the turmoil surrounding the release and on the whole I give it a thumbs up!

I watched Schrader's "Dominion" in the morning and Harlin's "Beginning" in the afternoon, hoping that watching them back to back would make a comparison easier than for most people who waited a year until the deleted version by Schrader was finally released. Renny Harlin used only a few minutes from the already existing footage, so "Beginning" really became a new movie. But unfortunately, the whole effort of re-shooting didn't make the movie better.

In Harlin's "remake", we get a smart young priest, straight from the Vatican (James D'Arcy) who has received all the information about the buried church in advance. In "Dominion", Gabriel Mann played an innocent priest who does not expect anything terrible, he just wants to start a school in the middle of Africa. The latter was the better screenplay idea in my opinion, because D'Arcy is such a cool "professional" that we don't really care about him, whereas Mann was a character the audience loves for his human feelings. Also there is more mystery in "Domionion" whereas "Beginning" once explained the whole background, and that was it - too easy.

"Beginning" has a lot more gory effects, swarms of ugly insects and its demon uses obscenities in same way Linda Blair did in the original "Exorcist" movie. This will probably entertain people who just want a horror movie and nothing else. Mind you, "Beginning" also has good photography, a few unforgettable moments like the battlefield at the beginning and good actors! But the release of the original version "Dominion" proved that the story has had more potential, Schrader worked more careful with the characters and their relationships and gave more food for thought. I voted 6/10 for "Beginning" and 8/10 for "Dominion".

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...