Makes Your Head Spin (Part One)

Like just about everyone else who has ever watched 1973's, The Exorcist, I consider it one of the best of its kind ever made. Since that time, there have been many imitators, as well as a direct sequel and then came the third film--both of which, never even come close to capturing the craftsmanship and quality of the original. When I first heard that Paul Schrader was going to make a prequel, I got pretty jazzed. After all, he's the man responsible for two of my favorite scripts: Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. I was intrigued by the possibilities. Schrader finished the film, and then was told by the studio that the film would be remade entirely from scratch, with a new director! At some point tonight, I will taking time to watch the DVD release of Schrader's version, and while I strongly feel that Warner Brothers should have given Schrader a better shake, I recently decided to give Exorcist: The Beginning a look just the same. Here now then is Part One of my thoughts on the dueling prequels.

"The Beginning" follows Father Lankester Merrin (Stellan Skarsgard) in 1949, and through the course of the film, we learn how he came to be the Catholic Church's chief exorcist. As the movie opens, Merrin has lost his faith, and finds himself in Egypt. While there, he discovers that a church was erected over a pagan temple, which was built on the very spot where Lucifer fell to Earth after the war in heaven. The fallen angel has been imprisoned there ever since, until people come by occasionally and loose him on the world. Merrin is asked to recover a small but important artifact--am I watching an Indiana Jones adventure?-from the church, which ends up meaning nothing to the plot...

The foremost problem with the movie though is that it's NOT SCARY AT ALL. The story by William Wisher Jr. (who collaborated with James Cameron on Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and Caleb Carr, with the script penned by Alexi Hawley, is just a mess. It goes all over the place as an incoherent mess. For his part, director Renny Harlin (whose best film is still Die Hard 2) has subscribed to the formula that having blood and gore equals scary. It does not. When the film tries to grab you, it misses the point. As I always say, you don't need to be hit over the head for a film to work.

The DVD does have an audio commentary by Harlin. The track allows for him to make an attempt to explain his actions. While he sounds genuine, it's too little, too late to do any good. There's an 8 minute featurette on the making of the movie, that doesn't really delve in to much, except the usual fluff. Static cast and crew filmographies and the theatrical trailer top off the disc's bonus material.

What a big piece of pure bloated puff this film turned out to be. I was bored silly after just 20 minutes--but managed to somehow stay with it. Paul Schrader's version of the movie may be flawed, but I am hoping that his version of the film won't be worse than this garbage passed off as a horror film sure was.