Makes Your Head Spin (Part Two)

Last night I sat down to watch Paul Schrader's version of the Exorcist prequel, called Dominion, here now is part 2 of my thoughts on the dueling Exorcist prequels. To read Part One, just scroll down a bit, or you can just click here.

Dominion tells the same story that Renny Harlin's version did. We still follow Father Lankester Merrin's (Stellan Skarsgard) path, starting in 1949, and through the course of the film, we learn how he came to be the Catholic Church's chief exorcist. Having said that, I was struck by the fact that at just how different Dominion turned out to be.

Schrader's version makes a more compelling film, because it treats the subject matter in much the same way that the 1973 original did, as a true battle between good and evil, without being just a carbon copy--or a gore for the sake of gore film. The film has as much to with psychological "terror" as it does anything else. Perhaps the suits at Warner Brothers were skid dish about Dominion because it didn't fit the mold of today's horror film. The back story of Father Merrin takes on much more meaning now under Schrader's direction. What's even more baffling is the fact that had they not tampered with William Wisher Jr. and Caleb Carr's script and still insisted that Harlin direct it, Beginnings may have had better box office.

The Dominion DVD includes an audio commentary track from director Paul Schrader, and while I would have liked to hear more about the studio's issues with his version, the production information, he does pass along is generally insightful. The downside of the track is that there are far too many "gaps of silence" here. For a guy that was replaced outright, I would have thought that Schrader would have been a lot more chatty. A collection of six incidental deleted scenes and a small still gallery top off the bonus material.

It's my hope that anyone who reads this two part post will give Dominion a shot. I suppose we should be gratful that the studio released the Schrader's version at all.