Exorcist: The Beginning | Stellan Skarsgård, Izabella Scorupco

Exorcist: The Beginning | Stellan Skarsgård, Izabella Scorupco | The Face of Cinematic Evil

vhs video:

Exorcist: The Begi...

	Exorcist: The Beginning Stellan Skarsgård, Izabella Scorupco Warner Home Video, 2005 average customer review:based on 158 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

"This movie is cursed!" exclaimed movie-magazine headlines regarding Exorcist: The Beginning, but those dire warnings turned out to be exaggerated. Considering a tumultuous production history that actually did seem cursed, Renny Harlin's much-maligned prequel to The Exorcist is a surprisingly competent, serious-minded shocker filled with the same anxious foreboding that made the 1973 original so phenomenally effective. The story lacks focus and feels cobbled together (perhaps the result of its tortured development, which included the untimely death of original director John Frankenheimer), but Stellan Skarsgård is well-cast as Father (now Mr.) Merrin, a lapsed Catholic priest summoned to East Africa in 1949 to retrieve a demonic idol. He discovers a buried church, a vast underground cavern, demonic possession, and a legacy of carnage that preys upon guilt-ridden memories from his parish in Nazi-occupied Holland. Harlin delivers the gross-out moments that Warner Brothers demanded, but otherwise shows remarkable restraint while cinematographer Vittorio Storaro delivers doom-laden visual atmosphere. It's not the classic many were hoping for--not even close--but it's still a win-win scenario for horror fans, since it's rumored the unreleased and "abandoned" version directed by Paul Schrader will be paired with this film for its DVD release. Comparisons will no doubt prove interesting. --Jeff Shannon

for more information click here

great up until...

i liked the movie immensely, up until we follow the priest down into the hole to face- the GIRL DEVIL?! im sorry, forgive me if im wrong, but in the first movie, a priest talking to father carras clearly states, "the same thing happened to father merrin in africa. in that case, the possessed was a young BOY." a BOY. the little boy, which all the evidence pointed to all throughout the prequel, was the clear antagonist. why the stupid twist? there was no TWIST needed! if i wanted to see the devil in the possessed female, id watch the ORIGINAL. that was just plain STUPID. aside from that retarded mistake, this movie was GREAT. i especially liked the boy getting ripped apart by the hyenas while the possessed boy looked on... although the boy's cries of pain... whoever told the boy how to scream, where it sounds almost like he is laughing, while that screaming/laughing formula worked well for the bearded-guy in "the blair witch project", it failed here. a little authenticity will go a long way. this scream/laugh mix sounded way too fake for me. i can see what the director was going for, obviously, but the boy screwed it up. a little more training could have cleared that up, maybe. oh, and i loved the upside-down jesus. ha! great. not nearly as hilarious as the blasphemous mother-mary statue from the original, but you get the point. still quite something to laugh about. a really good movie, all in all, but the twist-ending just HAS to go. blech. is hollywood to blame for that mistake? hmm.

for more information click here

The Face of Cinematic Evil

"The demon is a liar," Father Merrin intones in the original Exorcist. "He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us." Unfortunately, the same is true about certain Hollywood producers and directors. Case in point: Exorcist: The Beginning, directed by Renny Harlin.

It seems the best that can be said about this film by those who prefer it over Paul Schrader's more intellectually honest rendering of the Father Merrin story is that there is better "continuity." This fallacious continuity seems to consist of bringing back the little statuette of Pazuzu, the Muslim metalworkers pounding away in Cairo, the suddenly arrested clock as Merrin pours over sketches of Pazuzu, and a puke-faced possession absurdly and ineptly reminiscent of Linda Blair's performance in the original. But these examples of "continuity" only demonstrate a lack of creativity and artistic credibility on the part of Harlin. The movie as a whole is a cinematic train-wreck.

This prequel opens up with an ancient battlefield laid strewn with the bodies of Byzantine Christian soldiers. We are then treated to a CGI'ed pan of thousands of inverted crucifixions across the entire landscape. Notwithstanding the complete absence of any visible woods from which these crosses could conceivably be constructed, the scene inherently precludes many of the other premises of this film. If a force of thousands of well-trained, well-equipped soldiers is so easily eviscerated by Satan, then how much more chance can a highly-trained, highly-skilled group of masons and artisans have of constructing the ornate Church of St. Michael to contain him?

Beyond this and many other problems with the story is the glaring failure of Harlin to explore the relationship between Father Merrin and Father Francis (as Schrader aptly does in Dominion with an inversed representation of the relationship between Father Merrin and Father Karras in the first Exorcist). More than being a mere horror film, The Exorcist explored the journey of faith lost and faith regained as much as it did the triumph of good over evil. Harlan's film misses the opportunity to portray this and hence does NOT provide key thematic continuity. By the film's end, Father Merrin may have redonned his clerical garb and eschewed the financial motivation for his assignment, but the way the film moves so haphazardly, its clear that this is more of a gratuitous afterthought.

What else are we provided as evidence of either a severely retarded cinematic vision, the suffocating commercialism of the film industry, or both? There is Jefferies, our quintessential white devil; obnoxious, racist, sexist, as physically repulsive as he is in his personal comportment. A nice touch of "political correctness" apparently not sufficed by the belligerence of the British detachment sent to thwart the Turkana from uprising. Frankly, his presence in the story defies justification. Then, there is the way the role of the Turkana and its Chief Sebituana is fairly well ignored. They are reduced to one-dimensional "spear-chuckers." Then, there is the ridiculous over-use of animated hyenas and crows throughout the film. The absurdly melodramatic suicide of Monsieur Bession, whom we find out later is incredibly the husband of Sarah Novak, the Holocaust-suriving Jewish doctor in Derati. And Sarah's own possession and exorcism so heavily drawing upon the Linda Blair experience that you begin to feel like you're watching Rocky II with its ridiculous regurgitation of its respective original.

Many fans of the first Exorcist believe that, despite its flaws, Harlin's creation is a necessary companion to Schrader's. Why? Because Harlin "fills in" alot of the "blanks" of the Schrader film. But this presumes that the blanks really exist to begin with or that any person of reasonable intelligence could not fill them in for themselves without having to endure an erratically paced and gratuitously grossed-out fiasco such as this.

Beyond these problems is the script itself. Much of the dialogue -- especially between Merrin and Semelier, and Francis and Merrin (after Merrin discovers the false graves) -- is forced and contrived. It serves more to instruct us of the facts rather than to tell a story; a critical difference between bad writing and good.

Of all involved in the creation of The Beginning, I truly feel sorry for Stellan Skarsgard. Stellan, who plays Father Merrin in both versions, is a highly talented actor. It is unfortunate that this version was released in theatres instead of Paul Schrader's. Only in Dominion are Stellan's skills and talent truly cultivated with a superior story, script, and direction.

Those looking for the proper heir to the Blatty-Friedkin legacy should turn to Paul Schrader's Dominion. Dominion may have its minor flaws but the story is as coherent as it is intelligent. Exorcist: The Beginning should be exorcized from the cinematic body and expunged from memory. Amen.

for more information click here