| Exorcist: The Beginning | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Renny Harlin |
| Produced by | James G. Robinson |
| Written by | Novel: William Peter Blatty Story: William Wisher Jr. Caleb Carr Screenplay: Alexi Hawley |
| Starring | Stellan Skarsgård Izabella Scorupco James D'Arcy Ralph Brown |
| Music by | Trevor Rabin |
| Cinematography | Vittorio Storaro |
| Editing by | Mark Goldblatt |
| Studio | Morgan Creek |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | August 20, 2004 |
| Running time | 114 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $80 million |
| Box office | $78,000,586 |
Exorcist: The Beginning is a 2004 prequel to the 1973 film The Exorcist. This is the second version of the third Exorcist sequel. It was adapted by William Wisher Jr., Caleb Carr and Alexi Hawley, and directed by Renny Harlin. The movie stars Stellan Skarsgård, Izabella Scorupco, James D'Arcy, Ben Cross, Ralph Brown and Alan Ford.
Exorcist: The Beginning was retooled from the already completed Paul Schrader's Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (not released until later) which Morgan Creek Productions feared would be unsuccessful. Reviews of Exorcist: The Beginning were mostly negative, and the project (both Harlin's and Schrader's films together) was not successful upon theatrical releases (despite Harlin's version being more financially successful and #1 at the box office at that time).
William Peter Blatty (the author/screenwriter of The Exorcist) said that watching Exorcist: The Beginning was his "most humiliating professional experience."[1] (On the other hand, Blatty said that Dominion is "a handsome, classy, elegant piece of work."[2])
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The plot revolves around the crisis of faith suffered by Father Merrin following the horrific events he witnessed during World War II. Many years before the events in The Exorcist, the young Father Lankester Merrin (played by Skarsgård, who played the same part in Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist) travels to East Africa. Merrin has taken a sabbatical from the Church and devoted himself to history and archaeology as he struggles with his shattered faith. He is haunted especially by an incident in a small village in occupied Holland during World War II, where he served as parish priest. Near the end of the war, a sadistic Nazi SS commander, in retaliation for the murder of a German trooper, forces Merrin to participate in arbitrary executions in order to save a full village from slaughter.
After WWII, Merrin is an archaeologist in Cairo, when he is approached by a collector of antiquities who asks him to come to a British excavation in the Turkana region of Kenya. This dig is excavating a Christian Byzantine church from the 5th century — long before Christianity had reached that region of Africa. Merrin is asked by the collector to recover an ancient relic of a demon before the British can find it. Merrin agrees and travels to the dig site. He is joined by Father Francis, a Vatican scholar who was on his way to do missionary work in East Africa but is diverted by the Vatican to ensure that the church is not desecrated. Upon arriving at the dig, Merrin meets the Major Granville, the British military officer in charge of the dig. Merrin also meets chief excavator, a brutish Frenchman with visible boils on his face. And he meets Sarah, a doctor who spent time in a concentration camp during WWII and is haunted by what happened to her there. Merrin's translator and guide is Chuma. In addition, Merrin learns that the diggers are disappearing or leaving in droves because the local tribemen fear the church is cursed. Merrin witnesses a digger inexplicably experience a seizure.
Merrin visits the dig site, although only the dome is uncovered, with the rest of the church buried beneath the earth. Merrin discovers that the church is in perfect condition, as though it had been buried immediately after the construction was completed. Merrin, Francis, and Chuma enter the church through the dome. They find it is near pristine condition, but there are two oddities. First, all of the statues of the angels holding weapons are pointing the spears downward, whereas it is convention for statues of angels not to have weapons or for them to be pointed triumphantly to heaven. Merrin and Francis deduce the sculptors were trying to depict the angels restraining something that was beneath the church. The second disturbing discovery is that someone has vandalized the church by ripping the enormous crucifix from its place on the altar and suspending it with Christ on the cross in an upside position, which is considered a desecration.
Merrin is determined to learn more about the archeological dig and asks to consult with the lead archeologist, Monsieur Bession. Merrin is told by Sarah that Bession went insane three weeks earlier and was transferred to a mental hospital in Nairobi. Merrin visits Bession's tent at the dig site and sees dozens of drawings of the same thing, the demon artifact that Merrin was asked to find by the collector. Merrin then travels to Nairobi to visit Bession. But when he enters Bession's room, he discovers Bession has carved a swastika on his chest and is speaking through demonic possession in the voice of the sadistic SS commander who tormented Merrin during the war. As Merrin registers these events, Bession slashes his own throat after saying he was "free." Father Gionetti, warden of the asylum, speculates that Bession was not possessed but rather "touched" by a demon, which drove him mad and eventually to suicide. Merrin is very skeptical, but before he returns to the dig site, Father Gionetti gives him the volume of Roman rituals to use in exorcism, although Merrin claims he will never use them.
Upon returning to the village, strange events continue. A local boy is attacked and killed by hyenas that seem to continuously stalk the dig, night and day. His younger brother, Joseph, enters a fugue state after watching his brother ripped to pieces. Merrin begins to suspect that something evil lies in the church and is infecting the region. There are stories of an epidemic that wiped out an entire village. However, when Merrin, growing suspicious of these rumors, digs up one of the graves of the supposed victims of this plague, he discovers it is empty. Meanwhile, the evil grows, turning people against each other and resulting in violence, atrocities, and more bloodshed.
Beneath the church lies the ruins of an even older temple — but not a Christian one. Rather, in the ruins under the church, Merrin and his allies find demonic icons, and other signs of evil and Satanism. This land is where he first encounters the demon that calls itself Pazuzu, which he will encounter again in The Exorcist. This is the demon that "brushed" Bession (driving him insane) and Joseph (making him ill).
At the end of the movie, the dig's doctor, Sarah, turns out to be the possessed individual and has the demon exorcised from her in the tunnels below the church but dies. Dr. Merrin and Joseph emerge from the church, (once again buried in sand) and history has repeated itself. 50 (and 1500) years ago, everyone at the site was killed by an evil presence from the church, except for one priest. Now, only Father Merrin and the little boy are left as the British soldiers and the local tribes have annihilated each other. Merrin returns to Rome and meets with the collector at a cafe, explaining he was unable to find the relic, the collector replies, "But you found something....Didn't you?"...
The making of the movie was itself full of drama. John Frankenheimer was initially set to direct, but stepped down just before his death. He was replaced by Paul Schrader, but the producers were completely unsatisfied with the completed film he presented them. Schrader aimed for a psychological film, and delivered what he described as "footage without any of the bloody violence the backers had wanted."[3]
The producers fired Schrader and replaced him with Harlin. Screenwriter Alexi Hawley was called to retool the previous script, and he cut out some characters of Paul Schrader's version and added some new ones. Harlin went back and re-filmed most of the movie, adding new characters and deleting others. The character of Father Francis, originally played by Gabriel Mann, had to be recast with D'Arcy because Mann had a scheduling conflict. A character played by Izabella Scorupco was introduced.
Though the film's plot centers around Father Merrin's exorcism of a boy in Africa many years before the events in The Exorcist, little effort was made to keep the story consistent. Both versions of this prequel take a strong departure from the scenes depicted in Exorcist II: The Heretic, which showed Merrin exorcising a teenage boy named Kokomu in flashbacks. In both Exorcist: The Beginning and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist the location and setting is different, the boy is not named Kokomu, and (in one version) he is eventually discovered to not be the possessed victim. That said, Exorcist II: The Heretic is almost universally despised by fans of the series and is also ignored by Exorcist III: Legion. Exorcist: The Beginning also conflicts with accounts from The Exorcist since it's revealed at the end that the boy is not possessed. Dominion does not share this inconsistency.
The film is shot in Univisium (2:1) aspect ratio (developed by Vittorio Storaro, who also acted as the cinematographer), although the theatrical release was presented in 2.39:1.
In 2005, the Schrader version was released to theaters as Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. The critical reaction to Schrader's version is only slightly better than Harlin's version, but Schrader's version also received high praise from William Peter Blatty (the author/screenwriter of The Exorcist).[2]
Critical responses were mostly negative, with Exorcist: The Beginning earning a low 11% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[4] Prominent critic Roger Ebert wrote, "I've seen both versions and much prefer Schrader's, and yet it must be said that Harlin did not prostitute himself in his version."[5]
The project's estimated budget was $80 million ($30 million for Schrader's version and $50 million for Harlin's).[6] Estimated worldwide theatrical gross was $78 million. Although it had beaten Harlin's film's budget, it failed to beat the whole overall project's budget.
It was nominated for two Razzie Awards, Worst Director and Worst Remake or Sequel.
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