EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING (2004)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
A dead baby covered with maggots. An African ritual resulting in severe
piercings and stabbings. A group of hyenas chewing a young kid to death.
A crow plucking a human eyeball. A Holocaust scenario recreated in bluish
tones where more bloody executions take place. Is this a sequel to "Angel
Heart"? A new horror picture by Dario Argento? Wait, there's Stellan
Skarsgard as a young Father Merrin, who insists he is more of an archaeologist than a
priest. There he is dressed in khaki pants and shirt with a sun and fun
hat, excavating for something mysterious in the Kenyan desert. Is this
an Indiana Jones picture? Nope, it is the justifiably reviled "Exorcist:
The Beginning," a pure waste of 85 million down the toilet drain with some
added pea soup to really deliver a stench.
This lurid and highly indifferent prequel has been gestating for many years. First, the late John Frankenheimer was attached to direct and dropped out. Then came Paul Schrader who managed to shoot a full feature-length version (titled "Dominion"). The studio hated it, fired Schrader, reshot the entire film with director Renny Harlin and demanded more blood and guts - you know, a typical horror picture. So here we are served up the latest in the most unnecessary prequel imaginable. Harlin infests the screen with so many rapid flash cuts of blood-soaked imagery that all imagination is drained. And there is an African ritual sequence with a young boy strapped to a bed that will remind many of "Angel Heart." We also get repetitive Holocaust scenes where a Nazi tells Merrin, "Your God is not here today!" These scenes are intriguing but Harlin has such a sledgehammer style that it robs the film of anything remotely spiritual or moral.
The central story has Merrin as an archaeologist who has lost his faith. Of course, the natural course of events as exacted by our favorite demon, Pazuzu, will have Merrin confront his inner demons. Skarsgard does as well as he can with the role but he seems uninvolved with the story. And a final confrontation with evil merely elicits expressions of apathy from Skarsgard, not genuine shock of someone rediscovering their faith.
No scares, no real story, nothing remotely spiritual on any level - reportedly, Schrader's version is the more spiritual one. Instead we are saddled with a gratuitous shower scene with a nude nurse, and a demon at the climactic finish that writhes and spider-walks just like Linda Blair in the original. No, my fellow horror fans, all this is the makings of a misguided disaster nobody wanted. Call it "Exorcist: The Desperation to Make a Prequel at any Price." William Peter Blatty should sue.
