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Lexmark3200
10-26-2005, 12:07 PM
Boy, I really don’t know what to make of this film. When they said this had a different "feel" than Renny Harlin's re-shoot version, they weren’t kidding......but it's not all that different at the same time. For those of you who need a bit of background on this project, here it is in a nutshell because the history of this film is rather engaging and somewhat interesting to franchise fans.

First of all, before I begin this in-depth analysis of the film and DVD release itself, let me say that after seeing Paul Schrader's originally-intended cut of the prequel to "the scariest movie of all time," I walked away with this inclination: it STILL was not necessary, by ANY means, no matter HOW you slice it. In fact, while film scholars who have seen both versions will disagree, Schrader's version may in fact be even MORE unnecessary because it just drags on and on and on and the inevitable possession/Pazuzu theme doesn't mesh at all with the franchise style. That's the biggest thing I walked away with after watching this, was that, once again, there was a COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY prequel for a landmark horror film that didn't NEED a prequel story whatsoever. With now TWO cuts of this film on the market -- Schrader's Dominion and Renny Harlin's Exorcist: The Beginning, it distracts even MORE from William Friedkin's 1973 original shocker and just continues to "rob" from that film with each viewing of either prequel, in my humble opinion.

Okay, the history of the project. Originally, John Frankenheimer was signed on to helm a "prequel" story that would tell the tale of the early years of Father Lancaster Merrin (played by Max Von Sydow in the original film) and his first encounter with the "demon" that possessed Linda Blair in that first film. Liam Neeson was signed on to play the younger Merrin, but Frankenheimer fell ill, according to rumor, during shooting, and the duties were offered to Paul Schrader (screenwriter of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver) who immediately saw Stellan Skarsgard (Deep Blue Sea, Good Will Hunting) in the role of the young Merrin. In my opinion, this choice worked, and seemed to be the only saving grace of the prequel idea as Skarsgard plays a very convincing younger version of Von Sydow and we can possibly connect the two in our minds as being the same character just one younger and one older. But the film that Schrader made was ultimately rejected by Warner Brothers and the corporate sharks at Morgan Creek because they felt it didn't have the "shock value" necessary for an Exorcist film, and that it simply wouldn’t draw audiences. They were probably right, because although this is more of a Merrin character study than anything else, the film just plods along at a pace that is simply not accepted by the restless audiences that flood theaters today and simply does not feel like an Exorcist film no matter how hard it tries.

Warner and Morgan Creek actually shelved Schrader's version and decided -- instead of just scrapping the whole idea altogether for a prequel -- to hire someone else to come in and re-shoot a different take on the same idea. Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4) was offered the task, and although rushed at a much faster pace than Schrader's cut and ultimately being a schlock CGI-infested modern-day shocker more than a "character study" of Merrin and his first encounter with the demon, Warner Brothers liked it better and released it to the theaters. Public reaction was minimal at best, drawing hardcore Exorcist fans like yours truly, but even disappointing them as most felt as I did: this was completely unnecessary and took the timeless "allure and magic" away from Friedkin's 1973 shocker.

Harlin's cut of the film was titled Exorcist: The Beginning and Schrader's Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, but for the first time in almost the history of cinema, Warner Brothers authorized the realization and release of Schrader's cut of the film along with Harlin's (although separated by much time lapsing) so fans could get a glimpse and first-hand look at what was so different about the two pictures. Schrader's version was given a brief theatrical run prior to this DVD release in select theaters throughout the nation to feel out the fanfare reaction to it, but it was ultimately rushed to DVD for home viewing. While you can find my review of Harlin's Exorcist: The Beginning in this forum if you do a search and get the details of that film's plot if you wish to, I admittingly was intrigued by the idea of Schrader's film being available to view if only for comparison to Harlin's, and this was a blind buy for me yesterday.

It's funny. Much of the same dialogue is used here in Schrader's cut as in Harlin's, and the scenery and sets are pretty much the same, too. Some actors have been replaced and the story has been tweaked with a bit, but at the end of the day, there is indeed a bit of a different feel for the film as it seems less "mass market oriented" that Harlin's rushed version did and plays like less of a horror film and more of a drama. As aforementioned, Stellan Skarsgard remained in the lead role of a young Father Lancaster Merrin -- the priest who, along with Jason Miller, battled the demonic Pazuzu demon in the original film that took possession of young Linda Blair's body. Where Harlin's film opens with a plot suggesting an army had fell upon the spot where "Lucifer" (Satan) fell after the war in heaven somewhere in Africa, Schrader's cut takes a different approach but still keeps the theme of Merrin bearing witness to World War II atrocities performed by the German Nazis. The opening scene of Dominion finds Skarsgard in German-occupied Holland during World War II, where a German officer demands Merrin pick 10 Jews from a town lineup in order to be executed or he will murder everyone in the village. When Merrin refuses and offers himself for sacrifice, the officer begins shooting people until Merrin has no choice but to pick out people for slaughter. This leads to his ultimate self-removal from the priesthood as he has lost all faith in man and G-d (something the "demon" Pazuzu uses against him in later scenes in both films).

Schrader's film then pretty much follows Harlin's (well, even though it was made FIRST), where Merrin, now not a priest anymore but an archaeologist, is told about the finding of a strange church that has been unearthed in Africa in a place and from a time not coinciding with the advent of Christianity. While made much clearer in Harlin's version, where Merrin is "hired" by a collector of rare objects to find a demon statue of the infamous Pazuzu in the church, we are not really clear in Schrader's version why or how Merrin gets involved with the British military who have a stronghold on this African village and are coordinating the unearthing of the strange church. He ultimately arrives in Africa to assist in the undigging of the church and to discover why this church was built and by whom and it is here that we are introduced to some same and some different characters from Harlin's film. Major Granville, the British military leader heading the troops in the area of the dig, is played by the same actor, but the young priest, Father Francis, sent by the Vatican to investigate for "religious aspects" of the dig, is played here by Gabriel Mann. Also, the concept of the Jewish female doctor at the dig -- who is ultimately possessed by Pazuzu in Harlin's version -- remains here, but is played by a different actress. Amazingly and disappointingly, there remains again horrendous appearances of CGI-created hyenas which encircle the dig site as they did in Harlin's version, and the poor special effects work really takes us out of the film as it did in Harlin's. Also, many aspects of Schrader's film had been changed by Harlin, including the "control" of a young African boy in town by the demon under the church, the whole aspect of the "Pazuzu demon" which is not really explored in Schrader's version and the idol of Pazuzu itself -- a very important part of connecting this film with the original Exorcist that amazingly was utilized more successfully in Harlin's outrageous horror-type picture than in Schrader's quieter character study.

The plot here is pretty much the same -- a temple where human sacrifices took place has been discovered under a pristine-conditioned church in Africa, but the "notion" and mystery behind the "Pazuzu" demon, as explored in Harlin's prequel and Friedkin's 1973 original, is not explored here at all from what I could tell; instead of finding the infamous Pazuzu statue that Max Von Sydow stumbles across in the beginning of the original, Merrin and Father Francis stumble upon a different-looking demon statue that looks NOTHING like the Pazuzu idol or statue from Harlin's prequel or Friedkin's original under the church. Instead of us being surprised that the Jewish nurse is the one possessed by Pazuzu all along, here in Schrader's version, a strange crippled boy (Billy Crawford) from the surrounding town near the dig site makes appearances to a very sympathetic Merrin, and this aspect is what made Schrader's version just so bizarre in nature compared to Harlin's; as madness descends upon the village, as it did in Harlin's cut, due to the influence of this evil force under the church, this crippled boy becomes a focal point in the film -- I suppose Schrader found it necessary to somehow tie in Merrin's encounter with this demon in Africa as hinted at in the original 1973 Exorcist, and he did it through this boy, but for me, it just didn’t work. As the Jewish nurse in this film takes the boy in to care for, suddenly, over a period of days, his crippled characteristics begin to mysteriously reverse themselves until they are almost gone. Here is where the "Father Francis" character played a different role in the two films as well, as instead of James D'aarcy from Harlin's film knowing the history of the mysterious church and that the evil had control of another young African boy along with the possessed doctor, here, Gabriel Mann is attacked by this healing crippled boy who suddenly has glowing red eyes and seems to be possessed himself when Mann attempts to bless the boy. Of course, as much as Schrader wanted this to be a "character study" drama -- which it pulls off for the most part -- there had to be the prerequisite exorcism/possession theme otherwise it just wouldn’t be an Exorcist film, but it is handled in such a strange fashion by Schrader that I just DIDNT know what to make of it by the end.

Mann's character pleads with Merrin to believe that this boy is possessed -- but Merrin, as explored in Harlin's version as well, has already lost faith and doesn’t believe in evil or demons; it is only until Mann's Father Francis character attempts to baptize the boy inside the strange church and he is attacked by the demon inside that Merrin arrives and believes once again in good and evil and must once again ask for his faith to be restored as he prepares to perform an exorcism on this strange once-crippled but now possessed boy -- why this is ultimately necessary for Merrin to do, instead of just getting the hell away from there, is never made clear. The end confrontation between Merrin and this boy who has now completely transformed into a creepy-looking bald demonic "creature" of sorts that can levitate above the ground and throw Merrin about without touching him, gets a bit far-fetched and I didn’t like it compared to Harlin's version, which suggested that the demon that was inside Linda Blair in the first film was very much like the demon which possessed the female doctor in Harlin's version of the prequel; the same cuts on the face, same glowing green/yellow eyes and same vile language that Linda Blair spewed at Max Von Sydow and Jason Miller in The Exorcist. There seems to be NO connection between that so-called "Pazuzu" demon that possessed Blair and this levitating possessed boy with now glowing red eyes who speaks to Merrin in a very low, seductive manner -- no horrific cursing, no demonic, echoing cackling; the final "exorcism" scene is simply weak and ineffective as we have Merrin simply waving the cross around his neck at the hissing bald possessed boy as he draws away from the exorcising priest. Harlin's ending, while over-the-top and cheesily copied from the effects of the final scene in the original 1973 film, actually just seemed much more effective and convincing in the whole "Pazuzu" theme -- although Harlin got a few things wrong there too, as Merrin loses the idol of Pazuzu in the sandstorm at the end of Harlin's version, where it is suggested that Max Von Sydow finds it and unearths the demon once again in the 1973 original -- however, Merrin finds the statue head of Pazuzu in NORTHERN IRAQ in The Exorcist yet the head is lost and buried by the sand in AFRICA at the end of The Beginning so this made things very confusing.

And there is absolutely nothing that ties the first film from 1973 in with Schrader's prequel aside from the fact that Merrin has regained his faith and has become a priest once again, as we are left kind of hollow and empty at the end; Merrin simply draws "The Devil" or "this demon" (NEVER made clear in ANY Exorcist film) out of this boy in a horrible exorcism scene, where he returns with his crippled wounds to assist the Jewish doctor in her hospital chores. It was a very weak ending in my opinion, and the whole thing with this crippled kid transforming into this red-eyed "demon" was confusing and ineffective, making NO hints to the Pazuzu statue that seemed so important in Friedkin's original 1973 film yet utilized in Harlin's overtly-criticized cut of the prequel.

This is a rental at best; because I already purchased it and I am a massive fan of the entire franchise, I will probably keep it just to have the two cuts of the prequel story on hand to compare to one another, but to me, this is just as ineffective and just as unnecessary of a prequel story than Harlin's was for a landmark horror film that really needed no explanation whatsoever and stands on its own and probably will until the end of time.

While thankfully Warner is beginning to drop their snapper-case DVD package schematics due to fan backlashing, their recent DVD releases still seem....I don’t know...."cheap" in their packaging and overall presentation. Like Exorcist: The Beginning and Constantine before it, Dominion comes in a standard lightweight keepcase box with NO inside artwork or chapter listing card -- just the DVD on the plastic hub, and this just feels like a cheap shot to me being that this studio asks $20 for most of their new releases. To add insult to injury here, there is a mediocre-at-best video and audio presentation on this single disc release, although some who demo this DVD may disagree:

VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS:
WIDESCREEN VERSION PRESENTED IN A "MATTED" WIDESCREEN FORMAT PRESERVING THE ASPECT RATIO OF ITS ORIGINAL THEATRICAL EXHIBITION; ENHANCED FOR WIDESCREEN TVs.

With no letterboxing on my screen due to Warner's "Matted" ratio speak, this was a pretty rich and colorful transfer from beginning to end, but throughout the run, I noticed film projector-like "pops" and "speckles" that littered the screen sometimes as if this transfer wasn't really "authorized" or supervised correctly for DVD playback purposes; it wasn't really as "smooth" of a transfer as The Beginning was from what I can remember, but it is by no means a bad image to look at considering you have to sit through nearly two hours of Schrader's "Father Merrin character study." And by "not bad" I mean I detected no grain or dirt, and fleshtones seemed amazingly accurate in the pinks of Skarsgard's face and the browns of the local African inhabitants in the village near the dig site.

AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS:
ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1; SUBTITLES IN ENGLISH, FRENCH & SPANISH

Here's where the biggest letdown of the whole presentation came to fruition: this Dolby Digital track is NOWHERE NEAR even in the same league, dynamics wise, as the rumbling, loud, obnoxious DTS track found on the DVD version of Harlin's cut of the film. From start to finish, this is a downright QUIET soundtrack and mix, and if you have any ambient noises that like to break into your home theater as I do, they're gonna certainly do it and you'll easily hear them over this very subtle, subdued mix. This Dolby track almost seems to be recorded at the same decibel level as the Constantine DVD, also released by Warner, meaning it requires A TON of amplification to really heat up and get going -- dialogue intelligibility borders on non-existent sometimes depending upon where your volume is set and the overall "volume power output" of the track is weak.

In the track's defense, though, this was a film that didn't have NEARLY as many "stingers" and "shock moments" as Harlin's version did, and so the Dolby Digital mix didn't really have many moments to open up and show off -- there WERE absolute demo moments on the soundtrack, though, believe it or not, but they were sparse -- this mainly came when the possessed boy is speaking to Merrin in the church during the final exorcism sequence....the demonic voice of the possessed boy, even though action was anchored onscreen, came BOOMING from the surround channels and filled my listening room as if that demon was right there all around me; the effect was stunning and quite chilling to be honest. There was also excellent "echoing" effects on the track, just as on the DTS mix of Harlin's version, where any character speaking or yelling in the buried temple below the church had their voices expertly rendered in the rear surrounds as excellent "echo" effects for realistic imaging. More subtle sound cues were there too, such as the gentle dripping of water or clanging of shovels off in the distance in the surrounds, but these were only discernable once the master volume was raised to unusually high levels as the overall "mastering level" of this track was unbelievably weak and low. Very disappointing audio presentation for an equally unnecessary prequel story for the 1973 original, save for those moments of the demonic voices which hit the surrounds with fury as I mentioned.

SPECIAL FEATURES were limited, as they were on Warner/Morgan Creek's Exorcist: The Beginning DVD, and included:

-Commentary by Director Paul Schrader (which bored me within 10 minutes of listening to it)
-Additional Scenes (actually, they were "deleted scenes")
-Stills Gallery

No theatrical trailer was on board here, as this never made it to the theaters prior to Warner's decision to recently re-release the cut to the public.

As I said, this is a rental at best for those who are curious. For absolute DIEHARD franchise fans, it may be interesting to have this cut on hand, as I’m looking at it, for comparison purposes between Harlin's version and this one....but in the end, it was a mistake either way to make a prequel story for one of the most chilling horror setpieces in cinematic history.

From what I understand, Warner MAY be getting ready, with this release of Schrader's version, to release an "Ultimate Exorcist Box Set" which includes every film in the franchise PLUS these two prequel versions. THAT would have been cool to buy instead of buying Schrader and Harlin's versions separately; unfortunately, I have all the films (except for the G-d awful Part II) separately in my library, so a box set would make no sense for me personally.

Defshep
10-27-2005, 03:43 AM
Extensive review, Lex. Convinced me even more that I won't be purchasing either version. The only sequel (or prequel) that even comes close to the original was Exorcist 3. They should give it up already!

Lexmark3200
10-27-2005, 09:36 AM
Extensive review, Lex. Convinced me even more that I won't be purchasing either version. The only sequel (or prequel) that even comes close to the original was Exorcist 3. They should give it up already!

Thanks for reading, Def! Yes, I agree.....Part III was actually the best follow up story to the original than any of them so far (it wasnt a prequel, but more a story based on William Peter Blatty's follow up novel to The Exorcist called LEGION, of which he directed the film as well) and it followed the post-possession happenings of Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) while these prequels are concentrating on Father Lancaster Merrin.

With each incarnation of a sequel, prequel or what have you, Warner Brothers is simply making the original 1973 film seem all that much more perfect in some ways, while tainting its reputation in others. You are right-----they need to give it up already. The 1973 original is a picture that just shouldn't have been touched in terms of trying to tell its "pre-story."

Lexmark3200
10-27-2005, 11:43 AM
A slight edit has been made to this review correcting the spelling of Max VON Sydow's name for consistency. Thank you for your understanding and attention.

Lexmark3200
10-28-2005, 03:24 PM
A couple of other things I wanted to note after watching both Harlin's AND Schrader's versions once again back to back this week.....

While Stellan plays a good young Father Merrin for these prequels, the awful EXORCIST II had Von Sydow playing a younger version of himself -- it hit me when watching it -- in that, exorcising the young African boy, which was SUPPOSED to be the prequel story of his first encounter with Pazuzu, so why were these prequels necessary? I KNOW Exorcist II sucked and its often considered one of the worst films ever made in the history of cinema, BUT, there WAS a history story there that Richard Burton's character was trying to investigate, and we see Merrin as he was supposed to appear post-World War II in Africa while attempting to get Pazuzu out of that African boy -- so WHY the need to retell this story with another actor they tried to make look like a younger Merrin (where Von Sydow looked young enough in his small clips in Exorcist II) -- even though Stellan pulled it off? Thats what bothered me as I watched these two prequels again.

Also, I did not mention in the original review, instead of an alcoholic Merrin as hinted at in EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING (and cleverly connected by Harlin to the first film where the arhaeologist says to Stellan in THE BEGINNING "Do you drink, Merrin?" and Stellan says "I shouldnt.....but my will is weak...." which is what Von Sydow says in the original Exorcist when Ellen Burstyn is asking if he wants brandy in his tea) now we have a chain-smoking Merrin who doesnt drink in Schrader's DOMINION.....just a quick note on the differences there.