Exorcist: The Beginning Movie Review:


In 1973, a little film directed by William Friedkin (The French Connection) was released that caused mass hysteria, fainting and undying controversy. The film launched new comer Linda Blair into the spotlight and set a benchmark for psychological horror films to come. The film was “The Exorcist”.

In the new Exorcist film, we are introduced to a younger Father Merrin (Stellan Skarsgard, Max Von Sydow in the original 1973 film). This film is almost an origin story if you will.

Following the devastation and gritty aftermath of World War II, Merrin has become disillusioned with his faith and turned his back on the church. He now makes his life as an archeologist.

His passion for uncovering the past brings him to a desolate village on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya where a church has been uncovered. The church was built in 500 AD and seems to hold a rather disturbing secret. Upon Merrin’s arrival, he is greeted by Sarah (Izabella Scorupco), a doctor who has been with the dig since the beginning.

As Merrin begins to investigate the mysterious church he learns that the site was constructed over a pagan temple and that the archeologist who uncovered the site has gone completely insane. As the mystery deepens, Merrin will face his tortured past, seek redemption and face the greatest evil man has ever known.

Stellan Skarsgard is quite impressive as the struggling Merrin and it his performance that accents a lot of the credibility housed in this film. You can see this man’s pain and how he conflicts with everything he witnesses. Even in the attraction scenes with the younger Scorupco, Skarsgard doesn’t allow his character to find any raw emotion

Director Renny Harlin’s tone and gritty nature does emulate a lot of what is happening within Merrin. But his overly gory and bloody sequences make the film quite hard to stomach in places. I have also never witnessed so many blatant attempts to lay on the gore so heavy.

Gore is fine but here it seems layered on as a sort of horror icing. Does gore equal horror?

What was so fun about the original was that it was highly psychological even though we did have that infamous “pea soup” scene. It dove into the mind of not only Linda Blair’s 12-year old girl but the struggling of Father Merrin. In the new film we seem to lose the psychological element as the true evil is finally revealed.

The film feels like it goes over three hours but it is only about 100 minutes. The reason for this is probably because there is just so much heaviness and dark gritty scenes that your mind plays tricks on you.

In a lot of the scenes which used overly horrific elements, I found that is was just too much. Also the film throws out the whole idea that Hollywood doesn’t harm children on camera. There are just so many unsettling and disturbing scenes housed in this film.

I really enjoyed Skarsgard and Renny Harlin’s gritty direction. I also was captivated by a lot of the film’s mysterious elements and story. I just got frustrated with the gratuitous gore and disturbing violence.

(3 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer

Dean Kish

Having a crisis of faith after witnessing the evils of man during the Second World War, Lankester Merrin (Skarsgård) has left the Catholic Church to pursue a career in archaeology. When he is asked to visit a dig in Kenya, were it is claimed they have uncovered a church that dates back to 500 AD hundreds of years before Christianity reached that part of Africa, he discovers that the church was not built to praise God but to contain evil.

Most of you who have watched The Exorcist will have always wondered why Father Merrin is walking out of the desert at the beginning of the movie. Now we have a prequel but does this film finally answer that question? No.

In what must be the biggest wasted opportunity in sequel history, Exorcist: The Beginning does nothing to answer any of the questions that have plagued the franchise since it first spat itself onto the screen in 1973. As the movie progresses you think this might actually be setting the scene for the first one but you would be sadly mistaken. While we do find out why Father Merrin became involved in exorcisms and we see his introduction to the demon that would haunt him later in life, the film simply doesn’t answer the questions that have plagued fans for years.

As well as these inconsistencies, the movie is just, for want of a better word, awful. The plot is initially intriguing. It revolves around the discovery of an ancient church in Africa that dates back to 500 AD, hundreds of years before Christianity came to the region, which holds a dark secret. It is actually the place where Lucifer fell when God cast him out of heaven. On its discovery, the Vatican built a church over the site to contain the evil that resided there. This is an interesting premise and a good way of introducing Merrin to the evil presence that would blight his life but the filmmakers don’t take advantage of it.

Instead they deliver a clichéd filled script that is basically is a “guess who is possessed?” story. Forgoing an chance of see more backstory or answering questions as to why the place was so evil you just end up waiting to see who becomes the foul-mouthed, cut faced possessed creature that loves to talk about sex. This might have been shocking in 1973 but demonic possession needs to be something more terrifying than just someone who swears a lot.

A decent cast can’t even save this from the depths of cinematic hell. Stellan Skarsgård is a good actor but even he can’t do anything with the appalling line she has been give but he does well with the exorcist ritual verse during the finally. Izabella Scorupco, as Sarah, deserves a chance, as she is a talented actress that seems to be plagued by the curse of the Bond Girl after appearing in Goldeneye. James D’Arcy’s Father Francis is criminally underdeveloped and the rest of the cast don’t really get a look in.

Exorcist: The Beginning was a trouble movie from the start. This is in fact the second version of the film after the studio rejected the first one by director Paul Schrader for not been scary enough. The problem is that Renny Harlin’s attempt isn’t scary either and just lives on the laurels of the original, not injecting anything new into the franchise. This is a movie that didn’t need to be made and another example of how Hollywood has lost all invention and originally, if it needs to continue to dig up its past.

You’d need to be possessed to like this movie.

Star Rating = *

Jamie Kelwick

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