The sputtering, irregular pattern of Exorcist sequels reveals this is not a self-sustaining franchise. That sequels get made at all is a result of the original Exorcist’s phenomenal quality more than anything else. Without that film’s continued media dominance, no more entries would exist.
Case in point: 2000’s rerelease of The Exorcist as “The Version You’ve Never Seen,” satisfying author William Peter Blatty’s disagreements with William Friedkin’s 1973 version. “New” details like the spider walk scene, previously restored for video media, made this 27-year-old film, readily available for home viewing, tremendously successful. At $112 million worldwide, this version alone outgrossed all the other entries, before or since. Surely The Exorcist has withstood the test of time, and even effectively dodged the dodgy 2000s remake craze with this maneuver.
But such success reopens sealed demonic tombs, as Morgan Creek producers again became convinced the world needed another Exorcist to leech of the first’s popularity. The avenue for another sequel was somewhat uninspiring, with The Exorcist III offering no clear perpetual horror sequel route (not when it comes from a stand-alone novel). Rather, producers would follow in George Lucas’ ignominious path, and create a prequel instead. For recall hints in The Exorcist about Father Merrin’s former conflict with the demon in Africa. Never mind that Exorcist II: The Heretic already told that tale, ignoring the Worst Sequel of All Time remains a sane act. So completely ditching that film’s yarn of ESP, mutations, locusts and James Earl Jones, producers professed to desire a faithful kin to The Exorcist.
First director John Frankenheimer (of The Manchurian Candidate, Ronin) dropped out and died, in that order. With him went would-be star Liam Neeson (who seems something of a prequel hog). In steps Paul Schrader, whose work as director – the Cat People remake and Auto Focus – I am not familiar with, but whose screenwriting skills – all of Scorcese’s best, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ – suggests not only stately professionalism, but an appropriate Catholic stance.
Too bad the Schrader of 1980 wouldn’t be writing. That duty instead fell to Calleb Carr and William Wisher Jr. (another William on an Exorcist film?!). Replacing Swedish master thespian Max Von Sydow as Father Merrin was Swedish master thespian Stellan Skarsgård (meaning we’re also trading a background with Ingmar Bergman for a background with Lars Von Trier), star of “The Kingdom,” Breaking the Waves, Dogville (and also Pirate of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest [cough]). Not bad, not bad, though Skarsgård is older than Von Sydow was during The Exorcist.
No matter, Schrader’s film was completed (mostly), and shown to producers. Reportedly a classy, psychological affair (to be judged tomorrow), this effort did not synch with producers’ mind of what an Exorcist prequel should be. Hell, they even decreed the screenplay not adequate, meaning why the hell did they film it in the first place?! (The producer idiocy at Morgan Creek previously scuttled the entire finale of Exorcist III, because they first read the novel after that film was mostly complete. That turned a moody chiller into supernatural hokum at the last minute. There is some serious mismanagement of this property going on.)
Okay, so your movie is already complete, but deemed not “scary” enough. A ringer ‘ll hafta be brought in to scarify it up. Who they chose is quite telling: Four-time Razzie nominee Renny Harlin, an artless action director whose best film, best film is Die Hard 2 (it is his best because John McClane is in it, Q.E.D.). (Other Harlin “joints”: Cliffhanger, Deep Blue Sea, [shudder] Cutthroat Island. His only real horror experience then was A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, the film which officially marks that franchise’s turn away from horror.) This choice is telling.
The man is like Paul W.S. Anderson, had he started about a decade earlier. Harlin’s approach is to ape the surface details of better directors, parrot popular styles, and crank things up to 11 – it’s the same action director over-compensation that makes a person copy Matrix effects in 2010. Ooh, he’ll make your Exorcist prequel more “scary,” in that there’ll be more bland, CGI-assisted gore, loud noises, general filmic assault. It’s religious terror coming from a filmmaker whose knowledge of religion derives from cheap Exorcist knockoffs, and who thus knows no way of moving beyond those tropes. The result is technically horror, but hasn’t a shred of self-confidence to achieve the almost documentary level frights Friedkin trafficked in. Never mind Harlin’s vocal claims to be attempting Friedkin’s style – that mostly reduces to occasionally stealing The Exorcist’s more famous shots.
Okay, so this Harlin hack’s now on board to retool Exorcist: The Beginning, for that is the snore-worthy prequel name they’ve settled on. And what a retool! Though some of Schrader’s footage occurs in the final film, estimates say the result is 90% Harlin! It’s a whole new movie! Indeed, the script was rewritten and refashioned from the “unacceptable” original draft, by a certain Alexi Hawley. Boy, with such strong foundations, this is cinematic gold in the making!
New useless characters were wedged in (including cheesecake GoldenEye Bond girl Izabella Scorupco, ‘cause an Exorcist film needs its eye candy!), even while Schrader’s original cast jumped ship – all except for Skarsgård, either due to contracts or sheer professionalism. Either way, he is the lone sophisticated part of Harlin’s grotesque abomination, a film rescued from being the series’ worst simply because this series boasts The Heretic, one of the worst Hollywood films ever made. Man, The Beginning sure plays like the product of a sensitive artiste who would proceed to then make The Covenant! This movie is a disgrace!
This far in, it’s a shame the film isn’t a scad as involving as its production tale – though I do love stories of misbegotten sequels, er, prequels. Let’s start with the best scene, which augurs quite poorly, as a medieval priest surveys a corpse-strewn desert battlefield. All well and good, so what’s the point of the ridiculous CGI pull back past the countless crucified, leading into the title? This is sub-Michael Bay stuff, not a good pairing for “sophisticated” horror.
Moving on to Cairo, 1949 – itself a sickening CGI monstrosity Sommers would’ve rejected from one of his Mummy movies – Okay, I’ll lay off of the poor CGI here (where most of Harlin’s $50 million budget presumably went, slathered on to recoup the “wasted” $30 million Schrader employed – oy!). Let’s just agree The Beginning uses computer effects that looked bad in 2004, most notably some hyenas – because that’s not something from the real world (and The Omen - okay, those were jackals) that could be done in another way! But I’m rambling…
Here in a Cairo bar, recognizable by his white suit, is René Belloq, who – No, wait, it’s Father Merrin (Skarsgård), a faithless archeologist out to – Are you sure this isn’t Raiders? Okay, so this guy Semelier charges Merrin with questing to a newly-discovered African dig site – Raiders! – in Kenya, where a Christian church from the Byzantine Empire has been found where it shouldn’t – dating from either 5 B.C. or 500 B.C., as dialogue alternates. Merrin accepts a familiar little demonic relic, blabbers on about his oh-so-expected crisis of faith (surely a once-notable part of the film, now rendered characterization-by-cliché in Harlin’s trope-o-matic), and heads on his way.
I over-blabbed my hand about this film’s history, and I’ll have to summarize this exact same plot tomorrow, so let’s treat this story tersely (by my standards).
So Merrin reaches the church, a site of spooooooky goings on at the rate Harlin & Co. can conjure these clichés up. It is also a font of one-dimensional characters, cobbled and reshaped from various different drafts and with various different degrees of narrative purpose…
There is Father Francis (James D’Arcy), who is very boring and flat. He’s needed to maintain a good, religious fervor until Merrin’s arc eventually restores his faith. I think Renny Harlin is embarrassed to be dabbling in such traits.
There is Sarah (the Bond girl), a nurse at the seedy-as-seed field hospital. Her purpose, for the start, is to act as love interest for Merrin even while he’s destined to return to the cloth. See, Harlon don’t like that icky religious stuff! Also, to make The Beginning “scary,” you gotta have a blonde looker to stumble about (and even shower!) – Oh just cue the mask and machete, guys! We know you wanna!
Jump shock!
There is Bricktop – excuse me, Jefferies (Snatch’s Alan Ford), who is drunk and lascivious and of little enough import, he’ll die sooner rather than later. He was a rewrite addition.
Among the natives, most are beyond concern, being non-whites in a horror movie. Indeed, The Beginning has the most blacks I’ve seen in a horror movie (apart from Leprechaun in the Hood – why did I watch that?), even as 80% of the named cast is Caucasian. With one exception, none of the Africans survive. You know, Harlin, obeying cliché isn’t automatically “good.”
The one notable native is young Joseph (Remy Sweeney – was Jayden Smith not available?), the lad we expect to be Merrin’s eventual exorcisee. You know, a child destined to go the Linda Blair route? As for the inevitable possession…we’ll get to that.
As for the scares, it seems they cannot be contented with possession alone – none of that elegance of The Exorcist and its simple “What if?” scenario. Rather, the church dig is host to all manner of assorted beastliness, not in the joyously random way of the Italians, but simply slipshod. First up, a worker spasms, earns a trip to the hospital so we can ogle Sarah some more, then promptly is never important again.
As for the church, it is filled with crows like a really irritating “Castlevania” level, adorned with crossed hanged upside down. Why is this meant as frightening? Ooh, it’s Satanic, ooga booga!...Actually, no, anyone remotely conversant in Christianity (that is, not the makers of The Beginning) recognizes this as the Cross of Peter, a reverent humility before Christ. Considering much of The Exorcist’s terror comes from a knowing religious stance, this is just moronic.
Jump shock!
Sorry, they do that a lot.
Merrin is busy investigating the tent of his predecessor priest, Bession, who’s emblazoned his lair with “creepy” etchings which are evidently just the product of production’s comics-obsessed artists. But no time for that, as –
Jump shock!
Those danged CGI hyenas make their grand entrance, in order to rend Joseph’s preteen older brother to ribbons. Nice one, Harlin, simultaneously tasteless and technically incompetent. Way to mimic The Exorcist’s tonal stylings. Joseph is there, unharmed, and faints, which is their weak sauce attempt to suggest his possession – There is a strange reticence in all these Exorcist sequels to document possession as horrifically as The Exorcist did, which is worst in The Beginning when that is supposed to be the story.
Oh, and Merrin keeps having these flashbacks to his travails during World War II. Harlin, not content to blaspheme the style of The Exorcist, gives us a popcorn Schindler’s List, as Merrin is audience to repeated Nazi executions of children. Tasteful! Harlin gives us his “director trademark,” heavy-handed connections between dead innocence and children’s toys. (Note the doll in Die Hard 2’s plane wreckage, in its cheapness). Let’s clear up these repeated flashbacks right now: Merrin was forced to select prisoners to die, in order to save the village at large. Bye bye faith. ‘Tis a potentially interesting idea (as I’m sure it’s from the Schrader version), rendered oh so typical in its handling here.
Then, in another strand having not much to do with much, Merrin heads over to a Nairobi insane asylum for a brief bit, so they can fail to squirm us out with scaaaaary insane people. Bession is there. He’s apparently been casually waiting to see Merrin, for he slits his own throat upon Merrin’s arrival. “God is not here today, priest.” (He said that before the slitting.)
So the asylum priest expositions to Merrin how Bession was “touched” by the church’s demon, who possessed, like, some other people. Or whatever. Merrin receives the Roman Rituals, the exorcism rites, in a moment of insufficient drama.
Okay, speeding up! Sarah is haunted by spooky winds, and standard horror movie scare sequences. You know, build up, lull, misdirection, and…
Jump shock!
Only it’s all a dream. Wow, really?
And Joseph’s hospital bed is shaking. This is the first scary possession phenomena, which ought to be an eerie and low key event. Rather, it’s pitched to the rafters. Oh, this is so not effective horror!
Moving on to the next mostly random, isolated scare moment, Merrin sneaks around in that church a bit, because we haven’t been there in a while. Using Bession’s sketches, rather than his own investigative skills (a common horror sequel problem), Merrin discovers an ancient catacomb beneath the church – as though the church was meant to seal it. (SPOILERS: It’s where Lucifer fell from Heaven, hence an explanation for the Devil Movie 101 stuff going on. Oh, and that’s quite a bit stronger than “Merrin once did an exorcism in Africa.” You’d think The Exorcist would’ve mentioned it, eh?)
Intercut with this is a lady in the village giving stillborn birth. Behold!, in glorious and long-held close-up, a dead, legioned fetus covered in maggots. ‘Cause we’ve already run through multiple child deaths. (Somehow, I think Harlin was going for Apocalypse Now’s finale with this – it is not successful.)
Jump shock!
On top of the crows, maggots, hyenas, black people, the movie tosses in another portent of evil as Merrin releases countless flies from the church. And there’s a full-size Pazuzu statue here, effective only because one recognizes it from The Exorcist.
Jefferies’ time has come. For no reason (a common phrase here) he stumbles drunkenly, drinks delicious beer, sees his face covered in legions. Zoom into his face, he screams. Er?! Then he’s forgotten about, at least until the film needs another –
Jump shock!
Yes, another jump shock, at which point his disemboweled carcass can be found gracing one of those upside down crucifixes all over the place. Eyeball pluck!
In the meantime, let us care for Sarah’s wellbeing, the poor blonde formula element. So this is a long “stalk” sequence in her home, something surely revolutionary in the horror field circa 2004. The lights flicker, she creeps about with a candle. A child runs in the background. “Joseph?” she actually utters. (Quick, say “I’ll be right back!” I dare you!)
Jump shock!
And for the scene capper, it seems her vagina is trailing blood or something. Who cares, it won’t come up again. It’s simply another isolated icky touch – Harlin seems to fashion himself a Cronenberg, but this “body horror” is just distasteful and lame.
The British army is here, mostly so that later there is someone to kill off all those niggling natives, and vice versa. Because it is a prequel’s duty to murder every character it can, in compensation for the non-suspense about figures like Merrin.
Witchdoctors perform a ceremony over Joseph, who still hasn’t shown any signs of real possession (bed shaking aside). This at a point in The Exorcist where Regan was actively swearing like Bob Saget and masturbating with a crucifix (like Bob Saget) – and that movie was a slow burn! Oh well, witchdoctors = a chance for loud noises. And a chance for something akin to the more insensitive parts of 1933’s King Kong.
Jump shock!
Merrin decides to dig up this graveyard that is also there in the village, which I hadn’t mentioned yet simply because it is cliché enough I’d assumed you’d’ve assumed it. These graves are presumably from a former plague, only…it turns out the natives cremate their dead, and these graves are all empty…The point being? Couldn’t you at least have a dead, pregnant jackal in there, or something?
Merrin confronts Francis (that priest I devoted a paragraph to), who lets the atrocities cease briefly so he can expo about back story. Site of pure evil, ancient church cover-up, yadda yadda, in either 1893 or 1934 (dates again grow confused in the rewrites) some more corpses happened, Francis needs Merrin’s faith. “I believe in nothing” Merrin intones in true Lebowskian tones.
Jump shock!
Now the Limeys and Africans start massacring each other in earnest, Harlin resorting to horror in quantity, having peaked early with fetus murder. (This is the third film I’ve seen for this blog where a fetus dies – What is going on here?!) And while outside cheap “homage” is being paid to the then-trendy Lord of the Rings battles, inside a tent the British commander is driven to suicide – as his butterfly displays come to life! This was played as a joke in Return of the Living Dead.
A sandstorm (CGI, natch) is closing in. With the assorted gore effects happening outside, Francis determines the one and only obvious course of action. Lug Joseph to the eeeevil church, where no one else shall go, to undergo an exorcise regiment. (Sure, that’s why! It’s not so we can have a climax in the best set or anything.)
Merrin, meanwhile, searches for Sarah, screenplay now remembering her presence. At a loss, Harlin actually starts filming things at a Dutch angle. Really? We’re resorting to that now? Then he discovers the vile truth: Sarah was Bession’s wife. Therefore, via unassailable logic, it is she who’s possessed. Why not indeed! So that’s why they under-delivered on Joseph’s “possession,” because they had a Saw-esque twist to hold the plot back.
Jump shock! Sarah, now in full Regan mode all-of-a-freaking-sudden, impales Francis for the audacity of not appearing later in The Exorcist.
Merrin can now enter the church, soundtrack letting us know his faith is restored, and do what fans have always wanted to see – have his first battle with Anakin Skywalker, er, the demon Pazuzu. Armed with familiar exorcism rites, this is the moment where The Beginning really could deliver, effectively aping the most chilling parts of the original…
Or they could make it an action movie. Yeah, that’ll work! So Merrin’s duel with Satan-Sarah plays like something outa Resident Evil, holy water used in grenade form. Harlin’s talk about “respecting The Exorcist’s legacy” was pure P.R. B.S. And the rites, so familiar to fans of the first, are drowned out in Harlin’s preferred noisiness. When things get as loud as technologically allowable, Sarah is exorcised. And she dies. Leaving only Merrin and little Joseph to again bury the church.
Tellingly, Blatty called watching The Beginning his “most humiliating professional experience.” This from a guy whose idea was perverted into The Heretic, and whose own Exorcist III was taken away from him (or repossessed). Then again, Blatty’s complimented Schrader’s version as “a handsome, classy, elegant piece of work,” so there is potential salvation yet. Artistically, at least – and never mind general consensus the whole prequel exercise was a wash. Commercially, though, Harlin’s 2004 train wreck was unable to recoup the substantial costs the world’s stupidest production had incurred. Though besting his own budget, The Beginning’s $78 million worldwide are just short of the films’ cost (pre-advertising, etc.). Oh, and Harlin’s gross is 99.9% of this effort’s earnings. It’s almost like they never should’ve made a prequel!
Related posts:
• No. 1 The Exorcist (1973)
• No. 2 Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
• No. 3 Exorcist III (1990)
• No. 5 Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)
No comments:
Post a Comment