The Exorcist prequel project pooped out prematurely, provided the paltry profit presented by the premiere presentation, Exorcist: The Beginning. Recall this was a vulgar bit of hackery from Renny Harlin, the second prequel made, in response to Paul Schrader’s more thoughtful original being labeled not “scary” enough. (Or not having enough goddamn gore.) Well, Harlin’s effort wasn’t scary either, but in a specific overwrought way which was apparently satisfactory. But whatever, the Great Hack Hope couldn’t turn a profit on this over-spent expenditure. What’s a producer to do? Well, fortunately there’s that other movie, that one you hated in the first place. What the hell, maybe that’ll turn a profit!
And no matter how angry one might’ve been at The Beginning, it’s surely the height of shoddy producing to toss out an alternate prequel a mere year later, with nothing but “$” in one’s eyes. The title finally glommed onto Schrader’s effort (Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist) is itself a naked and shameless admission to idiocy and mismanagement, for how many other films admit so openly to being prequels (most just revert to “The Beginning,” which…wasn’t available!)? (The only similarly-titled film I can conceive of is Airplane II: The Sequel, which is a joke.)
Now, Schrader’s movie wasn’t wholly complete once The Beginning nearly became the franchise’s end. For they’d scrapped it in post-production. Well, toss old Schrader a whopping $35,000 to complete it (I’m dead serious!), and there ya go. Even now, it seems the Morgan Creek shysters were as faithless in Dominion as Harlin seemingly is in regards to religion itself – Dominion’s theatrical release was a desultory affair, almost as if done to satisfy a contract. Its total gross ($250,000), a full 0.32% of what Harlin’s made, surely isn’t the miraculous windfall that’d rescue this misbegotten franchise.
Dominion uses the same basic filmic framework as The Beginning, much of the same cast, and some repeated scenes. Hell, Dominion’s beginning was in The Beginning. To repeat myself, this recounts the travails of Father Lankester Merrin (Stellan Skarsgård again) in Nazi-held Holland circa WWII. But even with the same footage, it’s astounding what a difference a filmmaker can make. Here the scene is allowed to play out in full, at the start – thus Merrin’s self-doubt stemming from the forced execution of several innocent villagers gains dramatic heft. In The Beginning, Merrin’s crisis of faith was simply a decorative character trapping, revealed in incontinent spurts as Harlin’s editor saw fit. But in Dominion we know and understand Merrin’s trauma from the start, giving his crisis heft.
It is true of Dominion as a whole that things are much more readily understood, not that The Beginning was confusing, merely convoluted. Here, the fact of a Christian Byzantine church where it oughtn’t to be in East Africa, 1500 years old, is treated as a starting point, not some mid-plot twist to titillate impatient and purely hypothetical gorehounds. All the facts surrounding it are similar – we learn early how this church was built to house an ancient evil, presumably the fallen Lucifer (you know…Satan?). Even the geography makes sense, as only now is it clear how there is both a British army outpost and a local tribe. Amazing how this plays out when the movie’s not aiming for misguided fist-pumping at all times.
Consider the eager-to-impress imagery of The Beginning, followed by its counterpart in Dominion…
It’s not that Dominion is 100% superior to The Beginning, as it is perfectly clear why producers thought this underdelivered on the scares. It does. Schrader is not as technically proficient as Harlin, and not up for the pyrotechnics even the most understated Exorcist movie needs. (Of course, that could’ve been salvaged from this effort without the need for a completely new movie!) And Schrader’s images are a bit flat, never wholly atmospheric. Rather, Dominion is still about something, a functional (if not great) drama and meditation on evil, both human and supernatural. The Beginning just wanted to be X-treme.
With much more of the film’s pieces having purposes now, beyond individual undercooked fright sequences, a thought process becomes evident. Merrin is still aided in his archeological investigation by Father Francis (now Gabriel Mann). For The Beginning, a faithless and cynical movie, this priest was here simply because it’s standard for the genre; it had no use for Father Francis, rather than to be eeeeeerie for being a Catholic, and to be one corpse more. In Dominion, Francis appears as a believable religious idealist, a reminder of Merrin’s former feelings (now Merrin’s arc is immediately understood). Mann’s performance is a little bland (sadly, only Skarsgård is ever exceptional in either version), the result not all it could be, but at least now we see what that could be. I swear, Dominion plays better as a riposte to The Beginning than as a film on its own!
Other characters, or character analogues, appear more intentional in this effort. In opposition to Francis is British Army Major Granville (still Julian Wadham), here an important enough figure to warrant mention (my Beginning write-up merely referred to him sans name as a gore effect). For Granville is the perfectly worldly figure, and a militarist, the other spectrum tempting Merrin. Embedded in his character is an implicit criticism of British colonialism. In fact, Granville appears (like all the figures) as a challenged and human figure, which makes his eventual suicide much more than the shallow isolated scene of lepidopterous spookery The Beginning boasted.
(Yes, many of the same basic shock moments remain, including the stillborn baby – somehow less offensive yet more disturbing here as it seems a commentary on evil rather than a simply opportunity for the director to waggle a dead baby at us.)
Some more…similar characters: There is still a female nurse on hand, only now Rachel instead of Sarah, and Clara Bellar instead of a Bond girl. Her relationship with Merrin isn’t necessarily a misplaced romance (misplaced when your central arc concerns reaccepting priesthood), but a connection between two souls battered by the war. She is also no longer the eye candy, or the Horror 101 blonde showering would-be victim Sarah was. She is pretty inconsequential, though.
And Rachel/Sarah is not the eventual demon host this time; nor is the young boy Joseph (more on him later). Rather Dominion fulfills that role with Cheche (pop musician Billy Crawford), a crippled village outlier, feared by the natives precisely because he might be possessed. Merrin pities the lad, giving no weight to these superstitions in his recent worldly outlook. Cheche becomes a permanent fixture at Rachel’s field hospital, where a speedy regeneration of his amputated arm spurs Francis to suspect the work of angels rather than demons. Once again, a visual comparison between this approach and The Beginning’s is telling:
There is not much surrounding Cheche’s growing signs of possession, surely nothing to rival Reagan’s transformation in The Exorcist, but that is not Dominion’s concern. It is more preoccupied with examining evil as a human fact.
Over fear of looting and a native uprising, Granville’s army unit arrives at the dig site, where bad blood rises almost instantly with the locals. It is suggested some evil spirit has emerged from the church’s dark heart, though it’s never as stupidly overt as The Beginning’s pointless, one-scene boy-rending CGI hyenas. Rather, the two soldiers stationed to guard the church are found slaughtered the following morning – after they attempt to rob the site’s precious stones. What was before a cheap shock here has further meaning, as their deaths are directly connected to St. Peter and St. John the Baptist (compare that to The Beginning’s apparent ignorance of the mere existence of St. Peter).
Granville suspects a murderer in the tribe, and forcibly drags the entire village to the outpost to flush the murderer out (this is over other theories the men killed themselves, under demonic influences). Here’s where it makes sense to know of Merrin’s past a priori: Granville threatens mass execution, just as the Nazi officer once did. Against Merrin’s protestations, Granville indeed murders one young girl before the situation can dissolve. (See, human evil? Many conversations even insist upon this reading, intolerance presented as the greatest terror.)
This act has repercussions…entirely non-supernatural repercussions. First, young Joseph is joined by many other children at Father Francis’ school mission. The misunderstanding leading to this is the natives’ fear of Christ Himself. As they see it, it was Christ who wished dead the girl Granville killed; hence they are here as a preventative measure.
Well, that’s one native theory. A more extreme view is that the recent evil (which includes cows eating NON-CGI hyenas, and that stillborn baby – which surely the British aren’t to blame for) is the fault of Francis, of his faith. Hence witchdoctor Jomo arrives to do Francis in, in full view of the children, “to keep the Christian evil from spreading.” A few screams later, all off screen (we share Merrin’s perspective), and Jomo has wantonly speared an inestimable number of the classroom’s children – amazingly, Dominion depicts far more child death than The Beginning, yet is infinitely more tasteful about it (‘cause it has a purpose here). Also, Granville has killed Jomo. Joseph’s older brother James is among the dead, and…that’s the last we’ll see of Joseph. I wouldn’t even latch onto that character, but for the narrative promotion he received in The Beginning (as a red herring potential possessee).
Francis has survived this recent slaughter. Rather than waver in his faith as Merrin has, it merely presses Francis further into unblinking mysticism. He grows obsessed with Cheche’s healing, and in saving his soul. Left alone with Cheche, Francis prays for him – in a moment, as much as it’s 1/1000th as powerful as anything in The Exorcist, is still in its subtlety endlessly more frightening than the ostensibly “scary” The Beginning. Cheche shows his first overt signs of evil, as he lashes briefly at Francis, looking all demonic-like – the possession design here is pretty weak sauce, honestly.
Now with the climax approaching, Dominion takes up two threads we also saw in The Beginning, to much different effect. The British soldiers are prepping to do battle with the natives, to eradicate every last one of them in retaliation for their recent uppitiness. The natives, meanwhile, are bloodthirsty almost entirely for the blood of Cheche, the demonic source of their woes. Now, in The Beginning this inevitable battle was simply a source for exploitation, more waggled body parts against all narrative comprehensibility. In Dominion, there is a moral component, as this battle must be stopped. For frankly, it makes more sense for Merrin to eventually prevent evil from happening. Without his Dominion diplomacy, The Beginning wallows in the pits of amorality – no wonder Blatty hated it!
The other thread is the exorcism. In both versions, it occurs as it must in the ancient church. The Beginning justified this with the sudden slathering of a CGI sandstorm, plus many other plot complications. In Dominion, it all starts as an attempted baptism for Cheche, Francis in his zealotry convinced of the church’s utility. (Cheche himself also requests transport there, but really because it’s the seed of his evil.)
Threatened contact with holy water sends Cheche into unmistakable demonic fits, hurtling Francis against an archaic statue. Francis, true to his character, is instantly keen on performing an exorcism, in a way that dramatically justifies dodging the chain-of-command The Exorcist, in its realism, insisted upon. He races outside to collect the Roman Rituals – as an earthquake up and seals Rachel and Cheche inside the church, in one of Dominion’s more strange unique miscalculations (it just ain’t believable, even in a film about Satan). Francis won’t make it back, as he falls victim (off screen) to the natives’ poison arrows. Still, he has time to impress upon Merrin the situation.
It becomes Merrin’s onus to take up the exorcist’s mantle, even as he fears himself too faithless to do so. But it is essential, for Cheche’s salvation is the capstone to curtail war. Aided immensely by Skarsgård’s performance, Merrin rediscovers his faith at the outpost, fully alone in every sense. Merrin’s conversion is a major point of distinction between Dominion and The Beginning. There, an over-insistent choral soundtrack crowed it to the heavens, like a suiting-up montage in a Rambo movie. Here, it is a genuinely quiet moment of solitary prayer, and Dominion at its strongest (just before it becomes at its weakest). Again, for visual comparison:
The quake’s rocks receding just as instantly (and stupidly) as they rose, Merrin alone granted access to the church (as Rachel escapes, heading into a very bizarre climactic subplot full of suicidal contemplation – I’m not touching that!). Now, it’s just Merrin against a fully possessed Cheche, the grand battle these prequels are predicated upon.
Here, Dominion falters most fully. When I say Schrader was given $35,000 to complete his film, I mean he was given that much to throw in lame, unfinished CGI special effects – Asylum-level stuff, really, enough to make it meagerly comprehensible what is happening, and no more. (Part of me suspects the myopic producers wanted Schrader’s version to look cheap, to protect their darling, vulgar Beginning. Asses.) So, there’s CGI here which wouldn’t pass muster in that ‘90s “Hercules” show. Most notable is a thoroughly out-of-place aurora borealis effect in the African night skies (not depicted here) – Schrader’s inabilities to deliver a technically capable Exorcist film become a major deficit, even as his deeper dramatic aims have kept this effort afloat previously.
Anyway, the exorcism itself is pretty underwhelming. Unlike Harlin’s, Cheche never attempts a physical attack upon Merrin, relying on a more subtle psychological attack – again, here it helps that Merrin’s personal demons re: WWII are entirely clear. “You’re a weak vessel.” Like a Satanic Ghost of Christmas Past, Cheche grants Merrin insight into what might have been that eve in Holland, had Merrin acted differently. Basically, without Merrin’s selection of those to be executed, all would have been. Maybe…it could be a demonic lie. This is somehow Cheche’s ploy to keep Merrin secular. It is unsuccessful, as are the sudden CGI locusts Cheche chooses to puke up (appropriate, the lone reference to Exorcist II: The Heretic is vomit). Merrin recites the rites with extreme ease, demon exorcised, and…That was easy!
Like all good prequels (which this arguably isn’t), Dominion ends with a tag promising the “sequel” to come which we’ve all already seen – The Exorcist. It’s more effective than The Beginning’s ending, with its promise of the demon’s unrighteous fury: “The demon is your enemy now, and he will pursue you.” That banks a bit much on reserve nostalgia for the original, but what else is new in the sequel/prequel game? And because it’s a Paul Schrader film, it has to conclude with an overt visual reference to The Searchers (not pictured).
Let’s not split hairs – or spin heads – here. Dominion is just too flat and toneless to achieve its dramatic goals. But it has clear ambitions, something Exorcist: The Beginning completely eschewed – except for monetary ambitions. Even then, Dominion doesn’t work as well as I’d like. There are strange dead ends, like a recurring dream of under-baked nightmarish imagery for Merrin, which just don’t belong. (And what was with the Northern Lights in Kenya?!) In fact, like Exorcist III, the parts of Dominion which work the worst are those parts which try the hardest to mimic The Exorcist.
Those intents for which I respect Dominion (its devotion to considering evil, playing Merrin’s faith with utter seriousness) are enough to call this the better of the two prequel attempts. There remains that niggling sense that The Exorcist never needed a prequel – let alone a remake of that prequel! Damn it, The Exorcist didn’t need any sequels! They mostly trade in watered-down imagery from the first, as not a one has had the balls to go as extreme as The Exorcist did – Is that film really so beyond decorum?! Of all the follow-ups, the likely best one – from hints I’ve seen, without actual knowledge – appears to be William Peter Blatty’s own “Legion” novel. There’s just too much cinematic baggage, with an utterly stagnant production pattern, for movie sequels to succeed.
At this point, the Exorcist property has been reworked cinematically as many ways as it can be – sequels, prequels. There’s no interquel yet, but let’s not give ‘em ideas. All that’s left is the disgusting notion of a remake (or “reboot,” if you really must) – and we got the 2000 rerelease instead, so count this universe lucky. So that would seem to be it for this property, as a franchise…though The Exorcist’s own reputation remains unsullied, earning far greater salvation and immortality as its own classic than as a mere sequel machine. “The scariest movie of all time”…that’s gotta be worth something.
Related posts:
• No. 1 The Exorcist (1973)
• No. 2 Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
• No. 3 Exorcist III (1990)
• No. 4 Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
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