Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)

It's been quite a ride through all the Exorcist movies so far and Exorcist: The Beginning is just another one of those showing the audience a make believe of events that supposedly happened before the first film. This concept never really worked for me because in general the film makers just make up inconsequent stories out of thin air and try to ride on the success of a name which earned its credibility for being unique and shocking for the time period it got released. In this movie events take us to Africa to a church that was discovered buried under sand and all this decades before Christianity even took place in that region. After they dig it out strange things start to happen and of course it is a clash with the superstitions of the local inhabitants. As I said, thin air. The first half of the movie seems to drag endlessly even though the acting is okay. Continuous flashbacks really begin to test the patience of the audience until finally the big showdown is in sight. Here we do get some good visuals on the now possessed Sarah, the main female protagonist who works as a doctor in the area. But since all attempts of curing anything fail, she is otherwise quite useless to the plot other than being a possible trophy for the horny men close by or, well, as a vessel to put the demon into so the appearance can be somewhat similar to the original movie. I enjoyed the visuals maybe just because of these similarities and the overall atmoshphere was acceptable, but for most of the movie's duration I was incredibly bored. Everytime tension was buit up basically nothing happened and at the end you have been through so much of this, that you don't even bother in letting the tension within you build up anymore. Simply by assuming you will end up being fooled again anyway. This movie had a lot of potential, but with all the generic Hollywood 101 most of that fades into, yes exactly, thin air.

This prequel to "The Exorcist" seeks to follow the first confrontation between a young Father Merrin and Pazuzu, countering the opening scenes of the first film. The environment of the film is roughly in British Kenya, where a Byzantine chapel has just been discovered, in perfect condition because it was deliberately buried soon after construction. Here begins the problems of this film, with the script gluing Byzantine art to a chapel whose interior has nothing to do with it, besides being outside the geographical area where the Byzantines were. Okay, the movie is fiction, but does it need to invent something so unrealistic? Father Merrin is the most dense and complete character. Interpreted by Stellan Skarsgård in a relatively satisfactory manner, he is a priest in doubt due to the remorse and traumas of World War II. All this has been well used and intelligently developed. Another thing I liked was the romantic subplot between the priest and Sarah, the attractive nurse of the field, played by Izabella Scorupco. Possessions are slow to occur although demonic signs are evident, and the ending may even be surprising, but only partially. The film attempts to compensate for obvious screenplay flaws with special effects, but most attempts are so rudimentary that it does not have the desired impact. Renny Harlin may not be the worst director ever but he is definitely not one of the best. Throughout the film, there are very obvious exaggerations, likely fruit of a bad script and an indolent director. One of them is the characterization of Scorupco at the end of the film, in a clear and unnecessary allusion to "The Exorcist". This film was an effort, but an effort without glory or merit for any of those involved.

The astonishing aspect about Exorcist: The Beginning is that Farther Merrin's back-story wasn't made into a film ten or twenty years ago. There are some discrepancies between the original Exorcist and this 2004 prequel, which created a feeling that this film wasn't truly a part of the franchise in comparison to The Heretic and Part III. The story wasn't that interesting, portraying Merrin as kind of a pathetic person, not giving the same respect and honor that Max von Sydow was given on screen. However, the majority of the characters in The Beginning were dull and weak due to poor writing and dialogue. Special effects, make-up and an unexpected twist ending that the original Exorcist perfected also failed miserably too. Exorcist: The Beginning can be sat through and watched but the film is pretty avoidable, not recommended.

As always never keep my hopes high about sequels, prequels and... but this one surprised big time.When the movies started and Mr. Merrin was approached and sent there to investigate in a desert i thought, okay, this is going to be either very good or unwatchable, and it turned out to be a very good Exorcist.I really enjoyed The Beginning from the starting point till the very end of it it started good, it developed slowly but brilliantly it didn't leave any questions unanswered from Father Merrins earlier life.The original one left me wondering why the figurine that Father Merrin found meant to him, but it is very well explained in The Beginning.There were also some very scary moments and scenes in this movie that every horror fan expects to see in a horror movie. And apart from these goodies it has very surprising events that keep the movie very very watchable.But there were some discrepancies historical as well as factual that are preventing me from giving ten stars to The Beginning, but still a very good horror movies.