If the trailers gave you some chills, join the club, unfortunately the actual movie doesn’t exactly live up to what the promising promotion led us to expect. While there are things that go bump in the night as well as many, many, many crows, maggots and blood the overall scare factor in Exorcist: The Beginning is minimal.
Father Lancaster Merrin (Skarsgård) is a troubled man as the personal demons from his past, inspired by troubling times in World War II, have caused him to stray from his faith. His life is now in archeology and he is set to lead an excavation of a mysterious, Byzantine church, which is more out of place than he would expect. If your instincts are slightly tuned into the way things work in movies you can fill in the rest as the evil we came to know in the original Exorcist film reveals its origin.
If you weren’t aware, the version of Exorcist: The Beginning that you will see in theaters is not the first one that was shot, as Paul Schrader’s version will never see theaters, but is rumored to expect a DVD release. Apparently Warner Bros. wasn’t totally satisfied with the Schrader version and brought on Renny Harlin to redo the entire film, and while Harlin does a good job bringing to life an unspeakable evil and a setting that is just as spooky the overall frights here are reserved to crows jumping out at you and the old fashioned attempts and gore.
Once the demon takes hold of our unsuspecting victim it is actually quite cool, unfortunately by that time the film has already seemed to drag on and on. I even noticed a few people checking their watches in the final minutes as the scares had dwindled and the Merrin back-story found itself in the forefront.
Exorcist: The Beginning has a great story and would have been excellent had more attention been paid to the evil, rather than Merrin’s doubts and tortured past. However it has been a long time since a “decent” horror flick has graced the big screen making Exorcist bearable enough to drop some dollars on, just make sure you take someone who scares easy with you to get you through the slow parts.
