Q: Were you scared?
A: Yes. Scared it would never end.
POOR RENNY Harlin. When the director's name appeared on the screen at the end of Exorcist: The Beginning, the friend we dragged along to see this dog's breakfast exclaimed, "That explains everything."
Not quite. It's not entirely Harlin's fault that Exorcist: The Beginning is suitable only for teenagers on a first date or Mel Gibson Catholics.
The movie, which really does suck, has gone through so many personnel changes -- including the loss of director Paul Schrader -- that its pornographic violence and general dreadfulness is really a committee matter.
Stellan Skarsgard stars here as Father Merrin (played by Max von Sydow in the original film), and the film attempts to explain his very first meeting with the devil.
World War II has ended, Father Merrin is in Africa looking for an important artifact, and news flash: He has quit being a priest because of the Nazi atrocities he witnessed during the war. Now just Mr. Merrin, the defrocked one has lost his faith in everything.
In a remote area of Kenya, where an ancient church has been discovered, Merrin notices subtle hints that things are not quite right -- hyenas eat the kids, locals froth at the mouth, a guy stabs himself in the jugular. That sort of thing. Hmmnnn ... must be a demon.
Merrin befriends the local lady doctor (Izabella Scorupco) and together they watch helplessly as a child appears to be possessed. Before you know it, a blue-faced evil zombie thing is hopping all over the scenery.
Yikes! Etc.
Bad though Exorcist: The Beginning is, it is not hopeless, especially for anyone who loves fright night and jump scares. We despise that kind of scary stuff, but acknowledge its power.
Some sequences, such as Father Merrin's flashbacks to his war experiences, are engrossing, but for the most part the film is clumsy, overburdened with computer-generated stuff and heavy-handed with the creaks, groans, and freaky-deeky music.
Anyone hoping to have the fear of God put in him by the movie will be sorely disappointed, and this inability to inspire any religious dread is the movie's greatest failure.
At least Exorcist: The Beginning is not humourless. The spot in Kenya where all the spooky trouble takes place is said to be the place on earth where all the bad fallen angels landed after the war in heaven. Pretty funny, since everyone already knows how Los Angeles got its name.
(This film is rated 18-A)
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