Father Merrin (Stellan Skarsgard) is haunted by the atrocities of WWII (he had to make one of those Sophie’s Choice type deals), so he moves to
The backstory on this flick is a Hell of a lot more interesting than the actual film itself. Production company Morgan Creek hired Paul (Cat People) Schrader to direct this prequel to the 1973 Pea Soup Puke-A-Thon, The Exorcist. After they didn’t dig the final product, they decided to hire Renny (Cliffhanger) Harlin to come in and reshoot the movie. Not just reshoot a few scenes, but the ENTIRE movie. Warner Brothers liked Harlin’s version and they released it as Exorcist: The Beginning, to bad reviews and middling box office returns. Looking to recoup some quick cash, they decided to release Schrader’s version the next year.
You know,
Comparisons to The Beginning are unavoidable. While Harlin’s flick will never be mentioned in the same breath as William Friedkin’s original, it at least it had its fair share of queasy moments and delivered the goods when it came time to start slinging the holy water around. Harlin knew what he was doing when he filmed those scenes of bloodthirsty hyenas chowing down on little tykes. Schrader’s idea of scary? Having troubled British soldiers blow their brains out. It’s just not the same. And say what you will about Renny’s movie; at least it didn’t have a bunch of arty dream sequences in it.
The lack of faith the studio had in this project is evident because of the criminally low budget Schrader had for CGI effects. They are all extremely shoddy looking (especially the hyenas) and make the effects in The Beginning look like freakin’ Star Wars by comparison. Also, Schrader spends way too much time on the weak subplot about the African natives’ potential uprising that frankly goes nowhere.
Schrader’s version isn’t a complete washout though. I liked some things that he did, like having the possessed kid being a complete inverse of Regan from the original. (Regan was a healthy girl who got progressively worse from the possession while the kid in this flick is a crippled boy who grows stronger from having the demon inside him.) Schrader imbued the flick with a lot of theological dilemmas and moralistic angst, which is somewhat refreshing, but unfortunately he neglected to make any of it very memorable or scary.
I guess it all depends on the kind of film you’re looking for. If you want a popcorn friendly possession flick with some decent gore, then check out Exorcist: The Beginning. If you want a somber, slow moving meditation on the nature of evil and its influence on man, see Dominion. But if you want to watch a CLASSIC, see the original Exorcist instead.
It’s hard to believe director John Boorman, who once upon a time made the unforgettable Deliverance also made this. It’s unforgettable too, but not in a good way.
Well after the business in the first movie, the Catholic Church sends their spin doctor (Richard Burton) to find out what happened to Max von Sydow in Exorcist 1. After he botched an exorcism in the opening scene (a girl ends up bursting into flames), it would seem that Richard Burton is the perfect man for the job.
Burton also takes to watching over Linda Blair, who is now (very) matured and is being psychoanalyzed by quack Nurse Ratched who hypnotizes her using some rinky-dink dime store contraptions and strobe lights. These inexplicable scenes are stupid as all get out and feature von Sydow in new/old scenes of him exorcising Blair while she latches onto Ratched’s heart!?!
After that nonsense, Blair and Burton develop a psychic link (even to the point of feeling each other’s pain), a by-product of their joint hypnosis. Buuuuut… it was actually Blair and RATCHED that were psychically linked during the hypnosis and NOT Burton and Blair, which makes ZERO sense.
The plot holes don’t stop there. Kitty Wells (returning from the first film) later spills out tons of exposition to Burton and facts from the previous movie that SHE WASN’T EVEN THERE TO WITNESS!
Anyway, we learn the devil that possessed Blair in the first movie wasn’t REALLY the DEVIL, DEVIL, it was some half assed African locust demon called Pazuzu. Burton believes that the demon is still lurking somewhere inside of Blair’s being so he travels to Africa to find Darth Vader to help him drive the evil out of her. In the finale, Burton separates the “bad” Blair from the “good” Blair and wrassles her around until he's able to rip her heart out.
To say this movie’s conclusion pales in comparison to the first film would be the understatement of a lifetime.
The film’s best scenes are the flashbacks of von Sydow exorcising the spirit of Pazuzu from a young boy, probably because they have something to do with exorcisms and not somebody staring blankly into a strobe light. Unfortunately these scenes are very brief. Some fun can still be derived from watching Burton get pelted by a million locusts and seeing him overact hilariously while mumbling his lines together in fits and starts. (“Today… wherever I look… all I see is eeevulll!”)
Mostly though, this flick is the one in need of an exorcism.
More bad news: We get to see James Earl Jones running around in a tribal tutu roaring like a leopard and hocking slo-mo loogies. We get to hear a lot of vaguely jumbled implications that Blair’s some kind of psychic faith healer. And worst of all: Linda Blair tap-dancing…a LOT.
Some of the ludicrous dialogue will have you rolling on the floor with laughter, so it’s not a COMPLETE waste of time.
THE TOP 5 MOST HILAROUS LINES OF DIALOGUE FROM THE EXORCIST 2:
5. Nurse Ratched: “Make your tone go deeper!”
4: Paul Henreid: “You’re in dire need of prayer!”
3. Linda Blair: “Call me by my dream name!”
2. Linda Blair: “I was possessed by a demon…don’t worry, he’s gone!”
1. Richard Burton: “I’ve flown this route before…it was on the wings of a demon!”
Stellan (Good Will Hunting) Skarsgaard is the young, alcoholic, down on his faith Father Merrin who uncovers the spot Lucifer fell during the war in Heaven. His spirit is released into a local boy and Merrin regains his faith by confronting the evil.
It’s nowhere near as good as the original (did you expect it to be?) but it’s a lot better than 2 and 3. There’s some good gore and gross out scenes (maggot infested baby anyone?) but the hyena attack is the best. If you can get past the cheesy finale, it makes for a pretty decent popcorn flick. Izabella (Goldeneye) Scoruppo co-stars as a hottie doctor. This was not a hit, so in an attempt to recoup some cash, the studio went ahead and released Schrader’s version (Dominion: A Prequel to the Exorcist) the next year to just as bad or worse reviews.
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