Written by William Wisher And Caleb Carr And Alexei Hawley
Directed by Renny Harlin
Sarah: "Sometimes I think the best view of God is from hell."
Well, I'm at the point in my reviews for this franchise where I'm in prequel territory and my previous comment about them being pointless stemmed from the fact that both of them tell the same story with one actor in both of them. So, which did it better? I'll reveal that in the next review.
For now though, going back to previous sequels where we got updates on both Regan and Father Karras after their encounters with Pazuzu, this focused on Father Merrin's (Stellan Skarsgard) first encounter with the demonic creature. It was also a time where Father Merrin's faith had been shattered and he was no longer a priest.
Instead he was a jaded man who lost his faith following the events of Nazi Germany and the horror he was forced to partake there. Winding up in Nairobi, his faith would return but so would a lot of horror, bloodshed and death as well. It wouldn't be an Exorcist film without it.
Aided with Father Francis (James D'Arcy), Merrin was on a mission to retrieve an artifact by Semelier (Ben Cross) while an old Christian-Byzantine church was being excavated by the villagers. It also didn't take long for it to appear that a young boy named Joseph (Remy Sweeney) to appear to be a host for Pazuzu. Except there's a twist here.
The twist being that Jewish Doctor Sarah (Izabella Scorupco) who ended up being the host. Sarah had spent the movie either as a love interest of sorts for Merrin while her backstory with archaeologist Monsieur Bession (Patrick O'Kane) added a bittersweet context to things. Either way, Merrin's feelings for Sarah gave him something to lose with Pazuzu.
A battle of wills between the demon and the fallen priest panned out predictably but made for a good last quarter of the movie. With Merrin's faith restored, of course he resumed his calling, serving as a nice lead in to the first movie.
- Pazuzu definitely channeled similarly inappropriate dialogue when possessed Sarah as they did with Regan in 1975.
- Plenty of gross moments involving missing hearts, maggots and dead crows. Both Jefferies and Granville got some memorable deaths.
- The next film, Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist is basically the original version of this one with a largely different cast.
- Chronology: 1949 Nairobi for the majority of the movie with some scenes in Egypt.
Exorcist: The Beginning gave a reasonable origin for both Merrin and Pazuzu and in spite of its bad reputation, I found it decent enough. Largely down to Stellan Skarsgard's performance and some solid supporting characters. However, let's see if the intended version will be better.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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