Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist

Remember the gossip-hot month of August 2004, when we finally got to see the Renny Harlin-directed version of the prequel to The Exorcist? This, after a veritable bucketful of pea soup controversy when Morgan Creek Productions pulled the plug on the already-completed film directed by esteemed filmmaker Paul Schrader, deeming it not only “not scary” but “unreleasable.” The joke was on Morgan Creek when critics and audiences soundly denounced the Harlin version as “not scary” and even “unreleasable.”

I am very familiar with Harlin’s big, dumb, fun cinematic style — from Cutthroat Island to The Long Kiss Goodnight and Deep Blue Sea — and, knowing exactly what to expect, I gave Exorcist: The Beginning a fair-to-middling review. It was all right for your typical over-the-top Harlin hackfest, but it was certainly not worthy of The Exorcist name. After watching it, I was more curious than ever to see the other version which, at the time, seemed doomed to oblivion.

Despite Schrader’s protests to the contrary — “I’m not a horror director. Give me two guys in a kitchen arguing anytime, over stuff blowing up.” — his take on the ill-fated prequel is far superior to the Harlin helmed adaptation. I’m surprised that someone as cinema savvy as the legendary writer and/or director of modern-day classics as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Affliction would not realize that no matter what the genre is, it’s the talent behind it that makes or breaks a film. In my opinion, if you’re an intelligent and competent storyteller, you can tell any story.

The story is basically the same in Dominion as in The Beginning, with some small but very significant changes. Stellan Skarsgård plays the younger Father Merrin in both films — Max Von Sydow portrayed the priest in the 1973 classic — but the rest of the cast is entirely different and one integral character was dropped entirely in the Harlin version, to be swapped out for a sexy Regan replacement (Izabella Scorupco), complete with potty mouth and spinning head.

Dominion is a much more cerebral film, but that does not mean it isn’t scary. It’s scary in a more internalized, visceral way. It starts off during World War II, when Merrin loses his religion after witnessing a horrible incident of cold and callous cruelty perpetrated by a heartless Nazi. Several years later, no longer a man of God, he is called to East Africa to oversee the excavation of a strange and mysterious church that was completely buried, as if meant to obliterated forever. But as we humans do, they want to see what treasures and riches might lie inside — and instead unknowingly unleash an ancient evil known as Pazuzu.

While I have nothing against the supporting actors in the Harlin version, they were horribly miscast — I never believed for one nanosecond that Scorupco, looking like a runway model on a dirt catwalk, was a medical professional administering to the destitute natives. On the other hand, Clara Bellar as the Holocaust-surviving doctor haunted by her past and trying to make something worthy of what’s left of her life, is totally believable — and there is no incongruous sexual attraction between her and Merrin thrown in here, thank goodness. Young Father Francis (Gabriel Mann) is also a more grounded, authentic character whose motivations actually make sense and are in keeping with the slow-burn storyline.

It’s absolutely fascinating to be able to weigh the two Father Merrins, each played by the same actor but with totally different results, but I am grateful that the Harlin version excised the Cheche (Billy Crawford) character because it would have been forever tainted with comparisons. Cheche is a pathetic outcast, horribly deformed, diseased, and denounced by everyone except the missionaries, who take him in and try to heal not only his scarred soul, but his twisted body as well. This weak and wanting vessel is perfect for Pazuzu, and this is where the fight of evil against good really begins. Crawford goes from whimpering weakling to an androgynous, all-powerful deity who proudly declares, “I am perfection!” It’s an amazing transformation, and much admiration must go to Crawford, a pop star making his American film-acting debut here. He shows you why the Devil’s dark side can be so seductive and alluring.

If you’ve seen the Harlin version of this story, you will recognize that the same cinematographer did both films (the eminent Vittorio Storaro), and the sets are almost exactly the same. Another carry-over is the CGI hyenas I hated so much from The Beginning. They truly were “laughing” hyenas in the 2004 debacle, but in Dominion, while they still look fake as can be, at least they’re animatronic and there’s an intriguing, unsettling use of them. (A real lion is shown in Dominion, simply superimposed; why couldn’t the same have been done with footage of live hyenas?)

It is true there is no outright “horror” in Dominion, but it is the perfect setting of the stage for The Exorcist, when all hell really does break loose. If you look at this movie as though Father Merrin’s experience with Regan McNeil has not happened yet, you cannot fault it. Schrader has done a remarkable job of building up to The Exorcist, as if 1973 really is in the future. It’s a sophisticated spiritual drama that is the appropriate foundation for everything that happens later on in the story.

Hardly “unreleasable” as it was deemed by Morgan Creek execs, in my opinion this is second only to The Exorcist. That movie stands alone, and always will. Dominion is certainly the best of all the follow-ups (in order of preference: Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist, Exorcist III: Legion, Possessed, Exorcist II: The Heretic, Exorcist: The Beginning, and finally, Repossessed, the godawful spoof starring Linda Blair and Leslie Neilsen).

Morgan Creek Productions will give the film a May 20th theatrical release, with Warner Bros. Pictures distributing. (What’s that other little movie coming out around that same time..? Oh, yeah: Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.) It’ll be in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, later platforming in San Diego, Sacramento, Houston and Dallas.

Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson

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Be sure and check out Horror.com's exclusive, on-camera interview with Paul Schrader