EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING (Harlin Version) review

Sorry about not having the review for this up Friday morning, but due to the late Thursday screening and the early morning shoot for my UK show… Much needed beauty rest was required. That whole avocado mask and cucumber eye patches gets in the way when typing, but makes me glow… And baby, I just have to glow.

Anyway – Why was Warner Brothers hiding EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING. While it isn’t great, it’s vastly superior to Paul W.S. Anderson’s curiously entertaining floater, but it still isn’t a great film… or even necessarily a good one. However, there is something fascinating with EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING… Watching the film, I couldn’t help, but think that there was a great film in there somewhere.

Now, we’ve all heard that this film uses only 20 minutes of Paul Schrader’s original film and the rest is 100% Renny Harlin… of that about 40% seems to be the worst CG that I’ve ever seen in a major release film. Matte shots that don’t marry with the on-set locations – and where you see visible distortions or less 3-D effects and something more akin to “Multi-Plane” old school Disney Animation quality effects. All creature (birds, hyenas, possessed person) effects are not only awful, but completely out of place and unnecessary.

This is a very schizophrenic film, never really settling down to just tell Merrin’s story, which is what I wanted. It seems that most any subtlety is lost in favor of two-fisted jump scares, lousy CG and really foul and unnecessary gore. That being said, Stellan Skarsgard’s performance is so strong that even with ludicrously awful effects, action and attempts at horror… he still comes away looking good.

Right from the beginning you get a feeling how ludicrous this is going to be with this ancient carnage and aftermath of some unholy battle took place and a single remaining holy fighter survives… he tries to make off with Pazuzu’s stone lil head, but the corpse comes back to life clutching it…. One with half it’s head cleaved down the middle and impaled into the ground… well, suddenly there’s one of those 2.5 mile pullbacks in 3 seconds past endless upside-down crucified soldiers. Which just felt… terrible. Wouldn’t the more effective shot be to have the camera come around the priest to over his shoulder as he turns in a circle to behold the carnage himself, while having a good actor emote an overwhelming sense of grief, torment, shock? Of course, the crazy VIRTUAL CAMERA move does nothing, but disconnect the audience from any sense of reality… it’s like a poorly done computer enhanced Evil Dead shot – stuck in the midst of the EXORCIST saga for NO REASON WHATSOEVER.

After this, we get this terrible matte painting of late 40’s Cairo – with the worst rendered blending of plates I’ve ever seen… pre- or post-CG development. Truly awful. Albert Whitlock’s ancient practice of hand animating steam and smoke was far more effective. This was truly shocking to see this level of effects ineptitude in this day and age.

I know I sound extremely harsh on this, but if you’re going to do effects, finance them to completion or to some degree of stylistic consistency that fits the film, rather than fights it. I guess the reason it is so noticeable is that the cinematography from Vittorio Storaro is breathtaking at times and to have a radical shift in visual quality… hell, there’s times where they use still, blown-up photographs for backgrounds… which is just really really unfortunate.

There is also an absurd amount of just bullshit going on in this film that unnecessarily clutters the film with unneeded action and drama… which actually drains away from the main story which is that there is something wrong here, and that Merrin has to find his faith and battle the liar of liars for the life of someone dear.

There’s this pus-faced freak in the film that may very well be the worst character part I’ve seen this year. Along with the worst physical make-up in a horror film of this budget level. REALLY BADLY DONE.

OK… so what do I like… When the movie is still, when we aren’t leaving scenes too quickly… when there’s something being observed and noted as being wrong. The production design for the physical sets, the church… the concept of the Jackal attack – but not the animation of it… and I like the way the possession plays with one’s expectations. NOW… here’s the part that drives me crazy…

The final 20 minutes… I believe, if you were to remove EVERY LAST SINGLE MOMENT of CG from this sequence… added music that felt like THE EXORCIST… and let the conversations between Merrin and the liar of liars be played out more… then this could have been great. However, due to the CG shortcomings and sheer ludicrousness… it plays like a crazed hopped up on Stephen Sommers’ morning coffee animation, stuck in the midst of dramatic tension that he could never pray to accomplish. The wildly divergent tastes of these scenes makes for something completely ineffective. I mean, literally… I can sit through this last 20 minutes going, “COOL” and “AW FUCK” back and forth 10 times a minute. It’s insane. I’ve never seen this exact level of lame lunacy before.

However, the greatest failure of all… is the music. There is a terrible wasted opportunity here… I have the Exorcist’s TUBULAR BELLS theme as a ringer on my cel phone… before the movie, I set it off to claps from a few folks around us. The ringer is set for only one person’s phone number if they should call… that being William Friedkin. Heh. Just like how the HALLOWEEN ringer only plays for John Carpenter. I just can’t resist. Just like how Godfather plays for my Dad and my GodFather’s Son. Heh. My cel phone is film geek modified. Just can’t help myself… HOWEVER, back to my point… With this film being the origin of Father Merrin, a composer had the opportunity to dissect and build to the final reveal of TUBULAR BELLS right as Merrin walks away from that table at the end… Not using this theme is akin to Roland Emmerich not instructing David Arnold to make use of Akira Ifukube’s heroic Godzilla March… It’s like… we all know that when John Williams reintroduces the Imperial March in the next Star Wars films… there will be shouts of joy from the audience… and ya just know exactly where it’ll happen, or else Lucas’ head will be served to geek-kind! The missed opportunity musically is sad, it could have lent a much needed sense of iconic stature to the emerging of Father Merrin from Lancaster.

Ya know, I heard some people claim this was the 2nd Best EXORCIST film, but frankly… when I came home last night, I decided to rewatch William Peter Blatty’s EXORCIST III… and ya know what? Blatty's film kicks the living shit out of Renny’s popcorn balls.

I get the sense this “coulda beena contenda,” but it only succeeds in being a slightly enjoyable mediocre film amongst a lot of distracting unnecessary over bloated bullshit. Oh well…