When William Friedkin’s adaptation of
William Peter Blatty’s novel, The
Exorcist, first appeared in 1973, it immediately established itself as a
classic, opening up a new area of exploration for the horror flick and exerting
a powerful influence on the genre. Stressing the religious component in horror,
only vaguely touched upon in the past, the picture acknowledged the actual
existence of evil, embodied in Satan himself, who, in the words of the Catholic
prayer, roams the world seeking the ruin of souls.
The first horror flick named for the
antagonist rather than the menace, The
Exorcist also introduced an audience ripe for religious instruction to the
ritual of exorcism, thus in effect inventing the sacramental horror film and
inspiring a score of imitations that featured various members of the clergy
opposing the Prince of Darkness with bell, book, and candle.
The
Exorcist not only provided material for other films, it also subsequently
copied itself in two generally unsuccessful sequels, one of them directed by
the author of the original novel. Now, perhaps inevitably, a prequel appears,
indicating that the late 20th-century religious revival continues to transfix
both Hollywood and the West. Exorcist:
The Beginning also reflects the now familiar pattern of transforming an
original and successful movie into a franchise, in the tradition of Rocky, Star Wars, Star Trek, and
all those James Bond flicks.
The movie takes place in East Africa
in 1949, when the title character, Father Lankester Merrin (Stellan Skarsgรฅrd
in the Max von Sydow role) first confronts the powers of darkness in the famous
ritual now practiced by dozens of earnest actors in vestments. The younger
Father Merrin has left the priesthood, his faith shaken, as a series of
flashbacks shows, by a Nazi atrocity he witnessed in World War II.
A respected archaeologist hired by a
collector to find a mysterious ancient artifact, Merrin travels to a dig in
Kenya, where workers have unearthed a perfectly preserved Christian church
apparently buried after its construction. Merrin’s investigation, predictably,
leads to a number of other mysteries and his first confrontation with the great
Adversary of the movies.
Merrin’s work on the excavation
brings him into contact with an array of characters, all of them in one way or
another affected by the malignant forces surrounding the buried church. The
Vatican sends an idealistic young priest (James D’Arcy) ostensibly to insure
the proper treatment of the consecrated place; an attractive physician
(Izabella Scorupco) runs an infirmary for the local Turkana people; the
obnoxious drunk who oversees the workers suffers a hideous eruption of pustules
somehow connected with the dig; the original discoverer of the church goes mad
and kills himself.
When the Turkana tribesmen blame the
outsiders for a series of disasters, a troop of British soldiers, led by a
loony major, arrive to guard the Europeans. The movie for a while turns into
one of those colonial flicks.
The various and scattered plot
elements and characters coalesce around the relatively simple central
confrontation between Merrin and the demon who dwells beneath the buried
church. The gradual unraveling of the mystery of the church and his rather slow
awakening to the possibility of some abnormal forces at work in the
catastrophic events he witnesses revive Merrin’s faith and recall him to his
vocation. Paradoxically, his acknowledgment of the existence of evil leads him
to righteousness and belief, ultimately enabling him to become the exorcist of
the original film.
One of the most important elements of
the original Exorcist is its
acceptance of the traditional Biblical notion that evil exists as an entity
derived from an actual being, the Devil himself. The new movie only
superficially toys with the argument about the source of evil.
Merrin, traumatized by Nazi
atrocities, asserts that human beings create evil from within themselves
without the assistance of any supernatural figure. Unfortunately, when that
figure finally appears, he looks distressingly like the same old gargoyle of the
first movie, and the character he possesses and inhabits behaves distressingly
like dear old Linda Blair, though without the revolving head and the famous
regurgitation.
The filmmakers apparently chose
Stellan Skarsgรฅrd because he shares Max von Sydow’s Swedish birth and
background. Unfortunately, since he lacks the imposing presence and high
seriousness of he predecessor, the resemblance is only residential. Perhaps as a
consequence of the drab dialogue and circular plot, none of the other actors
achieves any particular distinction.
The always relevant question of the
meaning and origins of evil surely deserves a more imaginative, more exciting,
and yes, even more frightening examination than this essentially tepid
treatment — the demon never seems all that scary or finally, all that
difficult to defeat, and let’s face it, we expect that Adversary to be a worthy
foe, otherwise both the great battle and the simple fact of goodness itself
would be too easy.
Exorcist: The Beginning, starring
Stellan Skarsgรฅrd, James D’Arcy, Izabella Scorupco, Remy Sweeney, Andrew
French, Alan Ford; directed by Renny Harlin. Cinemark Tinseltown; Loews
Webster; Regal Culver Ridge; Regal Eastview; Regal Greece Ridge; Regal
Henrietta.
This article appears in Aug 25-31, 2004.
