Harefooted Halloween: Exorcist: The Beginning & Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist

The Beginning

Here’s the story, Morgan Creek brought on Paul Schrader (who wrote Taxi Driver, Rolling Thunder and Raging Bull) to direct the next Exorcist movie.  When he handed in the finished product the studio hated it and decided to hire Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cutthroat Island) to reshoot the entire thing.  After Harlin’s version was released and completely bombed Morgan Creek threw Schrader a couple of bucks to finish up his original picture which got released the next year.  So what we have here is extremely rare and maybe unheard of: two movies made a year apart from almost the same script with some of the same actors (including the lead (Stellan Skarsgard (Deep Blue Sea))) using the same sets and a lot of the same crew.  It’s the director that’s the major change.  I know this wasn’t intentional but what a fascinating experiment.

Dominion

Here are some general differences.  Schrader handles the characters better by fleshing them out more and making them seem like real-ish people.  So I had a better connection with them than Harlin’s version.  They seemed more natural.  Schrader also went for slightly more abstract storytelling by having a few extra dream sequences and making the possessed individual act like a god as opposed to a crazy sick person.  And there’s a lot less ghastly imagery and blood overall.  It’s definitely the tamer of the two.  Oddly enough I think the most well done sequence is the opening where Father Merrin has to deal with another form of evil, Nazis.  They force him to choose who lives and dies with a small crowd of people.  It was the most heart wrenching thing between the two versions and gives Father Merrin some key backstory.

Harlin’s take is a total middle of the road Hollywood type release.  There are unnecessary plot twists, a lot more bad early 2000’s CGI, the characters aren’t as focused, the dialogue is bland and the ending is bigger and stupider than Schrader’s (more on that in a minute).  Harlin’s has the better cinematography though.  Vittorio Storaro (The Last Emperor, Apocalypse Now) worked on both and it looked like he took advantage of the second go around by improving his chosen style.  Colors are more vibrant (especially the yellows and tans for the daylight scenes and almost grayscale for the evil church parts), lighting is improved by better use of shadows and the angles are more dramatic.  The story is also a little easier to follow because it’s been simplified somewhat and modified to have a gory part every so often.

The Beginning

The ending to Harlin’s is laughably terrible though.  It basically turns into an Evil Dead movie with cheap rubber makeup effects and the demon running around saying taunting shit and acting a little lusty.  The climax is a big battle where Merrin and the demon toss each other around in a cave while Merrin keeps trying to exorcise the sonuvabitch.  It doesn’t fit at all with the rest of the film but I get that Hollywood wanted to make something more visually appealing to a 2004 audience.  It’s like “if we give them something similar to the ending of the first movie they’re gonna be bored, these two gotta punch each other ‘n’ shit”.

Dominion

Neither version is good.  Schrader’s is more of a character study and I should like that better but I have to admit Harlin’s was more entertaining, even though it’s a good deal dumber.  Schrader’s feels kinda like a B movie while Harlin’s comes across bigger.

I looked up to see what Skarsgard thought of all this because I wanted an inside opinion from someone who worked on both.  In the couple interviews I found he said it was a great experience and that he liked working with both directors.  He even says he likes Harlin better than some of his movies which is a funny comment.  But he thinks Schrader’s version is better because the focus is more on Merrin and not the threat.

Dominion

The Beginning

Anyway, these pictures are the closest thing to a typical sequel the Exorcist series has had so far.  II was some weird bullshit and III had an interesting idea but wasn’t executed the greatest.  Plus III is technically a spin off and not a direct follow-up to either I or II.  It’s a strange series that never got its shit together because they kept producing these bizarre ideas or botched scripts.

I would only recommend checking out The Beginning or Dominion if you’re curious how two different directors would shoot the same movie.  It’s a good study on every aspect of filmmaking and something we may not see again for a very long time.