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62 out of 67 people found the following review useful: Not Amazing, but 100 Times Better than Exorcist: The Beginning, 19 May 2005 Author: jefeparigi from NYC
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I just saw this a couple of nights ago at a media screening in New York. There are no spoilers in this review.Just to preface this, I am a HUGE fan of the Exorcist. It is the greatest horror movie ever made, and perhaps one of the greatest films ever made period. With no major expectations, I saw the Harlin version last year just hoping for a somewhat scary sequel movie. I cannot tell you how irritated I was by it. I was so annoyed that I actually wrote a letter of complaint to Morgan Creek Pictures demanding my money back. What bothered me the most is that Exorcist: The Beginning made no effort to keep the same aesthetics as the original. The 1973 classic had very little gore or special effects. It was more about strong directing, good sound editing, and building mood and atmosphere. Harlin's version, on the other hand, was more of an action movie along the lines of The Mummy or Van Helsing, only with more R rated thrills: loads of gore, loads of special effects, none of it the least bit scary.Well, once I found out about the Paul Schrader version I became obsessed with wanting to see it. From what I heard it was more in the spirit of the original Exorcist and more of a "thinking man's film". Plus it was written by Caleb Carr, author of one of my favorite novels: The Alienist. I was even more excited when I found out they were releasing it in the theaters this year.So onto my review...I wasn't exactly "blown away" by Dominion, but it's 100 times better than "The Beginning". It at least maintains those aesthetics that I described above. It's not a straight up horror movie, there's probably only 2 or 3 real scares in the whole film, but those scares are far more terrifying than any of the cheap fun house type thrills that Harlin's version has to offer. Although the big scares are minimal, there's loads of creepiness in the movie. It manages to make you feel uneasy the whole way through. I didn't have a hard time falling asleep that night, but I did wake up in the middle of the night kind of bothered thinking about some of the weird images that were burned in my brain.From the beginning, what I liked immediately is that it was kind of grainy and looked like a 15 or 20 year old movie. There was something old fashioned about the style of film-making which made me feel like I truly was in Africa during the 1940s....much more so than the other slick Hollywood version. The cinematography is excellent. Much like a David Lynch film, you need to see it on the big screen because there's so much detail to enjoy that can be missed on a small television screen. My favorite scenes revolve around the archaeological expedition of an ancient temple buried in Africa. As they're exploring the catacombs under the temple, there's some bizarre faces carved into the rock. They don't jump out and say, "boo!" but they creep you out as your eyes discover them on their own terms.I definitely took this version much more seriously. It's a very emotional film: many scenes managed to make me feel upset, bothered, unsettled, and sometimes even disturbed. Even simple scenes like people getting shot were so much more upsetting in their treatment. It also was successful in getting me to think about god, religion, and faith the same way that the first Exorcist did.Of course Dominion does have it's flaws:-Some of the acting could have been better and I can understand the need to do some recasting. The Nazi officer in the beginning wasn't the least bit intimidating. And Father Merrin's assistant Father Francis had sort of a Keanu Reeves quality about him. That's probably the biggest advantage that the first Exorcist has over this film. When you watch that movie, the actors are much more convincingly terrified. And that's what makes a great horror movie. Fear is a learned response. If the viewer is convinced that the actor is scared, then he/she gets scared, too. There's no substitute for good acting, not with all the special effects in the world.-There's very little special effects in this movie, but the few scenes that do have CGI are really bad. There is no reason to use computer effects to portray animals such as jackals, cattle, scorpions, etc. Get the real thing or use puppetry. This movie did not need special effects.-The ending climax scene, the confrontation between Father Merrin and the devil, could have used a little bit more intensity. I felt like he got through that scene much too easily, considering that in the first Exorcist, one priest died and the other was brought to near death during the exorcism. Stellan Skarsgard didn't even break a sweat! William Friedkin would have worked him to the ground. This scene kind of reminded me of a Star Trek episode.If you are at all interested (and are still reading this), these are my personal letter grades to the Exorcist films I have seen:Exorcist (1973) A+, Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) F, Dominion: A Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) B-Although not perfect, I think 75% of Dominion was salvageable. There was no reason to scrap it and make an entirely different, much worse version. With some minor changes, Dominion could have been raised a whole letter grade into a very scary, very respectable, and probably very successful installment into the Exorcist franchise and at much less cost, too.
72 out of 98 people found the following review useful: This movie is fantastic., 21 March 2005 Author: thedeadliners2002
If you go into this film thinking you are going to see twirling heads and pea-soup you are going to be disappointed. If you go into this film with an open mind you will be pleasantly surprised by the depth, sophistication, spiritual drama, and sheer craft involved. There is meat to this picture. I think the artists involved rightly avoided trying to best or even mimic the original and instead focused on dread-- a creeping sort of existential dread-- instead of cheap, quick scares. You don't jump in your seat with fear, but you walk out of the theater feeling unnerved and it stays with you. Unlike most of the American popcorn horror flicks being made today, this film lingers in your head long after.
49 out of 67 people found the following review useful: Ignore "Should have gone straight to video" review, 28 August 2005 Author: Joseph Prisco (popezaphod_I) from Ithaca, NY
Another reviewer claims this film was just "Exorcist: The Beginning" with some "extra footage" added. Anyone who has been following the history of the production of this film know this is not the case.This is the film that Paul Schrader shot and edited. The studio was unhappy with the results, fired him, and brought in Reny "Die Hard" Harlan to re-film it. The resulting Harlan film tanked at the box office, so Schrader was given permission to fully finish and release "Dominion" as a separate film. If anything, this is a chance for film fans to see the "Exorcist" prequel they had been promised before the studio big-wigs stepped in and brought in a hack director to "bloody it up".
45 out of 60 people found the following review useful: Solid. Unexpected, effective film., 27 May 2005 Author: stevenw-1 from San Francisco, CA.
Exorcist: The Beginning was an ineffective film that contains everything I hate about current genre films: impatient editing and storytelling, lines of dialogue that stop just when some characters are about to actually say something, bombardment of CGI visuals and some seriously unnecessary gore effects that are akin to the movie-makers hitting the audience over the head with a Warner Brothers iron anvil normally reserved for their cartoon characters. What a nice surprise it was to finally see DOMINION on it's (unfortunate) limited run. Here is a movie that doesn't assume the audience is too stupid to actually sit down and take a story in without excessive music video stimuli. Here is a movie who's build-up is effective and will have many working hard to shake the uneasy feeling that, indeed, evil IS everywhere. There were some story elements from "The Beginning" that made no sense whatsoever. In this film - all is presented clearly, thoughtfully and much more unsettling (but it really hits you when the film comes to its climax). There is a scene in "The Beginning" where some crazed hyenas savage a character to shreds. Their appearance was curious and not presented as necessarily crucial to the film other than for one scene. In this film, just one look from them and you know right away they add to the whole atmosphere of the film. They are an ever present danger not only to the surrounding location but the always present evil watching humanity just out of sight and ready to attack when one is most vulnerable and alone. Another sequence featuring Father Merrin and Nazi soldiers is given a very clever, diabolic twist and adds MUCH to the notion of how the Devil deceives and tricks. In the other film, it's a scene where you know only that "this is what torments Father Merrin" - and that's it. Which is how this movie plays against Renny Harlin's "The Beginning" - an easy sell to the masses (it STILL didn't work). "Dominion" is a crafted piece where one single shot holds more story information than a 30 second sequence rife with vulgar, over-the-top digital effects. See this version - especially if believe that The Exocist story is actually more effective today than it EVER was.
43 out of 58 people found the following review useful: Paul Shrader's exorcist, 22 March 2005 Author: ldemesmaeker from Belgium
I was among the lucky ones to see this film in Brussels too. Are you going to like this film or not ? Well it all depends on what you expect. As a horror film fan, for me there is no doubt : no one will ever make a better Exorcist film as William Friedkin's original. They can make 100 more exorcists, the 1st will remain the reference, it was innovating in many ways. Exorcist 2 took its best horror sequences from the first one. Number 3 was a cop movie. Now we have numbers 4 and 5 with the same story and even the same actors sometimes. So where is the difference ? I saw them both but I did not expect to see a better movie than the first. It is probably why I liked them both. So if you prefer horror, well see Harlin's one, it is a decent successor. And if you like Paul Shrader' s movies, I don't think you will be disappointed with his version, witch is softer but deeper. But please, as he said to the public before the film : forget everything you have seen about the exorcist movies before and watch the film with a open mind.
29 out of 34 people found the following review useful: Beats the "hell" out of Harlin's version, 31 October 2005 Author: udar55 from Williamsburg, VA
I watched DOMINION last night and found it to be excellent. The difference between this film and the Harlin film are like night and day. I love the slow build and the character of Cheche. Schrader delivers a film that not only comments on the balance and choice between good and evil, but also a great statement on colonialism. The only bad part is the choice of Gabriel Mann as Father Francis. Boy, he is awful ("Satan...is...here!"), especially when he is working of Skarsgard.But I can totally see why the studio panicked. Say what you want, but THE EXORCIST has become synonymous with vomiting, spinning heads and little girls cursing and I think that is what a majority of the audience expects or wants (based on my former dealings with customers at a video store and some heckled filled screenings). This is as far from that as possible and had they released this version, it would have died faster than Harlin's version or Blattey's own THE EXORCIST III (another film I think is brilliant but plummeted 60% its second week; yes I am a former box office nerd).Regardless, this is a horror film for anyone who wants to think. If you want spinning heads, cursing and vomit, go for the Renny Harlin version.
26 out of 35 people found the following review useful: A strong story concentrating on Merrin. Rich characterisation and a more subtle story than the Harlin action adventure., 4 September 2005 Author: Richard Brunton (imdb-update@brunton.org.uk) from Edinburgh, Scotland
Having seen the second made but first to release Exorcist - The Beginning, the Renny Harlin version of the movie, I was very keen to see the original movie which the Studio saw and then scrapped, the Paul Schrader version.This I managed to do during the Edinburgh Film Festival 2005, and actually with paid tickets I managed to even get to hear a Q&A with the Director, which in itself was extremely interesting. For now though, let's look at the movie.It's really hard to watch this and not do any comparisons with the Harlin remake, and with so many similar scenes, the same actors and a very similar story I found it almost impossible not to. In doing so you realise how weak and one dimensional Harlin's version is, the and depth of character and their development just adds so many layers to each of the characters, giving them a much more human feel and making you connect with them rather than just watch them as you did with the Harlin movie.Subtlety, dialogue and development are the keys here, things which were drastically missing from the Harlin version, and instantly you see the differences. The opening scene with Father Merrin and the Nazi's is the first strong example of the difference in style and Schrader handles this wonderfully. The single scene builds the Nazi character much thicker with some uncertainty of the Priest, whereas the Harlin is shown as a stock Nazi character. You also understand the root of the crisis in faith that Merrin has come to, and through this single scene it hits you just as hard as it did he.It's this that I felt was the strongest part of the movie throughout, the characters richness and depth, and the fact that you could see them as real individuals and connect with some part of them. Merrin in particular is the real focus of the movie, and the analysis of his crisis, his faith and who he really is.The following of the second, younger Priest in Father Francis, played well by Gabriel Mann, mirrors for Merrin the faith and hunger that he had as a young Priest, and watching his own slight crisis in faith provides an interesting viewpoint for the audience. Not only to understand what Merrin went through, but to watch Merrin witness this himself.Stellan Skarsgård plays the character superbly as well. There's so much more restraint in the performance with inward pain and anger, he's superb to watch and really does make you feel as though he carries a tortured soul. The slow climb out of the crisis to the fight back against the Demon is played slowly and with a lot of passion. It's the moment when Merrin relives the Nazi slaughter and his second choice that shows us who he really is as a person, not just as a Priest. Comparing the two performances of Skarsgård together is, as Schrader said, an example of a masterclass in acting. In fact the whole two movies are a film students dream.Another excellent character was Major Granville, very well played by Julian Wadham. He was far stronger, richer and deeper than the Harlin version, and his scenes were a lot more believable and striking than the Harlin version which had him going mad over his butterfly collection. Here he really plays a man getting out of his depth and letting events overtake him, and he has a superb scene in the village which provides with a strong connection to Merrins past.A couple of things that stuck out in the movie but were then understandable during Schraders Q&A, were in the CGI and the famous flash of the Demon face. The face flash, which was so subtly done in the original Exorcist movies, was hugely prominent and did not hold with the subtlety in the rest of the movie. Some of the CGI was also poorly done, and during a sweeping camera shot across the front of the buried chapel the CGI rocks moved together as they tried to hold with the camera shot, the first appearance of the hyenas was also poor, showing as pure CGI and not looking in the least bit real.The script for this movie is very good, and in stark contrast to the Harlin version. This has less blood, more story and characterisation, and much more concentration on the personal battle between Merrin and the Demon. It provides a much more intelligent and subtle story building characters and the plot to a much more satisfying climax.
19 out of 26 people found the following review useful: Unequal to the Oiriginal, but Much Closer in Spirit Than 'Beginning', 29 October 2005 Author: eht5y from United States
Much has been made of the peculiarly Kafka-esquire journey of 'Dominion': originally in the hands of the late John Frankenheimer, the 'Exorcist' prequel project was turned over to Paul Schrader, director/screenwriter best known for dark, gritty, existential dramas such as 'Taxi Driver,' 'Hardcore,' and 'Auto-Focus.' Schrader delivered a film allegedly close in spirit to the original, but the suits were unsatisfied, feeling that the film they'd been given lacked the necessary frights to please the current audience for horror films. As has been amply explained, the original 'Exorcist' was itself much less a horror film than a psychological drama, spare of excessive fun-house shock value, but the audience has changed--younger, dumber, and trained to expect cheap thrills--and the decision was handed down to re-tool the film to add more special effects and gore. Schrader refused, was fired and replaced by Renny Harlin, who re-shot the film almost entirely with a significantly revised story, several new actors and characters, and a decidedly less cerebral approach. But Schrader's film was already in the can, and horror purists and Exorcist junkies were left to wonder what might have been--if, for once, there might be a sequel/prequel that made genuine efforts to add to a story's mythic tradition rather than merely to exploit its notoriety to sell tickets and popcorn.At last, we are able to weigh in on 'Exorcist prequel: take 1,' and while it certainly doesn't capture the original's aura of terror and dread, 'Dominion' reminds us that the most frightening terrors are in the subconscious and the imagination, and offers a more patient and believable glimpse into how Father Merrin first encountered the demon that would later find its way into a particular corner townhouse in Georgetown.Schrader's direction--aided by the camera of legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storraro--is patient but not without scope. They frame the African hill country beautifully, and while things at times seem a bit too clean and tidy, I didn't consider the film 'slow.' Skarsgard's Merrin is essentially the same character as in 'Beginning,' and while he isn't inadequate, his performance may be a bit too restrained. As in the Renny Harlin cut, we are told that Merrin has left the priesthood out of guilt and anger at God over a particularly horrific confrontation with man's inhumanity to man in Nazi-occupied Holland near the end of WW II. More is made of this back-story in 'Dominion,' but Merrin's crisis of faith seems less palpable and torturous than that of Damien Karras in 'The Exorcist,' so that his re-conversion to belief doesn't register the expected intensity. Gabriel Mann appears as Father Francis (due to schedule conflicts with the re-shoot, he was replaced by James D'Arcy in 'The Beginning'), and his tender, almost androgynous demeanor makes him an endearing and appealing character. Clara Bellar appears as Rachel, a character entirely written out of 'The Beginning' and replaced with a sexier version of the same, played by Bond girl Isabella Scurupco. Bellar is more believable as a nurse in East Africa, and her back-story creates a connection with Merrin, but she still seems a bit out of place (though certainly far more appropriate to the story than her counterpart in 'The Beginning'). Julian Wadham reprises his role as a tormented British Major, to strong and believable effect. The climactic confrontation with Pazuzu is entirely different in this film, and far more believable (and chilling). Nevertheless, there are some inconsistencies, and the framing of the exorcism scene lacks the intensity of the first film's, largely because the audience is never adequately introduced to the victim. A big part of what made 'The Exorcist' terrifying is that the audience is given the opportunity to watch the full transformation of a sweet, affectionate child into a bile-spitting, profane shell for a malevolent spirit. 'Dominion's victim is never fully introduced, and thus, the audience has less of an investment in his exorcism. In the end, however, this film far exceeds the quality of the amusement-park silliness of 'The Beginning,' and while it's not likely to break the bank, it is certainly the most respectable of the films based on Blatty and Friedkin's original.
14 out of 18 people found the following review useful: "God isn't here today.", 22 November 2005 Author: TrevorAclea from London, England
Dominion is a genuinely interesting and ambitious film that doesn't quite make it despite being superior to Harlin's enjoyably unambitious schlocky remake. More a drama about faith than a horror film, it's not even remotely chilling and in the hands of the director of the awful Cat People remake it's attempts to throw in a few shocks (or "trying to make the cow look like a horse" as he puts it on his heavily vetted audio commentary) simply don't work any more than the crude dream imagery straight out of a 40s noir – he's just not interested in that sort of thing. He's much better at more human acts of violence: the suicide scene is a vast improvement on the terrible version in Harlin's film without the unnecessary supernatural trappings, while a pair of apparently arbitrary murders are all the more jolting for their human origin and the rationale behind them. For all its failings, the film is far from unsalvageable, and the decision to junk it and completely reshoot it with a new script, director and, in many cases, supporting cast seems a major over-reaction.It's also surprising just how little crossover there is between the two films – not just the respective scripts and the themes, but how little footage was pressed into service on the remake (barely two minutes, most of it establishing shots and a brief deleted scene). It's also clear that the film is still uncompleted. The cgi is terrible and all too obviously unfinished and the score suffers from being performed on synths rather than by an orchestra, which gives it a demo/temp track effect that doesn't always help the film, but the biggest problem remains the direction. While co-writer Caleb Carr's complaints about Schrader having no visual sense are frankly bizarre – it's by far his best looking movie and certainly his most cinematic – he's unable to rack up much tension, particularly in the finale. Much of this seems to be due to his inability to inspire his cast: with much of the film played in long takes, many of the supporting players aren't up to the script and clearly aren't getting enough help (the wildly inadequate Clara Bellar suffering more than most in the role taken by Isabella Scorupco in the remake). While there isn't a performance as bad as Alan Ford's in the Harlin version, and a couple – particularly Julian Wadham and a superb Ralph Brown – are actually considerably better than the remake, the moral escalation of the very well-written prologue loses much of its power due to a flat performance from Antonie Kamerling's German officer. In Schrader's hands, it doesn't matter because we don't care because the performances don't convince us that it's real. Curiously, the sequence is much better handled in the Harlin version, where it's both better staged and more effectively utilised as a recurring flashback.On the plus side, he has a much better sense of time and place than Harlin. Whereas the remake looked like a glossy modern studio picture, this does have an old National Geographic visual quality that makes it look like it was actually shot in post-war Africa. The British troops, so cartoonish second time round, are much more convincingly of their time here, adding a surprising note of authenticity.The script is fairly intelligent and ambitious on the big themes but does drop the ball on the clumsily sketched relationship between Merrin and Rachel, with the audience having to take too much on faith with no real grounds: at times it feels like the actors are still waiting for another emotional scene to be written but are completely in the dark about its content. Similarly, it doesn't always deal with the issues it raises and, as with all the Exorcist follow-ups, it falls badly in the "we need an exorcism" finale. For once the film really does need to end with an exorcism, but when it strays outside the temple the shoddy cgi Northern Lights and Bellar's looney face just render the footage laughable. However, the substance of the Satanic threat is more interesting than conjuring tricks here, emphasising the great deceiver's nature as the father of lies, tempting not by offering future riches but by erasing the mistakes of the past that cause such torment.The catalyst is once again a possessed youth, in this case a crippled albino outcast who finds himself being cured by the demon. Naturally, the young missionary immediately mistakes it for a miracle and the boy as proof of God's love, before painfully learning the error of his ways, leaving Stellan Skarsgard's disillusioned Father Merrin to exorcise the boy and confront his own more personal demons. Schrader makes less of the battleground – an elaborate ancient church deliberately buried in Africa hundreds of years ago – without ever making it enough of an intimate story to compensate. But when it works, it works well, and it constantly holds your interest. Not quite a failure, not quite a success but certainly worth digging up.Even if you feel like giving up on it, make sure you watch the ending, where Schrader takes his obsession with The Searchers to new heights, lifting its final shot for a wonderfully outrageous homage as Skarsgard walks out of the door in a perfect imitation of Wayne's body motion to wander forever between the winds…
23 out of 37 people found the following review useful: The critics love it... so do I., 18 May 2005 Author: PaulHart2 from United States
A metaphysical treatment of the story. Thoughtful and intense. Horror is implied in this film... you don't get beaten over the head with it as did the Harlin film. Schrader has always been a master at atmosphere and story over shocks and thrill rides. This is a thinking man's horror flick. You don't find many of those anymore. Remember the original "Haunting". The horror is left to the imagination. That always makes it much more scary. Remy Harlin's film was over the top, which is what the suits at Morgan Creek wanted. When monetary considerations come before artistic considerations, you usually get schlock. Paul Schrader made no such compromise... which is why he was canned.
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