Paul Schrader’s “Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist” (2005) offers the most effective tales about Hollywood filmmaking.
Right here’s the plot to Schrader’s movie: Stellan Skarsgard performs Father Merrin (the priest Max Von Sydow portrayed in “The Exorcist”) as a younger man dwelling in Africa in private exile. The rationale for his basically hiding out the place nobody can discover him: the primary scene of the movie, which is sort of highly effective, exhibits Merrin and a gaggle of villagers being terrorized by Nazis in the course of the Holocaust.
Merrin’s lack of ability to save lots of these round him breaks him of his religion.
Years later, whereas establishing himself as an archeologist, Merrin uncovers a buried temple with a doubtful previous. The disclosing of the temple unleashes a demon that possesses a younger man, Cheche (Billy Crawford, in an impressive efficiency) and forces Merrin to rethink his stance on religion.
The story of “Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist” is an efficient one, however nowhere close to as jaw-dropping because the one of many movie’s well-known making, unmaking and resurrection.
Cobbled collectively from numerous tales, interviews, information experiences and Tinseltown, the story, as I perceive it, goes like this: The Morgan Creek firm had deliberate to provide a prequel to William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” (1973).
From a monetary and inventive standpoint, this wasn’t a nasty concept in any respect, because the “The Exorcist” nonetheless maintains it credibility, even right this moment with horror films followers and movie buffs generally as “the scariest film ever made.”
Making a follow-up has by no means been simple, as evidenced by John Boorman’s bold however wildly overreaching “Exorcist II – The Heretic” (1977). Morgan Creek had their fingers on the franchise, as they produced “The Exorcist III” in 1990, William Peter Blatty’s flawed, murky however actually horrifying follow-up that acquired sturdy opinions and initially muscular field workplace, solely to crash and burn.
At this time, it has a loyal following and is appreciated as one of many ’90s scariest movies.
A key element relating to “The Exorcist III” (which I’ll reference once more later) is that the studio believed it was too cerebral, paid for extra filming of extra sensational, gory and express footage and had key plot parts reduce from the movie. Whereas not incoherent, “The Exorcist III” suffered from post-production meddling that compromised Blatty’s rigorously structured imaginative and prescient.
The primary announcement I can recall of “Exorcist: Dominion” (its authentic title) was round 2003, when the movie was scheduled to open across the similar time as the opposite huge fall film from Warner Bros. (which distributed the movies Morgan Creek financed), “The Final Samurai.”
After the late filmmaker John Frankenheimer and Liam Neeson had been changed with Paul Schrader and Stellan Skarsgard, a $40 million finances was allotted, and manufacturing went with out incident. Regardless of Morgan Creek studying and approving the screenplay (which was written by “Terminator 2” author William Wisher Jr. and “The Alienist” novelist Caleb Carr), studio executives had been terribly dismayed by the preliminary rough-cut screening.
Reportedly, the preliminary footage lacked sensational horror film parts that style followers wish to make the movie financially profitable. These had been strikingly related complaints made relating to Blatty’s first reduce of “The Exorcist III,” with ample further footage and reduce scenes made by the urging of Morgan Creek.
Schrader, then again, wasn’t given the identical alternative as Blatty and was, as a substitute, changed by director Renny Harlin. Utilizing a lot of the identical units, a few of the similar solid and a reworked, extra commercially interesting (and dumbed down) screenplay, Harlin made his model of the identical movie.
Morgan Creek shelled out one other $40 million for this second model. Harlin’s “Exorcist: The Starting” was launched late in the summertime of 2004, met with horrible opinions and made a considerable however not exceptional revenue. It was broadly believed that Schrader’s model could be indefinitely shelved or destroyed.
What occurred subsequent was form of a miracle.
Schrader managed to get an unfinished however watchable copy of his “Exorcist” prequel proven on the 2005 Brussels Worldwide Fantasy Pageant, the place it was warmly acquired. One of many movie’s greatest followers was at least Roger Ebert.
Morgan Creek caved and agreed to permit Schrader to finish the movie (on his dime) and distribute it.
Schrader’s “Dominion – Prequel to The Exorcist” was barely launched in a small batch of theaters on the identical day as “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” Though it died a fast demise on the field workplace, Schrader’s movie, which many believed could be endlessly unseen, lastly had its day in theaters…and it’s a extremely good film.
I’m a giant fan of Mr. Harlin. Nevertheless, entrusting the director of “Die Arduous 2” (1990), “Cliffhanger” (1993), and “A Nightmare on Elm Road 4” (1988), his greatest hits, to direct a supernatural thriller performs in addition to it reads.
Schrader, a frequent Scorsese collaborator and an completed filmmaker in his personal proper, tackles problems with Catholic guilt, theology and interior turmoil with utter seriousness.
His tackle this story (which is quiet, affected person and mental, whereas Harlin’s movie is shrill, clichéd and grotesque) is private and sensible.
Schrader paces this like a Seventies movie, assuming, maybe incorrectly, that an viewers (and Morgan Creek) would settle for an emphasis on temper and character over low cost thrills. He takes his time attending to the spooky stuff, making the sudden flip into unusual territory all of the extra jarring.
Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro offers this an magnificence, and the screenplay has sharp dialogue (Merrin’s clarification of his atheism: “I selected good, evil occurred”).
FAST FACT: The 2005 launch “Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist” earned $250K worldwide. The 2004 movie “Exorcist: The Starting” introduced in $78 million globally. The 2024 franchise reboot: “The Exorcist: Believer” made $136 million worldwide however was thought-about a monetary failure because of the price ticket on the saga.
Skarsgard is strong and he’s supported effectively by Clara Bellar and Gabriel Mann. Cheche is a good character – we instantly sympathize with him and his uncommon transformation step by step introduces the story’s supernatural facet. The ache and guilt the primary characters really feel about surviving the Holocaust come throughout within the performances, and there’s a quick, eerie dream sequence that references each Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” (1945) and the unique “Exorcist.”
There are subplots about tribesmen and merciless British troopers that wallow in stereotypes and by no means draw us in. The movie missteps at any time when it leaves the central 4 characters. The general result’s uneven, with some scenes feeling unfinished or reduce quick.
The sparse particular results even have an on-again, off-again high quality, as does the music, which regularly resembles a temp rating.
The exorcism scene is refreshingly totally different and unusual, with Merrin confronted with a discount proper out of Faust and considerably much like Devil’s temptation of Christ (“all this might be yours”). The compelling high quality of this sequence, which brings us proper again to the Holocaust opener, is adopted by a subpar wrap-up. We get extra of an artwork film end than an earth-shaking assembly between good and evil.
“Dominion” is cool to see simply for example of a rescued, as soon as doomed work and a survivor of film studio forms, however, flaws and all, it’s nonetheless a gripping, thought-provoking work.