Exorcist: The Beginning

Got Exorcist: The Beginning on dvd this week. Many people hated this movie, but I actually liked it. Let me be clear–in no way does it compare to the original, which I feel still stands as the scariest movie ever. But I liked this one. I liked the clever nods to the original (so long as you don’t get too hung up on how a lot of the images that are repeated should have greater meaning in the original if Father Merrin saw them in the past), and I liked hearing the devil’s voice again.

By no means is it a perfect film, but it’s way better than the shitty Exorcist 2: The Heretic, and in my opinion is even better than the decent Exorcist III. Stellan Skarsgard makes a great young Merrin (although I’d have loved to have seen what Liam Neeson would’ve brought to the role). Izabella Scorupco is overrated as a beauty, but she does okay work here.

The real interesting thing is that the Renny Harlin version in theaters was actually a redone version of the Paul Schrader version. Originally, Schrader was the director. He turned in a version that the studio thought was too psychological, and not scary/gory enough. So they had Harlin come in. Harlin completely redid the film, cutting certain characters and replacing them with others. Supposedly something like 2 minutes of the original film was used in Harlin’s version. But the money-grubbing studio, quick to make a buck, will be releasing Schraeder’s version on dvd. I’m quite curious to see it and compare...