Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist

RATING:

Starring: Stellan Skarsgård, Israel Aduramo, Francesca Barone, Clara Bellar, Ralph Brown, Lorenzo Camporese, Billy Crawford, Andrew French, Antonie Kamerling, Nick Komornicki, Gabriel Mann, Eddie Osei, Griet van Damme, Julian Wadham. Written by: Caleb Carr, William Wisher Jr. Directed by: Paul Schrader

Rated R for strong violence and disturbing images

There’s a fine line between tension and tedium. “Dominion,” the second Exorcist prequel, comes nowhere near that line. The movie is as boring as it is unnecessary, making us think that when a studio shelves a film, maybe it does so for a damn good reason.

But wait! Wasn’t there an “Exorcist” prequel last year? And didn’t it suck? There was. It did. The story of the twin “Exorcist” prequels is one of the wackier bits of Hollywood politics. The production company, Morgan Creek, originally commissioned director Paul Schrader to helm the prequel. He then shot most of the film, “Dominion,” which he created as a moody, intellectual psychological thriller.

The studio wanted none of that. So they filmed a second prequel, this one directed by Renny Harlin, a more traditional horror film. They thought it would play better with audiences. It didn’t. Harlin’s film is “Exorcist: The Beginning.” It’s the one you wasted ten bucks on last year.

So now the studio is throwing good money after bad, releasing the Paul Schrader movie that has been collecting dust. To show how much confidence Warner Bros. has in the movie, they’re releasing it against another prequel, “Revenge of the Sith,” which is the Hollywood equivalent of throwing in the towel.

Onto the movie itself. Like the other prequel, “Dominion” is set shortly after WWII, in Africa, and tells the story of a young Father Merrin (Stellan Skarsgård, who, to make this even more incestuous, also plays Father Merrin in the Renny Harlin version), a man who has lost his faith. This Father Merrin bears very little resemblance to the one we see in the original “Exorcist.”

For one, he’s not an exorcist. He’s a man who gave up the cloth, thanks to a traumatizing, life-shaking experience in WWII. Which is where the movie begins, and it’s easily the film’s lone highlight. At gunpoint, Nazi soldiers order Merrin to choose which of the villagers should be shot. Merrin offers his own life. They don’t take it. So he must make some gruesome choices, savage choices, decisions that could turn a Catholic into an atheist. It’s a solid seven minutes. Too bad about the rest of the film.

Flash forward three years. Merrin gives up the cross, takes up archeology (why not?), and moves to the British East Africa, where he helps unearth an ancient Byzantine church. Then the movie slows to a crawl. Merrin stares at the church, puzzled, trying to make sense of some unusual artwork and architecture. Some not-so-scary scary music plays, and the audience is meant to feel that this church is somehow unnatural, maybe even . . . . .. eeeeeeevviiiiil.

But before we get a hearty shot of evil, Schrader saddles us with scene after scene of bloodless exposition. The native villagers don’t trust the church or the British. The British don’t trust the native villagers. The church is eeeeeeevviiiiil. Theoretically this is interesting. But Schrader, a legendary screenwriter responsible for classics like “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” and “American Gigolo,” is surprisingly ineffectual at sustaining our interest.

After a long while, some supernatural shenanigans begin to crop up, such as some mysterious murders inside the church, ghastly looking images, and a mutilated villager who heals at a rapid rate. Each instance is matter of fact. None of them are frightening. Well, one. There’s one good jump-out-of-your-chair shocker. That won’t cut it for a horror movie, even for one that fancies itself a cerebral psychological thriller.

As Merrin grapples with his faith—which is far more interesting on paper than it is onscreen—he realizes that one of the villagers is possessed by the devil. He must decide if he can again embrace God, wear the cloth, and do what needs to be done. The final showdown is laughable for the cheesiness of the demon.

On the bright side, hopefully, if nothing else, Merrin exorcised the need to make any more of these prequels.

Agree? Disagree? E-mail me at jeff@latinoreview.com.