Review of Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) by Matthew L — 29 Dec 2010

Whilst Schrader's version was no masterpiece compared to this its close to a downright classic. Had I not watched 'Dominion' first I would have been hard pressed to make head nor tales of the first half of this film. It lurches from one un-scary scene to the next and Harlin seems to be under the impression that if you kill a child or 3 your making something shocking. Completely removing any of the subtlety of 'Dominion' this film literally beats you over the head with a hammer until you cry submission. As a viewer you know your onto a bad thing when a film features scenes deleted from the alternate version, completely bungles a subplot that could and should have been character making, and finally completely removes a character wholesale from the film but manages to leave in their dialogue from the end of scenes, feature them prominently in the background of other scenes and even give them a 5 second close up in others before we never see them again. Whoever thought that this was an improvement upon a script that already needed a rewrite, before being committed to.

Celluloid, needs to be shot.