Exorcist: The beginning
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Exorcist: The beginning |
| Original title | Exorcist: The Beginning |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English , Latin , Greek , French , German , Arabic |
| Publishing year | 2004 |
| length | 116 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Renny Harlin |
| script | Alexi Hawley |
| production | James G. Robinson |
| music | Trevor Rabin |
| camera | Vittorio Storaro |
| cut |
Mark Goldblatt , Todd E. Miller |
| occupation | |
| |
Exorcist: The Beginning is an American horror film by Renny Harlin from the year 2004 . The film is the prehistory - or prequel - to the previous three Exorcist films. The script was written by Alexi Hawley ; based on a story by William Wisher Jr. and Caleb Carr .
The film is about Father Lancaster Merrin's first encounter with a demonic power in Africa. Merrin, who has lost his faith, finds back to his faith through the events and becomes a priest again. He will later perform the exorcism featured in the first film in the series.
action
The film begins on a battlefield on which many Eastern Roman mercenaries are lying dead or seriously wounded, partly impaled, partly hung upside down on upturned crosses. A lone survivor roams the wasteland.
The next scene shows a market in Cairo from 1949. An eerie client appears who gives the archaeologist Lancaster Merrin instructions to work on a recently uncovered Byzantine church (the church nota bene should not exist, as the country was not Christianized until later) to look for traces of the demon Pazuzu in the colony of British East Africa (today Kenya ) (the name of the demon only appears in the credits). The client has a statue that was found in the region.
Merrin, who used to be a priest, travels to Kenya to visit the excavations on site. Once during the Second World War he was forced by a German officer to choose 10 people in a quarter for a dead soldier who were to be shot as a blood toll for the soldier. This diverted him from his priesthood, but the scene haunts him in nightmares and daydreams on his arrival in Kenya and throughout the film. When Merrin arrives there, he is received by the British archaeologist, Major Granville, who gives him Father Francis, who has been sent from the Vatican, to accompany Merrin.
A local named Tchouma, who acts as an interpreter, drives them to the excavation site. On the way they pass a cemetery where all the inhabitants of a village that has been ravaged by the plague are lying. It turns out later in the film that this is just camouflage for the church to keep the curious out of the area because the graves are empty. Merrin becomes suspicious when he openly asks who dug the graves when everyone was dead, and at the same time discovers that the Africans are burning their dead instead of burying them.
Merrin meets the local innkeeper and his two sons James and Joseph as well as the nurse Sarah Nowak, with whom he quickly falls in love. She and Merrin grow closer as the film progresses. Merrin gives Joseph a trowel.
At first only the roof of the church is exposed, Merrin and Francis descend and find strange incidents: Christ was hung upside down, angels point with their spears to the ground instead of to heaven. A large picture of the Archangel Lucifer before his fall to earth hangs in the church.
The demon Pazuzu is still present: Merrin finds notes and drawings of the demon made by former excavation supervisor Bession. This was in the church and went mad , so that he had to be admitted to the sanatorium in Nairobi. This caused most of the workers to stop working on the excavation out of fear. Merrin visits Bession in the sanatorium and has to watch as he calls him by name and lists facts from Merrin's life. Then Bession commits suicide in front of Merrin's eyes. The question about the demon comes up again.
The boys Joseph and James are playing by a fountain and arguing over the trowel. Suddenly, hyenas appear from all over the place and tear James apart. His father, Francis and Merrin witness the event, but can no longer intervene. From this point on, the boy Joseph is considered possessed by a demon. In addition, when a baby is born in the trunk, it is only born dead and eaten away by worms. The Africans also blame the boy for this event.
Through Bession's drawings, Merrin discovers a secret temple under the church, which is dedicated to Pazuzu, including a huge statue of the demon at whose feet human sacrifices have been made.
Summoned by the events of Father Francis, British troops move in around Major Granville to maintain order. The church has now been completely exposed, so that the soldiers enter through the door and discover a corpse there, eaten by ravens and hung up for display. Granville blames the locals and shoots a ringleader as an example. This leads to open war between the British and the Africans.
When Nowak treats the boy, locals storm into the room and want to exorcise the boy . Everyone except Nowak and the boy perish when objects in the room become self-employed and fatally injure the Africans.
Merrin confronts Francis about the cemetery. He explains the film prologue: A tragedy happened 1400 years ago, because when an army sent out came to the area to look for traces of the demon, the mercenaries were possessed and bloodbathed among themselves. Only one of the priests escaped, so as a consequence of the then Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian, the church was built to enclose the evil underneath. With the uncovering of the underground temple, it became free again. Major Granville goes mad too and shoots himself. The war is escalating.
Francis decides, fearing for the boy Joseph, to take him to church first, as the Africans fear the place, but then to exorcise him himself. Meanwhile, the doctor Nowak has disappeared, Merrin is looking for her and finally finds her in the church. It turns out Nowak is obsessed with Pazuzu, not Joseph as assumed. First in the church, then in the catacombs , the showdown takes place by means of an exorcism between Merrin and the demon who has meanwhile murdered Father Francis. Merrin finally manages the expulsion at the cost of the obsessed doctor's life. When he and Joseph dig our way up out of the catacombs and see the light of day, they witness a sad scene: everyone has killed themselves, both British and Africans.
The film ends in the Vatican , where Merrin meets his client again, but tells him nothing about the demon, but insists on being spoken to as Father. He has regained his calling and is marching to St. Peter's Basilica wearing the typical priest 's collar .
criticism
"The film, conceived as a prequel to the 'Exorcist' trilogy, initially skilfully creates an unholy mood, which, however, all too soon reveals in computer-animated shock effects and speculative as well as hypocritical exorcism phrases."
background
In contrast to its predecessors, this film comes up with a multitude of spectacular special effects , behind which the psychological horror of the series has to take a back seat. The version originally shot by director Paul Schrader fell through with those responsible at Morgan Creek Productions , so that almost the entire film, with a new script ( Alexi Hawley ) and a new director ( Renny Harlin ), but almost the same cast of actors, is still was shot once again. The story is an alternative version to Dominion: Exorcist - The beginning of evil , but has much more action and horror elements ( for example , in Dominion the war between the locals and the British is prevented at the last second, including the scene with the Hyenas were not part of the plot). Because Harlin's revised version fell through with critics and audiences, the production studio Schrader provided a limited budget to complete its original version. This ran in 2005 under the title Dominion: Exorcist - The Beginning of Evil at festivals and with a small number of copies in cinemas.
Awards
The film was nominated for the Golden Raspberry in the categories Worst Director (German: worst director ) and Worst Remake or Sequel (German: worst remake or sequel ) . Stellan Skarsgård was nominated for a Teen Choice Award in the Choice Movie Scary Scene category.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Exorcist: The Beginning. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 11, 2018 .
- ^ Criticism Exorcist: The beginning at filmstarts.de
- ↑ Criticism Dominion Exorcist: The Beginning of Evil at filmstarts.de
- ↑ Dominion: Exorcist - The Beginning of Evil on imdb.com
- ↑ Exorcist: The Beginning on imdb.com
Web links
- Exorcist: The Beginning in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Exorcist: The Beginning at Rotten Tomatoes (English)