Eric’s Guide to Watching ‘The Exorcist’ Films

4. “Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist”

4. “Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist”

Prequels are not always necessary and I can’t say that we ever really needed to know about Father Merrin’s past but if you give it to a great artist like Paul Schrader to write and direct then you at least know you’re in interesting hands. This film was going to star Liam Neeson and be directed by the prolific John Frankenheimer but he died shortly before filming was about to take place, and Neeson left the project soon afterwards. Instead they got Schrader and Stellan Skarsgård to star as young Merrin. The film basically tells the story of the off hand remark in “The Exorcist” about Father Merrin exorcising a boy in Africa. It doesn’t line up 100% with what we heard earlier but it’s just one of those things you’ll have to make allowances for. It does manage to capture a bit of the old mood of the other films and overall is best described by William Peter Blatty himself as “a handsome, classy, elegant piece of work.”

This completely feels like something Blatty could have come up with. However there are drawbacks to the film. The acting is uneven, some are very good, others not so much to put it nicely. I can’t say the film is scary though. Its drama most of the time works. It contains some of the worst looking CGI ever, however since this film was not released it is understandable. That’s right, the studio decided they didn’t like this film so they fired Paul Schrader and hired Renny Harlin to make a newer more mainstream version.

Advice: See it if you’re curious.

5. “Exorcist: The Beginning”

5. “Exorcist: The Beginning”

So I was aware of the backstory to this film. I thought it would make sense to see “Dominion” first then move on to this. After being pleasantly surprised by it I didn’t know what to expect from this one and yet it still failed to meet those expectations! I know the studio was dumb enough to apparently go, “Hmm the guy who wrote “Taxi Driver” clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing, let’s get the guy who made “Cutthroat Island” to redo this movie because clearly he’d be the better choice.” However this isn’t completely unheard of. The original “Wizard of Oz” had to be redone with a new director (4 in total) while being made. So I assumed that this would basically be the other film just re-edited, maybe some new scenes, different characters and such, but no. It’s almost an entirely different movie just with the same major actors and telling the same basic story.

However I honestly can’t remember much of it. It is a very forgettable film. In some ways you can say that makes it a worse film than “Exorcist II: The Heretic” (oh and spoilers, the only film left is going to end up being in the last spot) but it’s just not memorable enough. The only memorable things were how they messed up scenes from “Dominion” for instance the whole backstory with the Nazis forcing Father Merrin to choose who dies is there… barely and more importantly stripped of everything that made it mean something. It’s just there randomly and has no bearing on anything else in this version. They try and to be clever in the climax by having the African boy not be the one Merrin exorcises, instead in this version it’s the main female character which makes as little sense as it sounds. But what’s really unbelievable is that the makeup for the woman when she is possessed is supposed to be the same from Linda Blair’s from the original but it looks so bad and cheap like her face is 3 inches thick. It’s amazing that after 31 years they not only couldn’t make the makeup look any better but in fact made it look worse.

Advice: Skip it unless very curious.

6. “Exorcist II: The Heretic”

6. “Exorcist II: The Heretic”

And here we go, in my opinion one of the worst sequels ever made and one of my most hated of films. Let’s get through its few redeeming qualities. I mean if a studio was to give me the assignment of writing a sequel to “The Exorcist” the only idea I’d have would be to either basically remake the first film about another small child possessed by the devil and other priests trying to save him/her or make a prequel about Father Merrin’s exorcism in Africa. So I’ll give the film this much credit, the premise is pretty creative but that’s all I can say about it. The actors mostly do well and Ennio Morricone’s score, while unbelievably strange, is unforgettable once you hear it and oddly compelling. The first major issue is the director of the film John Boorman, director of the very tense and terrifying film “Deliverance” who would seem like a good choice. In fact he was offered the chance to direct the original “Exorcist.” However, he chose not to because he found the premise to be as he called it “vile.” So obviously someone who had so much respect for the first movie is going to produce a worthy follow up, right? Where to start with this film?

Right from the beginning it makes little sense. From what I gathered the church wants Father Lamont (played by Richard Burton) to investigate the death of Father Merrin while completely never mentioning Father Karras at all cause it’s not like he did anything special. And from there things just seem to happen until it mercifully ends. I can’t really sum up the film but I can explain why it makes no sense. First of all it’s nice to see Regan back and again played by Linda Blair who does a good job slipping back into the role but I still don’t get what’s going on. So she’s been being treated by Nurse Ratched (not the actual character but it’s the same actress) with a machine to travel into people’s dreams (obligatory reference to “Inception” and we’re walking… we’re walking) and right off the bat here’s something I don’t follow. Is it implying that the demon is still inside of Regan after all of these years or that the demon is somehow coming back and if so is it supposed to be connected to what Nurse Ratched is doing? If so how? And if it is the first option then good job making the entire first film pointless. Also with Regan being in Nurse Ratched’s care and the only reference to Chris MacNeil being that she’s off somewhere working on a film makes her seem like a horrible mother. I’m sorry but if I went through the events of “The Exorcist” for the rest of my daughter’s life any time she even mentioned not feeling well I’d have a priest ready. I’m sure they don’t want her to worry and they had to cover up Ellen Burstyn’s absence (aside from good judgement) but there had to be a better way than this.

Let’s see more stuff that makes no sense…well apparently they decided they had to have Max von Sydow back somehow so we get some truly bizarre flashback scenes of the exorcism of the African boy. It’s here we not only get James Earl Jones in a locust costume… don’t ask but more important it’s where we learn it wasn’t actually the Devil who possessed Regan in the first film, it was a demon called Pazuzu. Okay I realize in the novel it says this and it’s part of the catholic idea that all evil entities of other cultures are the Devil going by another name or are just servants etc. but the main problem is that Pazuzu to English speakers is just a ridiculously silly sounding name. I know even the first film heavily hinted at it but they were smart enough to know “hey not only does this sound stupid but it would be more effective to leave it up for the viewers to decide.” Now there is an interesting concept in here. Why was Regan possessed as opposed to any other human in the world. This film’s idea is that all people who are possessed are going to become future saints who will help heal the world in some meaningful way. That’s rather clever but doesn’t feel right in universe of “The Exorcist.” There’s an actual gem of a scene where Regan without even trying gets an autistic child to talk. It’s heartwarming and perfectly shows what Regan is supposed to be doing with her life but again doesn’t fit at all with everything else.

So now let’s talk about the climax. Peter Burton and Linda Blair return to the famous house in Georgetown. Why it has to be there, what significance does the house have? NO CLUE! I think they just wanted something to connect to the original but I always wondered what the in-universe reason was. Now sometimes when I’m confused by a movie I’ll look it up online and read people’s explanations. Sometimes I’ll read through the summary on the wikipedia page. I distinctly remember it used to say, “For some reason Lamont and Regan return to the old house in Georgetown.” I checked back today while writing this and it seems they cleaned up the wording to make a more professional sounding, “Lamont and Regan return to the old house in Georgetown.” Now that may not seem like much but why am I focusing on it? Consider this, we have entire websites dedicated to figuring out confusing films. No matter the film there will be some group of people who actually enjoy it. This is the internet where everything and anything is heavily analyzed to death. Wikipedia is one of the most popular sites worldwide and it has about 13 MILLION people visiting the site daily and NOT ANY OF THEM COULD FIGURE WHY THIS FILM ENDS THE WAY IT DOES! That is something to behold! So then it’s a bunch of locusts attack the house, Regan somehow splits into two people or Pazuzu somehow has physical form and changes into her like in Mortal Kombat… I guess. It truly is one of the dumbest movies ever and probably the biggest dip in quality from a film to its sequel. It’s BAD. It is shocking that anyone could even get halfway through making it and not go, “guys, guys what are we doing with our lives?!” I hope to never see this movie again. I’m all for art and film preservation but if this film disappeared, I’d be totally fine with that.

Advice: Avoid like the plague.

Do you agree with this list?