Tuesday, October 25, 2011

October Horror 2011: Day 25 - Dominion


Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist was released in 2005 on the coattails of Exorcist: The Beginning.  It could almost be classified as a remake.

Basically in 2004 Paul Schrader was hired to film a prequel to 1973's The Exorcist with a story written by Caleb Carr and William Wisher, jr.  Schrader had essentially finished his movie when the studio decided it wasn't to its liking and hired Renny Harlin to refilm the movie.  The resulting movie, Exorcist: The Beginning, was released in 2004 to poor reception on the part of audience and critics alike.  Since the version the studio liked was doing poorly they decided to give the version they didn't like a chance and threw Schrader a few thousand dollars to finish his movie, which they released in 2005 with the name Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist.

It's really interesting to compare both of those movies since they have the same story and effectively the same plot, with different direction, and slightly different screenplays and cast.  The movies are so vastly different that the author of the original Exorcist story describes The Beginning as his most humiliating professional experience while saying that Dominion is "Handsome, classy, and elegant".

Both movies tell of Father Lankester Merrin's first encounter with the demon Pazuzu prior to the events of The Exorcist.  The events depicted vary quite wildly from the flashback sequences of those events from Exorcist II: The Heretic.  The basic premise is that after suffering a crisis of faith during World War II, Father Merrin takes a leave of absence and joins an archeological expedition to East Africa which uncovers an early Christian Church that was built on the ruins of an older pagan temple dedicated to Pazuzu.  The demon possesses a local pariah and does spiritual battle with Merrin.  The encounter reaffirms his faith and Merrin dedicates himself to the exorcism of demons and eternal battle with Pazuzu.

Dominion is a profoundly subtle and uncomfortable film, favoring atmosphere building and story to creep out the audience over grotesque visuals.  It's a movie that's difficult to look away from.  When it's not showing something designed for obvious shock, it's building an atmosphere saturated with cultural tension between African natives and British military forces.  The story evolves slowly, as Merrin is forced to confront the demon with the aid of God.  Even though the final transition involves Merrin regaining his faith and using it to save the woman who he can no longer be with because of that faith, the movie doesn't harp on a religious message.  It's a personal struggle of Lankester Merrin to believe in God despite the overwhelming presence of evil and wider mentions of religion are only really used to establish a context or contribute to the tension.

The demon and the evil events in Dominion are much creepier, while The Beginning winds up being far more typical of supernatural horror, and as such far less creepy.

Both movies are worth checking out to compare with each other, but if you were to only watch one of them Dominion would be it.  It's a much creepier movie across the board with better developed characters and thick layers of tension.  It's subtle without being tied to the idea that subtle means that nothing happens, and has great lulls between tense moments.  Comparatively, The Beginning bashes the audience over the head with important points because it doesn't trust them not to miss those points, and panders to an "EVIL MUST BE SICK" mentality to the point where it does the story a disservice.  Dominion, as Ebert put it, takes evil seriously.

Next up, Asia with the Shutter remake.

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