Dominion: The Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) Warner Bros./Horror-Thriller RT: 116 minutes Rated R (strong violence, disturbing images) Director: Paul Schrader Screenplay: William Wisher and Caleb Carr Music: Trevor Rabin, Angelo Badalamenti and Dog Fashion Disco Cinematography: Vittorio Storaro Release date: May 20, 2005 (limited) Cast: Stellan Skarsgard, Gabriel Mann, Clara Bellar, Billy Crawford, Julian Wadham, Ralph Brown, Andrew French, Israel Aduramo, Eddie Osei, Antonie Kamerling. Box Office: $251,495 (US)
Rating: ***
I related the story of the troubled history of Dominion: The Prequel to the Exorcist in my review of Exorcist: The Beginning. They’re nearly the same damn movie BUT Dominion is clearly the better movie. Directed by Paul Schrader (Hardcore, Cat People), it’s the version Warner Bros. chose to shelve in favor of a horror movie they felt was more commercial. They brought in Renny Harlin to re-do it and got a really shoddy movie in return. After it underperformed with critics and audiences, production company Morgan Creek gave Schrader $35,000 to finish his version which was then released on a limited basis in May ’05. The reviews, while not great, were generally better than the ones Harlin’s version received.
Both movies have pretty much the same basic plot. Lankester Merrin (Skarsgard), on leave from the priesthood due to a crisis in faith, goes to this African village where a Christian church has been uncovered during an archeological dig. The problem with that? The church dates back to a time long before Christianity came to Africa. It turns out it was built to conceal a pagan temple where human sacrifices took place. By unburying the secret, evil has been unleashed. Ultimately, Merrin will have to regain his faith in order to fight the evil spirits infecting the village.
Just like in Harlin’s version, Merrin’s loss of faith is a result of being forced to take part in the killings of innocent villagers by a Nazi officer during WWII. Also, the site doctor spent time in a concentration camp and is haunted by her experiences there. In Dominion, the doctor’s name is Rachel and is played by French actress Clara Beller (This Space Between Us) who was unable to reprise her role in Beginning. Same goes for Gabriel Mann (The Bourne Identity) who plays Father Francis, the priest assigned by the Vatican to make sure the church isn’t desecrated at any point. In Schrader’s version, he starts a school for the village children, an endeavor that ends violently and tragically. The British Army, led by Major Granville (Wadham, Churchill), is more of a presence in Dominion. They play a bigger role in the story starting with the two soldiers who try to loot precious stones from the church altar and meet a bloody end. This scene is strangely reminiscent of Michael Mann’s criminally underrated WWII horror-thriller The Keep.
One of the biggest differences between the two versions is the party being possessed although neither one synchs up with the story of Merrin’s first encounter with Pazuzu told in Exorcist II: The Heretic. In Dominion, it’s a physically deformed boy named Cheche (Filipino singer-actor Crawford) who everybody believes is cursed. Merrin wins his trust and he agrees to let Rachel help him. He recovers unusually fast leading Francis to believe (and rightly as it turns out) that something evil is at work. As the possessed Cheche grows stronger, Merrin decides to perform an exorcism.
While I don’t think Dominion is a great movie, it is a good movie. It’s more cerebral than Beginning. The horror is more psychological. It takes evil seriously. It gives us an ex-priest who questions the idea of believing in a God who lets such awful things as the Holocaust happen. It doesn’t use the presence of an evil spirit as a plot device to elicit cheap scares; it goes much deeper than that in observing the ways Satan seduces good (and not-so-good) men. Schrader’s drenches his movie in atmosphere and dread, giving it a more disturbing quality. Rather than scaring the socks off viewers, he chooses to get under their skin and give them a feeling of unease. For the most part, it works. However, Dominion tends to move slowly which will be a turn-off to most viewers.
The acting in Dominion is somewhat better as well. It has many of the same actors as Beginning (with the two exceptions noted above) who seemed to be annoyed at having to make the same movie a second time now that I think about it. Schrader gives his versions of the characters more depth, especially Merrin. We understand why he stopped believing and what drives him to regain his lost faith. The cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (he did both movies!) is also better. So is the score. Trevor Rabin also worked on both movies but he collaborated with Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks) and metal band Dog Fashion Disco on Dominion.
It’s interesting to see the same movie filmed two different ways by two different directors, not unlike Gus van Sant’s misconceived shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. There’s something a bit surreal about seeing the same shots and hearing the same dialogue in a different movie, sometimes performed by different actors. It’s also interesting to compare the markedly different approaches of the two markedly different filmmakers. Whereas Harlin is more an action-type director (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger), Schrader aims for the psychological. The characters in his movies typically face tough moral choices. Guilt and sin are also prevalent themes in his films; not just the ones he directed but also those he wrote (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull). You’d think that the studio heads were aware of his unique style when they hired him to direct Dominion. His vision may not be “commercial” but it’s more visceral than the one Harlin remixed and reheated. It’s nowhere near as great as the 1973 original or as unconventional as II & III.
Dominion is more interesting than scary. I can see why the studio lost faith in this version. I’m just glad they found it again. It’s worth seeing at least once.
