Forget Linda Blair’s devil-possessed munchkin versus the Church of God in 1973 classic The Exorcist. The most fascinating battle in the faint-inducing horror franchise is arguably between Morgan Creek Productions and prequel director Paul Schrader. Indeed, the latter no doubt dreamt about some head-spinning, vomit-spewing vengeance of his own after concerned execs essentially swore off his 2005 entry Dominion with a crucifix.
Producer James G. Robinson had initially planned to revive the series which had lain dormant since 1990’s The Exorcist III several years earlier. But thanks to constant changes behind the scenes — first choice director Tom McLoughlin departed over creative differences, while replacement John Frankenheimer was forced to leave over ill health — the project only truly got off the ground when Schrader came on board. And then the drama really started.
Indeed, not exactly renowned for his work in the field — 1982's Cat People being the only horror on his resume — the regular Scorsese collaborator submitted a 130-minute cut almost proudly devoid of conventional scares. As the origin story of what many consider to be the most frightening film of all time, this came as quite the shock to its home studio. And refusing to make any of the requested edits, believing he’d been resolutely faithful to Caleb Carr’s screenplay, the future Oscar nominee was given his marching orders and the entire project — despite costing $30 million — was sent to the scrapheap.
The slightly less cerebral filmmaker Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea) was subsequently brought in to start from scratch — albeit using the same source material and two of the same actors. However, when Exorcist: The Beginning received a critical drubbing, Schrader realized there may be hope for his abandoned dream. Following some low-budget post-production tinkering, and a piecemeal score Angelo Badalamenti helped compose for free, Dominion finally enjoyed a (very limited) cinema run in the summer of 2005.
Of course, Schrader’s effort barely made a hundredth of the $41.8 million brought in domestically by Harlin’s. Right from the offset, though, it’s clear Morgan Creek’s panicked bosses did the former dirty. Even The Exorcist’s novelist William Peter Blatty agreed, describing it as “a handsome, classy, elegant piece of work.”
Whereas The Beginning frustratedly dripfed what exactly sparked its central character’s crisis of faith in numerous drawn-out flashbacks, Dominion immediately revealed all to much more powerful effect. Here, Father Lankester Merrin (Stellan Skarsgård) is forced to choose which members of an occupied Dutch community can live and which will instantly be executed by a Nazi lieutenant seeking revenge for the murder of a fellow trooper. It’s a truly harrowing opening scene which perfectly sets the unsparing tone ahead, one rooted in the fact that when it comes to inflicting horror, demonic entities have nothing on mankind.
Admittedly, Dominion takes its time reasserting this point. As the action moves three years on to an archaeological study in remote British Kenya, the film starts to resemble the kind of sandswept period epics favored by David Lean. It’s perhaps understandable why execs expecting blood, gore, and copious amounts of jump scares gravitated elsewhere. Yet once Merrin starts to dig a little deeper into the history of the Byzantine church that suspiciously looks to have been deliberately buried, the desert heat makes way for plenty of unnerving chills.
Indeed, Dominion delivers plenty of striking imagery as the wreckage’s dark powers start to unfold, from the decapitations of two British soldiers who learned the hard way that the devil also adheres to the commandment “Thou shalt not steal” to the crucifixion of Gabriel Mann’s firm believer Father Francis, the first man of the cloth to realize ailing teen Cheche’s (Billy Crawford) recovery might be not be a heavenly miracle after all. And in one of the film’s few Easter eggs, Schrader even throws in the same terrifying subliminal face that helped The Exorcist establish its ambulance-requiring reputation.
Even more disturbing than Beelzebub’s handiwork are the moments when the region’s inhabitants lose all sense of their humanity. Leading military officer Granville (Julian Wadham, who alongside Skarsgård also kept his role in The Beginning) delivers the first no-holds barred blow, shooting an innocent local at point range in a fit of xenophobic paranoia. Native warrior Jomo (Israel Aduramo) is responsible for the most shocking, though, a mass slaughter of the mission school’s young students in a deranged attempt to prevent the further spread of Christianity. Even the original didn’t resort to murdering kids.
Unlike Harlin, however, Schrader is just as interested in tackling themes of morality, redemption, and the role of religion in modern society as he is in letting all hell break loose. Skarsgård certainly gets more opportunity to showcase his acting chops, delivering a quietly affecting performance as a man wrestling with both unimaginable guilt and the validity of a higher power.
Clara Bellar also impresses as the Holocaust survivor nurse who pays the ultimate price for her medical professionalism (in a needless twist, The Beginning makes her the villain of the piece). As does Crawford, completely subverting his teen pop idol persona as the possessed youngster who eventually draws Merrin into his first, but certainly not his last, exorcism. (The local elder’s warning he’ll continue to be pursued by the devil is truly unsettling considering what we know about his future).
Dominion still has its shortcomings — the visual effects are as dodgy as you’d expect from a post-production which had to scramble together pennies just to get over the finish line. But Schrader is undoubtedly being a bit too self-flagellating with the recent claim that, “It was not something I was really suited for.” It might not have been The Exorcist prequel the men in suits wanted, yet it’s The Exorcist prequel that’s better stood the test of time.
