This film has been in development for years and years, and has gone down as one of the most bizarre cases of movie making in a very long while. For starters, Paul Schrader was the original director of the film and was during the editing stages of production when Warner Brothers scrapped his film and brought in veteran action director Renny Harlin to redo the project. According to Warner Brothers, Schrader's version was just not scary enough. Secondly, when Harlin came in to reshoot, the production experienced troubles with the location -- another film, oddly enough "The Passion of the Christ", was shooting at the exact same locations and were taking up more time than intended. Eventually, Harlin finished his version and that is what I viewed in the theatre for close to two hours. Was it worth the wait and my valuable time? Well...

      Stellan Skarsgard stars as Father Lancaster Merrin -- the same priest, played by Max Von Sydow, who helped drive out Satan in the original film. Alas, he has lost his faith and serves only as an archaeologist. Father Merrin has been hired by a group of individuals to find a rare, and equally evil, idol that is supposedly hidden in a recently unearthed church in Africa. The odd thing -- this church was erected before Christianity came to that part of the world. So, Father Merrin descends upon Africa, with the assistance of Father Francis (James D'Arcy), a representative of the Vatican. What they find is a dig site that is clashing with the local tribe. The tribe is terrified of the church and the dig site, for they believe a great evil dwells there. Slowly, events happen that change Father Merrin's perspective on evil. The film essentially deals with Father Merrin trying to uncover the secrets behind the church and the causes for all of the odd events occurring around!

      I want to see Paul Schrader's version. It has been called 'slower going' and 'not quite scary enough' by Warner Brothers and those few lucky souls who were allowed to see a screening. Alas, I feel that Renny Harlin's version tried too hard to be scary and shocking -- tried too hard to offer something that would make people of today react in the way people of 1973 reacted with the original. Sounds are intentionally louder than they should be. There are too many scenes of complete dark made illuminated by a lamp or torch, only to have something waiting in the shadows. The sound effects are so overcompensating that, when Father Merrin picks up a shovel, it sounds like a semi crashing into a brick wall -- it is that loud and jarring. There is also some unneeded gore involving a baby being born and some useless flashbacks involving Nazi Germany.

      The performances are, for the most part, dead on. Stellan Skarsgard seems a little tired in the role, which I will contribute to his shooting the same film, back to back, with different directors. I would be tired too. The remainder of the cast is, basically, unknown -- people you have never seen before. I am anxious to see if that is the case in Schrader's version also, or if some of the cast just didn't agree to come back for a complete reshoot of the entire film. I know several of the actors Schrader wanted for the film declined due to the subject matter and the 'accidents' that occurred during the filming of the others in the series.

      In terms of being frightening, Renny Harlin has delivered. I heard people screaming and gasping throughout the film, and I jumped several times myself -- some being from those 'startle' moments, and some being from sheer 'I don't wanna look at this'. The music and the build-ups are perfectly timed and Harlin has managed to give us a few moments that rival some of the scenes from the original, though this does pale in comparison to the original. I think, once Schrader's version is released on DVD alongside this one, the public will get to decide if coherent storylines take precedent over scares and gore. "Exorcist: The Beginning" was much better than I thought it was going to be, and despite the overcompensating, is very well made and genuinely frightening.