Years before the catholic priest Lancaster Merrin helped save Regan MacNeil's soul in The Exorcist, he first encountered the demon in East Africa. This is the movie around Merrin's battle with the demon and the rediscovery of his faith. Merrin is contracted to help in the excavation of a church, uncovered as part of an archaeological dig in Kenya. As their descent into the unknown begins, an evil is unleashed.

John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) was originally hired to direct this prequel, but pulled out of the project a month before he died of a stroke following spinal surgery. His death left Warner in desperate need of another director and they eventually decided to hire Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver). After he completed the movie, the powers that be were unhappy with the finished result, which they considered more cerebral than frightening. They fired Schrader, replacing him with Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea, Die Hard 2), who was given a bigger budget. He ended up re-shooting almost the entire movie, deleting characters and replacing cast members.

Harlin was faced with a monumental task. Warner was disappointed with Schrader's movie, expecting a bigger and better gorefest from him. But in his zeal to get them the movie they wanted to have, he overlooked some essentials that made the first movie work so well. In the original, William Friedkin shocked moviegoers with the horrific image of a possessed young Regan violating herself with a crucifix. In this prequel, Harlin similarly uses children in horrific situations to shock his audience, but he uses them so often and gratuitously that this ends up entirely losing its effectiveness. In the original, the pacing was slow and ominous. In this prequel, things are thrown in the face with shocks at every turn. Harlin doesn't seem to have understood that the secret to The Exorcist's success was not in what was seen, but in what wasn't seen. While Regan's projectile vomiting and profanities were shocking, it was not knowing what laid in wait for her mother as she ascended the stairs to her daughter's bedroom that was so horrifying.

The director opted for loads of CGI and gore instead --- an excavation site supervisor with a horrible skin disease, a Holocaust survivor with profuse vaginal bleedings, a young boy ripped apart by hyenas, crows dining on eyeballs, the stillborn birth of a baby covered in maggots, just to name a few. He is also overly fond of using loud sound effects, but the biggest flaw is the movie's climactic showdown. Meant as homage to the original Exorcist and its saving grace, it unfortunately garners unintentional laughter.

Harlin seems to have been an uninspired choice for this movie, but he does manage to bring a sense of manic adrenaline that works on some levels. He keeps his hyperactive directing style under control for most of the movie's first half, delivering a sense of dread and creepiness that builds up to considerable suspense. The movie is a visual treat, beautifully shot by Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now), and Stefano Ortolani's production design is quite impressive.

His cast delivers quite acceptable performances as well. Stellan Skarsgard brings dignity, gravity and complexity to the lead character Merrin. James D'Arcy plays his supporting role competently enough and Izabella Scorupco is intense and very effective as the local doctor and a concentration-camp survivor until she goes nuts in the finale.

A special note goes to Trevor Rabin's score. It's thematic, perfectly underscoring the onscreen proceedings and demonstrating this South African musician's (also former Yes-guitarist) exceptional musicality. It's bombastic, but he gives James Newton Howard a run for his money.

While not the envisioned grand prequel, Exorcist: The Beginning is certainly much better than the disastrous first sequel. Comparison to the adequate third entry is a bit difficult as it's a totally different movie on almost every level. Let's just say it's equally entertaining.