Exorcist: The Beginning is better then the second one but its worse then the third and does not come close of approaching the original. Long before Father Merrin tried to drive the devil out of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, the two had a previous encounter in Africa just after World War 2. Exorcist: The Beginning is a prequel that shows this early battle with actor Stellan Skarsgård playing the young preacher. The plot sounds interesting and it had potential to be really scary. However, this film has gone through a lot of rewrites and re-shoots and it shows as this movie is kind of a mess. It starts off slow and then it starts to pick up but the ending is kind of disappointing. The special effects look really bad and cheesy. Also some of the "intense" scenes just generate laughs. There were some scary moments but nothing special or really original. It was kind of predictable because there aren't that many characters. There are a lot of flashbacks scenes of children being killed though which is sad and kind of offensive. Renny Harlin did a decent job but he didn't exactly try anything new and it all seems similar to the first movie. The film runs for 113 minutes and that makes the film really boring and the pacing slow. The acting is okay, which is amazing considering its a horror movie. I had never heard of Stellan Skarsgård before watching this film and he isn't that bad. Also the setting is very creepy and they did a good job on that. Rating 4/10 a few scares and {if its the last one} a sad way to close out a franchise that should have never extended past the original.
Review of Exorcist: The Beginning
