DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST
How many prequels can a film have? The Exorcist, a hallmark in horror films, got two prequels. The first was 2004's Exorcist: The Beginning. A year later, we got Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist. We therefore have a situation where we get both "the beginning" and a "prequel" to the same movie. More bizarre, with The Beginning and Dominion, we get pretty similar stories. It isn't a surprise given that they share origin stories, so to speak, with studio involvement shaping a very convoluted situation into having both films. Dominion is held as superior to The Beginning. I can say that it is, but not by much.
Holland, 1944. Catholic priest Lankester Merrin (Skellan Skarsgard, one of the two Dominion cast members who was also in The Beginning) attempts to stop a Nazi commandant from killing villagers in revenge for the killing of one of his men. Despite the commandant's whispered offer to soften the blow by killing someone who is local scum (someone who beats his wife or is a drunkard), Merrin refuses to help. With that, the commandant kills at random, causing Merrin to lose his faith.
Now going to British East Africa three years later, Mr. Merrin is leading an archaeological dig where a Byzantine church has been discovered despite the Byzantine empire never coming that far south and before the introduction of Christianity to the area. Under supervision by Major Granville (Julian Wadham, the other Dominion cast member who survived into The Beginning), the half-English Merrin continues the dig accompanied by young Father Francis (Gabriel Mann). They later meet Dr. Rachel Lesno (Clara Bellar), who runs a clinic for the Turkana community.
As the dig continues, Merrin becomes intrigued by local Cheche (Billy Crawford), a disabled man shunned by the Turkana. He is just one of the many strange figures and situations going on, everything from cattle eating the hyenas that have been hounding them to the discovery of a demonic temple beneath the church. Tensions begin to build between the Turkana and the British, the former convinced that the latter have brought great evil to them. The tensions build to a climax when two British soldiers are found gruesomely killed in the reopened church.
Could their killings be something that the Turkana did? Is there a greater, supernatural evil at work? Francis, who barely survived a reprisal attack on his school by a vengeful Turkana warrior, at first sees Cheche's physical recovery as a miracle. However, he soon sees that it is not a miracle, but a sign of demonic possession. Will Merrin rediscover his faith to save Francis, Cheche and Rachel while stopping a war between the British and Turkana? Will this great demonic force lure Merrin into attempting to absolve Merrin's guilt at the expense of his soul? Who will win this great battle between good and evil?
The problem is that Dominion is too similar to The Beginning, so those who have seen The Beginning will be hampered when watching Dominion. Presuming that you have not watched The Beginning, I think that you would find Dominion to be slightly more meditative about issues of faith in a world beset by evil both supernatural and man-made. I think people going into Dominion expecting a lot of gore and blood will be terribly disappointed.
There are other elements that do disappoint in Dominion. Right or wrong, the visual effects are downright ghastly. Some scenes like the cannibal cows and the final battle between Cheche's possessed figure and Merrin are so poor in their VFX that they come across as unintentionally funny. Other elements in William Wisher and Caleb Carr's screenplay are puzzling. For example, Father Francis is found in a situation that echoes the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. How exactly Father Francis found himself in this situation is a bit unclear, but it does give one a chance to admire the physical beauty of Gabriel Mann.
Another element is how both Rachel is underused and the truth about how she survived the concentration camp is revealed. It does not help that Bellar's performance near the end runs dangerously close to being parody. Sometimes, Crawford's possessed Cheche is surprisingly frightening, especially when he threatens Father Francis in English, which he should not know. However, he too at times hammed it up when playing evil.
Fortunately, there are other elements in Dominion that do work. One strong element is Skarsgard's Father Merrin. He makes one think that this man wants to break from faith because of what he has seen and been forced to partake in but who still has some part of him not want to turn completely away from God. He makes that transformation from priest to archaeologist back to priest believable.
Another positive element is a fantasy sequence where Merrin sees what would have happened if he had made a different decision in 1944 Holland. This shows what I think is a great truth: that a particular decision might have a worse outcome than what we think it would have had, a case of unintended consequences. We also see this when Granville unintentionally recreates the same situation with the Turkana as that which Merrin had witnessed during the war. Here, we see that evil is not just the realm of Satan, but well within the hearts of men.
I think Wisher and Carr deserve credit for exploring these concepts, even if the execution did not fully work.
Somehow, I do not feel it in my heart to throw blame on director Paul Schrader. The visual effects, awful as they are, may have been a result of poor funding. Dominion was plagued by interference from Morgan Creek, the studio behind the film. While there are some scares in Dominion, my understanding is that Morgan Creek wanted more in keeping with their idea of what The Exorcist franchise was seen as: scary and graphic. That resulted in the strange situation of having these two prequels.
Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist is a much more serious film than perhaps the producers would have wanted. It is not a great film, but it is a passable film that could have been better.
THE EXORCIST FILMS
The Exorcist: Believer
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