“Sometimes I think that the best view of God is from Hell.”
Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist has an opening scene that’s impossible to beat. It’s a sequence of bravura filmmaking, shocking in how expertly it portrays the bottomless well of evil from which humanity has been trying to escape since time immemorial. In Nazi-occupied Holland, a Nazi is found murdered. The lieutenant demands mollification. He orders the village priest, Lancaster Merrin (Stellan Skarsgaard), to identify the killer. Merrin refuses to do so, and in response, the lieutenant decides he will kill ten of the townsfolk, and Merrin has to identify them. Refusing the order earns the death of a villager, and it doesn’t count towards the total. Wishing to prevent an outright massacre, Merrin complies. You can see his faith leaving him as he points at one villager after another.
It’s a stunning sequence, one which sets the tone for a different film. Dominion was buried by its studio, Morgan Creek, who released it on the same day as Revenge of the Sith. They only gave director Paul Schrader $35,000 for special effects, which explains the awful CGI; they gave him no money for publicity or music production. And most egregiously, they hated his version so much that they shelved it and let Renny Harlin make Exorcist: The Beginning. After that film flopped, because Harlin is an awful director, and only then did Morgan Creek reluctantly release Dominion. There are times, watching this film, when you can see the push-and-pull between Schrader and the studio. Paul Schrader is a legend. If Morgan Creek had had any brains, they would have given him free reign here. Instead, what we have is two hours of missed opportunities.
Years after the massacre in Holland, Merrin is in Africa, leading an architectural dig. He’s abandoned his frock and his collar, and is now addressed as “Mister,” not “Father.” Skarsgaard nicely inhabits the role made famous by Max von Sydow in the first Exorcist: his hangdog features carry a kind of gravitas, and he’s excellent at dramatically pointing at something (which is a weird thing to notice, but impossible to miss). He plays cynical with a nice degree of understatement, and gets a nice foil in Gabriel Mann’s Father Francis; or, he would, were Mann not so unremarkable in the part.
It’s a shame, too, because Schrader clearly has something on his mind, but wasn’t given the means or support to articulate it properly. Dominion, at its best, asks if evil is something inherent in all of us, or if it is manufactured by our environments, and all the mitigating factors therein. Evidence suggests that the people who built the subterranean church were trying to contain it – it isn’t a place of worship, but rather something of a cell, with enormous statues of angels keeping watch above an even lower chamber. In the middle of this chamber is a statue of Pizuzu, the demon who possesses poor Regan in The Exorcist.
There is possession at play, of course. This time it comes in the form of a local boy with a twisted leg named Cheche (Billy Crawford). The problem with this, aside from the aforementioned awful CGI, is Crawford’s performance. Put simply, he’s no match for Linda Blair’s work as Regan in William Friedkin’s original film. When Crawford is supposed to be scary, it just looks like a kid lowering his voice and growling.
The final confrontation with Merrin is interesting, at least (although, like much of the film, marred by slipshod effects). Merrin donning his frock and vestments is moving, and Skarsgaard underplays it nicely. When Pizuzu senses he’s almost licked, he offers to send Merrin back to Holland, so he can avert the killings. In the vision that Merrin has, though, interfering only makes things worse, turning an execution into a full-blown massacre. It’s a good way to show that guilt has a purpose and a use, but it also has an expiration date.
Dominion is frustrating more than anything. Paul Schrader has written or directed Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Blue Collar, The Last Temptation of Christ, and First Reformed, among others; he clearly has something to say about religion, guilt, and the way environments can shape who we are. If only he had been allowed to say it.
10/1: Hellraiser / The Invitation
10/2: Splice / Banshee Chapter
10/3: Jennifer’s Body / Raw
10/4: Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist / Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
10/5: Kill List / A Field in England
10/6: Halloween II / Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/7: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge / A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
10/8: Ginger Snaps / Creep
10/9: Cube / Creep 2
10/10: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) / The Ritual
10/11: Hell House LLC / The Taking of Deborah Logan
10/12: Re-Animator / From Beyond
10/13: Beetlejuice / Sleepy Hollow
10/14: Idle Hands / The Lords of Salem
10/15: The Ring / Noroi: The Curse
10/16: I Know What You Did Last Summer / The Monster
10/17: Night of the Living Dead / Train to Busan
10/18: The Devil’s Backbone / Southbound
10/19: Event Horizon / Dreamcatcher
10/20: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari / The Bad Seed
10/21: Eyes Without a Face / Goodnight Mommy
10/22: The Strangers / The Strangers: Prey at Night
10/23: In the Mouth of Madness / The Void
10/24: The Amityville Horror / Honeymoon
10/25: Gerald’s Game / Emelie
10/26: The Monster Squad / Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
10/27: Veronica / Jacob’s Ladder
10/28: High Tension / You’re Next
10/29: The Innkeepers / Bug
10/30: The People Under the Stairs / Vampires
10/31: Saw / Saw II
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