Average Rating: 4.7/10
Reviews Counted: 44
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 30
While director Schrader's attempt at a literate, internal exposition on evil temptations and human sin is admirable, this prequel suffers from hit-and-miss psychological tension, poor visual effects, and weak writing -- an overambitious failure of a horror movie.
Average Rating: 4.7/10
Critic Reviews: 15
Fresh: 4 | Rotten: 11
While director Schrader's attempt at a literate, internal exposition on evil temptations and human sin is admirable, this prequel suffers from hit-and-miss psychological tension, poor visual effects, and weak writing -- an overambitious failure of a horror movie.
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Average Rating: 2.7/5
User Ratings: 16,594
In 2003, respected filmmaker and screenwriter Paul Schrader was hired to direct a prequel to the 1973 box-office smash The Exorcist. However, when Schrader turned in his film to executives at Morgan Creek Productions, the producers felt the film was not marketable, and they opted to remake the picture with director Renny Harlin, who brought a more visually aggressive approach to the story than Schrader's more contemplative vision. In 2004, Harlin's film, Exorcist: The Beginning, was released to
May 20, 2005 Wide
Oct 25, 2005
$0.2M
Warner Bros.
All Critics (50) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (17) | Rotten (31) | DVD (12)
Schrader's intelligent, quietly subversive pic emphasizes spiritual agony over horror ecstasy, while paying occasional lip-service to the need for scares.
The frights, the scares, they just weren't there.
It's a good, thoughtful horror picture -- and thiiis close to being a very good one.
Exorcism aside, Dominion is well-acted, handsomely photographed and hauntingly scored.
The Schrader variation is awfully dull, with scant evidence of the sort of things that make horror movies attractive -- like mounting suspense and spine-tingling creepiness and, oh yeah, the element of horror.
To be fair, Schrader's version fails in ways that Harlin's dumbed-down version didn't.
I can't call it a success, but it is certainly an outstanding failure, an attempt to broaden the horizons of a stale genre with real discussion of the matters that consume its maker.
I like both versions of Exorcist IV about the same... It's too bad that a clever editor couldn't have taken the best bits from both films and put them together into a co-directed, successful whole.
Neither a masterpiece nor a failure, it will probably appeal mostly to those with knowledge of its death and miraculous resurrection.
After 32 years, two sequels, and two prequels, The Exorcist remains an impossible act to follow.
I cannot imagine the fires of hell being worse than sitting through another bad Exorcist film.
"Dominion" isn't outright horror, and a welcome relief from the days where shots are shorter than the hairs on our heads.
Murder, madness, suicide, demonic possession, and something like the devil himself make their appearances to spice things up, yet it's all done in a fairly low-key manner.
Apparently, Schrader never intended to make a horror movie, much to the dismay of the studio.
tiresome and humdrum instead of thrilling
Dominion is a genuinely interesting and ambitious film that doesn't quite make it despite being superior to Harlin's enjoyably unambitious schlocky remake. More a drama about faith than a horror film, it's not even remotely chilling and in the hands of the director of the awful Cat People remake it's attempts to throw
December 14, 2009Super Reviewer
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