Writer-Director Paul Schrader Regrets Stepping Outside His Comfort Zone To Make An ‘Exorcist’ Movie
In his career that spans decades, Taxi Driver writer and Martin Scorsese contemporary Paul Schrader has one major regret – making an installment in the troubled Exorcist series.
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Schrader usually tends toward grounded human drama and smaller-scale pictures, but he stepped outside of his comfort zone in the early 2000s to work with a major studio – Warner Bros by way of Morgan Creek Productions – and give a back story to a cursed franchise.
The movie he helmed in 2002 went on to become Dominion: The Prequel to the Exorcist, which was a heavy-handed title for an unwieldy production. Behind the scenes, things were chaotic as the producers weren’t happy with what Schrader gave them.
Mirroring a pattern we see a lot nowadays, they took the film away from him and had it reshot. The Strangers Chapter 1 filmmaker Renny Harlin was called upon to make changes and beef up the scares. He ended up filming an entirely different movie, but gave Warner and Morgan Creek what they wanted.
The new version dubbed Exorcist: The Beginning was unleashed on audiences in 2004. It did okay at the box office, though it can be called a disappointment, but critics tore it to pieces. Its harshest might be series creator William Peter Blatty who considered watching the film professionally “humiliating.” Roger Ebert didn’t care for it either, but in his opinion, “Harlin did not prostitute himself in his version.”
Schrader would later be allowed to finish his version which would see the light of day in a limited release and on home video in 2005. Dominion met with approval from Blatty, who called it “elegant,” and Ebert, who said, “Paul Schrader’s Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist does something risky and daring in this time of jaded horror movies: It takes evil seriously.”
Ebert also praised the atmosphere and Stellan Skarsgard’s performance as a tortured priest ready to give up on the power of grace and goodness. “The movie is drenched in atmosphere and dread, as we’d expect from Schrader, but it also has spiritual weight and texture, boldly confronting the possibility that Satan may be active in the world. Instead of cheap thrills, Schrader gives us a frightening vision of a good priest who fears goodness may not be enough,” he added.
Late last year, Schrader expressed what a mistake he thinks it was to involve himself with The Exorcist despite positive feedback to his work. “I shouldn’t have done it. It was not something I was really suited for,” he said to Movie Web. “I thought I could pull it off, but if I had that opportunity again, I would say, ‘I think I will stick to what I do best.’”
Sticking to his best would not bar him from the horror genre completely as he has pulled off a few spooky cult classics in the past including Cat People and First Reformed. The ones who might want to reconsider their choices are the execs in Hollywood who can’t let The Exorcist rest after the debacle that was Believer in 2023.
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