Let’s be honest: when your movie exists only because the studio hated your first cut so much they reshot the entire thing with a different director, you know you’re in trouble. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist isn’t so much a film as it is a cinematic “maybe this version won’t make people leave the theater in silence.” Spoiler alert: it did.
Paul Schrader, a man who once gave us Taxi Driver, decided to try his hand at demons. The result feels less like The Exorcist and more like a Catholic History Channel special with a budget smaller than Pazuzu’s dental plan. It’s a movie where Stellan Skarsgård spends two hours looking like he’s waiting for someone to hand him a better script.
A Demon Walks Into a Church…
The plot kicks off in 1944, because nothing says “fun night at the movies” like Nazis making priests choose who lives and dies. Father Merrin (Stellan Skarsgård) loses his faith because of course he does—if you’re in an Exorcist prequel, your faith is required to shatter by page ten. Cut to 1947, and Merrin is now an archaeologist in Kenya digging up a Byzantine church buried in the dirt. It’s a pristine church, too, which makes no sense. Even Jesus would’ve said, “Who the hell polished this?”
Inside, they find an upside-down crucifix and a demonic idol, which is horror movie code for don’t touch this, idiot.Naturally, they dig deeper because horror logic requires archaeologists to have the same survival instincts as a moth near a bug zapper.
Cheche, the World’s Worst Miracle
Enter Cheche, a disabled boy who suddenly starts recovering thanks to—you guessed it—demonic influence. At first everyone thinks it’s a miracle. Never mind that he spends half the film glaring like he’s auditioning for a Slipknot video. Father Francis decides he’ll baptize Cheche, because what better way to handle possible satanic possession than dunking the kid like a donut?
When Cheche finally goes full Pazuzu-lite, the transformation is less “terrifying spawn of hell” and more “Gollum with a migraine.” Picture your neighbor’s teenager after two days without Wi-Fi, and you’re about there.
Nazis, British Soldiers, and… Paper-Thin Characters
Schrader pads the runtime with an array of cardboard cutouts: British soldiers shooting civilians, locals glaring ominously, and a doctor (Clara Bellar) whose main job is to look distressed while Stellan sighs. Major Granville goes from uptight officer to full-blown lunatic in record time, screaming about savages before blowing his brains out. It’s less character arc, more “exit stage left with flair.”
Every subplot feels like Schrader was afraid the demon wasn’t scary enough, so he added colonial guilt, racial tension, and dead schoolchildren. The result is a movie so bleak it makes The Road look like a Pixar film.
The Exorcism: Now With More Yawns
When Merrin finally puts on the priest gear for the big exorcism, you’d expect fireworks. Instead, it’s two guys standing in a church shouting at each other like divorced dads at Little League. The demon tempts Merrin by offering him the chance to rewrite his past. Merrin refuses, because apparently he enjoys being traumatized.
The effects budget clearly ran out here. The “aurora in the sky” looks like it was drawn in Microsoft Paint, and the demonic makeup on Cheche resembles a failed Halloween mask from Walmart’s clearance bin. This isn’t The Exorcist,it’s The Exorcist: Community Theater Edition.
Stellan Skarsgård Deserved Hazard Pay
Look, Skarsgård is a great actor. But here he spends the whole movie with the expression of a man who knows he could be filming literally anything else. He’s supposed to be a tortured priest-turned-archaeologist, but mostly he looks like a dad trying to fix a clogged sink.
Gabriel Mann as Father Francis doesn’t fare much better. His performance lands somewhere between overeager camp counselor and confused altar boy. By the time he’s tied naked to a tree with arrows sticking out of him, you can’t tell if you’re supposed to cry or just mutter, “same.”
Schrader’s Vision: Moody, Slow, and Painfully Dull
Paul Schrader wanted to make a thoughtful, psychological horror film. Admirable idea. Unfortunately, he forgot that people watching an Exorcist prequel might want, you know, horror. Instead we get long shots of desert landscapes, quiet musings about faith, and the occasional demon jump-scare that looks like it was edited in as an afterthought.
The pacing is so glacial you half-expect David Attenborough to narrate: “Here, we see the rare horror fan slowly losing the will to live as nothing happens for the twelfth consecutive minute.”
Dominion vs. Exorcist: The Beginning
Yes, this film exists because Exorcist: The Beginning was a disaster. Dominion was Schrader’s original cut, shelved because the studio thought it was too boring. Then they made The Beginning, which was too stupid. When both versions finally saw the light of day, horror fans were left with two choices: boring demon archaeology or dumb demon action. It’s like being forced to pick between soggy fries and undercooked chicken.
The Only Thing Truly Possessed: The Audience
By the end, Merrin defeats the demon, Cheche goes back to being disabled, and Merrin regains his faith. The British leave, the locals calm down, and the audience is left clutching their popcorn wondering why they didn’t just rewatch the original Exorcist and call it a night.
The scariest thing about Dominion isn’t the demon. It’s the fact that someone thought this script needed two versions. Imagine sitting in a boardroom, watching Schrader’s cut, and saying, “This is too slow—let’s reshoot the whole thing with explosions and hyenas.” That’s how we ended up with two failures for the price of one franchise.
Final Thoughts
Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist isn’t the worst horror movie ever made—it’s just one of the most unnecessary. It’s like finding out someone made a prequel to Citizen Kane about Charles Foster Kane’s babysitter. Sure, technically it exists, but why?
If you’re looking for scares, watch The Exorcist. If you’re looking for laughs, watch Scary Movie 2. If you’re looking for an exorcism-themed Ambien substitute, congratulations: you’ve found it.
