Exorcist: The Beginning was an ineffective film that contains everything I hate about current genre films: impatient editing and storytelling, lines of dialogue that stop just when some characters are about to actually say something, bombardment of CGI visuals and some seriously unnecessary gore effects that are akin to the movie-makers hitting the audience over the head with a Warner Brothers iron anvil normally reserved for their cartoon characters. What a nice surprise it was to finally see DOMINION on it's (unfortunate) limited run. Here is a movie that doesn't assume the audience is too stupid to actually sit down and take a story in without excessive music video stimuli. Here is a movie who's build-up is effective and will have many working hard to shake the uneasy feeling that, indeed, evil IS everywhere. There were some story elements from "The Beginning" that made no sense whatsoever. In this film - all is presented clearly, thoughtfully and much more unsettling (but it really hits you when the film comes to its climax). There is a scene in "The Beginning" where some crazed hyenas savage a character to shreds. Their appearance was curious and not presented as necessarily crucial to the film other than for one scene. In this film, just one look from them and you know right away they add to the whole atmosphere of the film. They are an ever present danger not only to the surrounding location but the always present evil watching humanity just out of sight and ready to attack when one is most vulnerable and alone. Another sequence featuring Father Merrin and Nazi soldiers is given a very clever, diabolic twist and adds MUCH to the notion of how the Devil deceives and tricks. In the other film, it's a scene where you know only that "this is what torments Father Merrin" - and that's it. Which is how this movie plays against Renny Harlin's "The Beginning" - an easy sell to the masses (it STILL didn't work). "Dominion" is a crafted piece where one single shot holds more story information than a 30 second sequence rife with vulgar, over-the-top digital effects. See this version - especially if believe that The Exocist story is actually more effective today than it EVER was.
