It's usually a bad sign when a completed film has to go back for reshoots. The more that has to be reshot, the worse the film tends to be. Exorcist: The Beginning is comprised entirely of reshoots. It was originally shot by longtime Scorsese collaborator Paul Schrader, but Morgan Creek Productions found his vision to be "too cerebral," and therefore not scary. So action director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Driven) was brought in and remade the film into something that definitely isn't cerebral, but isn't scary either.
It starts out promisingly enough, telling the story of a young Father Merrin (Stellan Skarsgard, filling Max Von Sydow's shoes) drawn to the creepy discovery of an ancient buried church in Kenya, where he will invariably have his first run-in with God's arch nemesis. As is common with religious protagonists, Merrin is struggling with his loss of faith, an affliction caused by an unpleasant experience with that ever-reliable source of cinematic evil: Nazis. But when the church is opened and bad things start happening to the locals, it becomes clear that a case of renewed faith would be decidedly convenient.
Then the movie tries to be scary, and it all goes to hell. Like far too many directors, Harlin has decided that a good horror movie makes you squirm and jump, and as long as he can do that, by any means necessary, then he's made a good horror movie. So we get close-ups of people slitting their own throats to make us squirm and loud, sudden noises to make us jump, but none of it is scary. A good comedian will make you laugh for an hour, but if he does it by tickling your feet, yes, you'll laugh but it isn't good comedy—it's torture.
A lot of The Beginning is torture, but despite Harlin's blood-drenched efforts, most of it is simply boring. It's filled with clichés and too many sequences in which characters wander in the dark, searching for the inevitable loud, sudden noise. It also relies too heavily on unconvincing digital effects. I enjoy watching demonic hyenas eviscerate children as much as the next desensitized guy, but if the hyenas look like cartoons, they aren't scary.
Toward the end, there's a scene in which crows peck out a character's eyes. It's meant to be unsettling, but my only thought was, What I wouldn't give to be that guy right now.