Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) on Netflix
R20041h 54mHorrorMysteryThriller
In 1949 Cairo, Father Lankester Merrin has lost his faith. A collector of antiquities sends him to a British dig in Kenya's Turkana region, where a buried Byzantine church holds a relic.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb5.1/1041,716 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes10%
Trailer
Plot summary
Father Lankester Merrin has lost his faith. In the occupied Netherlands during the war, the SS officer Kessel forced him to take part in executions, and he can no longer call himself a man of God. He has come to Cairo, where a collector of antiquities, Semelier, offers him work: travel to a British excavation in the Derati valley in Kenya's Turkana region and recover a relic of a demon from a Byzantine church before the British find it. Merrin agrees, and Father Francis joins him. With their guide Chuma, Merrin meets the chief excavator Jefferies and the doctor Sarah Novak. Diggers are leaving because the local tribesmen believe the church is cursed. The church looks untouched, as if it were covered over as soon as it was finished, and inside, the angels' spears point downward.
Cast
- Eddie Oseias Emekwi
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Two weeks into production on the prequel, director Renny Harlin's leg was shattered when he was struck by a car, forcing a two-week hiatus; he shot six weeks on crutches.
- Exorcist: The Beginning was retooled from Paul Schrader's nearly completed Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, which Morgan Creek Productions executives feared would be unsuccessful, so they commissioned a version with more scares and gore.
- Editor Sheldon Kahn was brought in to re-cut Paul Schrader's film without his involvement; Schrader was "livid" and demanded Kahn leave, and in August 2003 the studio fired Schrader and scrapped his version entirely.
- Exorcist: The Beginning began with a $35 million budget under Paul Schrader, but reshoots and post-production ballooned the film's budget to over $90 million.
- Stellan Skarsgård and Billy Crawford were added to the cast of Exorcist: The Beginning when the film got its official title, with Skarsgård replacing Liam Neeson.
