There are, I am sure, less appealing things in the world than another Exorcist sequel, but it's hard to think of any. It is certainly impossible to conceive of any need for two Exorcist sequels telling the same story within a year of each other, but the devil works in mysterious ways and this is indeed what came to pass in 2004. Apropos of the 30th anniversary re-release of the original film in 2003, and flying in the face of rationality, Warner Bros avariciously decided that what the world needed was another cynically produced and artistically bankrupt installment to a franchise that had never needed one sequel, never mind three.

Exorcist II: The Heretic, released in 1977, remains notorious for its status as one of the worst sequels ever made, so much so that it was openly laughed at and jeered upon its premiere. To be fair, no one apart from Linda Blair involved with the original film had anything to do with it, but it must be said that 1990's Exorcist III, directed by author William Peter Blatty, went some way to erasing the damage, being a highly effective and slow-burning suspense picture. As good as it was though, it doesn't change the fact that it was still just an unneeded sequel, and in a world without major studios run by hard-eyed executives possessing brains no larger than a grape, the whole thing would have ended there.

Unfortunately that is not the world we live in. Looking at the cinema listings I note there are two utterly senseless re-makes stinking up the multiplexes this week, in the form of Poseidon and The Omen, neither of which I need to watch to know that they are cinematic bilge. Similarly, when the go-ahead was announced for Exorcist IV, there can't have been anyone who truly believed it would be a worthwhile endeavor, despite the presence of Taxi Driver scribe Paul Schrader at the helm.

The project's tumultuous production history came to a head when Schrader handed in his completed film and was promptly fired for delivering a film that "wasn't gory enough". He was duly replaced by hack extraordinaire Renny Harlin, the man responsible for such cinematic landmarks as Nightmare On Elm Street Part 4, Deep Blue Sea and Cutthroat Island, who proceeded to re-shoot most of the film according to his own singular artistic vision (Schrader's version would eventually be released as Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist, which is a lot better than this, but still not much cop).

All of which merely confirmed suspicions that the film to be released would be lowest common-denominator wank of the truly satanic kind, and so it proved. If nothing else, the existence of this film achieves what once seemed impossible: That Exorcist II now has competition for the title of worst Exorcist sequel. As bad as that film is, it is still, remarkably, better than this one by a country mile thanks to its cinematography and evidence of at least some creative ideas, even if those ideas ultimately failed.

This is quite simply one of the most uninspired, incompetently handled and insultingly stupid films ever conceived, one which represents everything that is wrong with Hollywood's contemptible attitude towards the paying public. It is a film which, literally, could not possibly be any worse. It stinks of suited executives of minimal cognitive function sitting in boardrooms trying to cook up a blockbuster, and those responsible for releasing the finished result should be barred from ever coming within 10 miles of a movie set again.

As it is now a legal requirement that 50% of all films released these days be "prequels", the story takes us back to Father Lankester Merrin's younger days following World War II, where we find him boozing in Egyptian bars with a face like a squashed cushion, having lost his faith following the Nazi atrocities he witnessed during the war. As a respected archaeologist, he is called upon by some stereotypically chinless and cheerfully racist British military toffs to help investigate a recently unearthed church in Kenya, which was for some reason buried hundreds of years ago as soon as it was built. Merrin is somehow persuaded by their declaration that inside the church may lurk "a representation of an ancient demon", intoned with hilarious menace. Accompanied by young Father Francis (James D'Arcy), who may know more than he's letting on, he has a poke around the place and finds vandalised statues of Christ and that general air of evil you tend to get in generic horror movie churches.

As well as an immense nearby graveyard, other alarm bells start to ring in Merrin's head, such as when he finds out the previous chief archaeologist went insane after entering the church, and the fact that the local tribe are getting extremely jittery and would like the site left alone. Aided by comely doctor Sarah (Izabella Scorupco) and a local guide who appears to have the unfortunate name of Tumour (Andrew French), Merrin begins to uncover the secret of the church's existence. Which is (if you haven't worked it out and in which case I would suggest you require professional help) that it was built to contain that pesky demon Pazuzu, the possessor of young Linda Blair in the original movie. There's some daft red-herring guff involving two possibly possessed brothers, and the British soldiers act like the villainous imperialistic buffoons that Hollywood demands, and eventually the film ends, leaving you semi-conscious and dribbling on the couch through marked brain-cell deterioration.

This is a film that dies on its numerous arses in an almost superhuman number of ways. It fails to deliver in every department, from the jaw-droppingly awful dialogue ("Men won't enter the church because..it's cursed!") to the most un-special effects you're ever likely to see. In particular, this film is a strong contender for containing the worst CGI in existence. There is in one sequence an attack from a group of hyenas, which are rendered in a marginally less realistic fashion than Wile E. Coyote from Road Runner. Any attempt at threat and menace is instantly dissipated by the sheer ineptitude and will-this-do? quality of the beasts, and elsewhere the CG landscapes are overly glossy, like the hyper-real recreations of Rome in Gladiator. How is it that ten years after Jurassic Park this technology can have regressed so much?

The film also shoots itself in the foot by stuffing in numerous visual allusions to the orginal Exorcist, none of which do anything to improve on this soul-destroyingly crap affair, and in fact just remind the viewer how good the original was in comparison to this. Merrin wanders through a dusty desert town populated by muslims with eye deformaties, ironmongers banging away and butchers hard at work. The dig site itself is an almost exact replica of the original's opening Iraqi scenes. There's no point to any of this, merely a desperate attempt to elicit memories of a film which, although it is a tad overrated, p!sses on this from miles above.

The film is packed to bursting point with cliches and they come thick and fast: There's the aforementioned haunted church, the slightly sinister locals, a child tied to a shaking bed, crows squawking, drafty passageways, windows flying open with sudden gusts of wind, Merrin wanders into a moonlit graveyard wielding a spade, Merrin visits a sanitarium full of cackling nutters, Merrin re-discovers his faith as a holy-sounding choir seeps out etc etc.

It also liberally thieves from various other movie sources, featuring as it does the clock from The Evil Dead and the monkey from Raiders Of The Lost Ark, who must surely have fired his agent after this. And with Hollywood wielding the whip at Harlin's backside there is of course a crap romantic sub-plot which finds Merrin staring at Sarah's cleavage and coming out with the immortal pick-up line, "I wanted to work with something I could touch with my hands." Down, boy.

Skarsgard is, to be fair, not bad, though I doubt his constant look of weary despair is part of his performance. He is otherwise a damned good actor, which makes it such a shame that this is now on his CV. Alan Ford (who you'll recognise as Brick-Top from Snatch) also makes a wonderfully unpleasant sleazeball, and meets a suitably gruesome fate. But they couldn't ever hope to save such a mess, particularly considering the last 15 minutes, which is possibly the worst stretch of celluloid in human history. In a barrage of rotten effects and a poor imitation of Linda Blair's original make-up, Skarsgard is reduced to firing off, ray-gun style, blasts of biblical commands at the demon, wielding his holy power like He-Man's sword. The power of the demon, mostly psychological and implied in the original film (bar the odd head-spinning moment) is here represented by Spiderman-esque acrobatic leaps and it would be hilarious were it not so depressing. The end product confirms to me what I've long suspected: I don't know much, but I'm more intelligent than the people responsible for writing and approving this.

Forgive me father, for I watched this film. Don't make the same mistake.


Related: Exorcist II: The Heretic, movie review


(NB: Apologies for the unforgivable lapse in contributions. My life is simply not my own these days.)


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age