Movies: Exorcist: The Beginning (Spoilers)

Plot: It's basically set before the original Exorcist, I believe. The plot kicks ass. It was a very well made story.

It's set in 1949, somewhere in Africa, I can't remember the exact country. The British have recently uncovered a church, and they want Mr. Merrin, an ex-priest who has become an archaeologist to go and investigate the dig. Once in Africa, Mr. Merrin meets some of the locals and the team working on the dig. The main characters, are Father Merrin, who I've already told you about, Sarah, who is the local doctor, Father Francis, who is their from the Vatican, and Joseph, a local boy.

Once in Africa, Mr. Merrin discovers that many mysterious events have been occurred. Many people have disappeared. The locals are afraid to enter the church, because thus far, everyone who has entered the church has died or gone insane. Mr. Merrin doesn't believe in any of this, and enters the church anyway. He discovers many strange things that you wouldn't expect to see in a church. He finds it interesting that a church could have been built that far south that long ago. He also claims that the church is older than Christianity itself.

The plot thickens when Mr. Merrin meets Joseph, a young local boy, who is hanging around the church, and innocently digging rocks. To encourage the boy, Mr. Merrin gives Joseph a tool which he says is a "professional archaeologist's tool." The boy heads off to do his own thing. In a little later scene, it shows the boy and his older brother inside something which reminds you of the beginning of a small cave. It's dark and rocky. Joseph's older brother has grabbed the tool that Mr. Merrin gave Joseph, and is holding it above his head, teasing Joseph. Joseph seems to be taking it as any other younger sibling would. He is getting slightly annoyed. All of a sudden heyenas show up. Joseph's face turns expressionless, as if it is possessed. Heyenas attack his older brother. They rip him apart. All this while, Joseph simply stands there, looking on at the massacre. Mr. Merrin and Father Francis discover what is happening. They try to save Joseph's older brother, but they fail. Once the heyenas drag off Joseph's brother, limb by limb, Joseph proceeds to retrieve his tool, which is still lying where the heyenas attacked his brother. Once Joseph gets the tool, he collapses. Father Francis and Mr. Merrin take him to Sarah's, where he is to be treated.

Once at Sarah's, Joseph remains in a semi-conscious state. Sarah tries to treat him, but she can find nothing medically wrong with him.

Meanwhile, Mr. Merrin finds out that the archaeologist who was working on this dig before him had mysteriously gone insane. He goes to a mental hospital, which is owned by another priest, where the archaeologist who had worked on the dig previous to himself currently resided, hoping to extract some information from the ex-archaeologist. He enters the room where the ex-archaeologist is staying, and the ex-archaologist seems delusional and possessed. He somehow knows Mr. Merrin's name, and refers to him as Father Merrin. The ex-archaeologist says the phrase "god is not here today, priest," a phrase which recurringly haunts Mr. Merrin's nightmares. After saying that phrase, the ex-archaeologist slits his own throat. He convulses and dies.

Mr. Merrin is stumped as to how the ex-archaeologist would know his name. When he is about to leave the hospital, the priest who owns the hospital approaches him and gives Mr. Merrin a book which contains some religious spells rituals which deal with exorcism. Mr. Merrin keeps the book, but basically disregards it.

All this time, Sarah is still trying to treat Joseph. He has violent seizures, which end up shaking the whole room many times. The locals start to believe he is possessed by the devil, or some other evil spirit, and decide to kill him. They enter sarah's house/office, hold sarah, and start performing some rituals over Josephs body. Just as they are about to kill him, the room starts shaking, a violent storm comes through, and the winds injure everybody in the room except Sarah, Joseph, and Joseph's father. The locals flee.

Mr. Merrin arrives home, and discovers somethings. Eventually, he too starts believing that Joseph is possessed. Mr. Merrin asks Father Francis to take Joseph to the mental institute where the priest had given him the book on exorcism, so the priest at the mental institute can perform the exorcism ritual on the boy. As soon as Father Francis begins to put Joseph in the car, a powerful sandstorm comes through. Mr. Merrin immediately knows that the evil spirit is trying to keep Joseph from leaving. Merrin aks Father Francis to take the boy to the church, because Mr. Merrin believes that the church is the only place the boy is safe. Father Francis takes off.

All this time, the locals are getting more and more restless. They believe that the white people are unleashing some sort of evil amongst their village because more and more of their people start dying. They become violent, and I believe Father Francis calls in the army to keep order.

After Father Francis takes off to take Joseph to the church, Merrin starts looking for Sarah. She should be in her home, but she's nowhere to be found. Her room is locked, so he kicks it open, and he finds it a mess. He discovers things thrown everywhere, and all over the walls he finds symbols of Lucifer. He finds a picture of Sarah and the archaeologist who worked on this dig before him. He concludes that the archaologist was Sarah's husband, and that they entered the cursed church together. The archaeologist was driven insane, and Sarah was possessed, not Joseph.

Meanwhile, Father Francis had gotten to the church and gone inside. He started performing the exorcism rituals on Joseph. He had no clue that Joseph wasn't possessed. Sarah sneaks up behind him and kills him.

During all this, the army and the locals are fighting. Something has come over them, and they are killing everyone in sight, friend or foe.

Mr. Merrin arrives at the church and finds Father Francis dead. He picks up Father Francis' religious items, and proceeds to find that Sarah has turned into a hideous she-devil, and that Joseph is being held hostage by her. She refuses to let Joseph go. At this time, Mr. Merrin becomes the ultimate paladin. He and this possessed Sarah fight. I'm not going to go into details of the fight, excpet that it was scary. He eventually comes out victorious, and releases the evil spirit from Sarah's body. Sarah seems to be okay, but a few seconds after the evil spirit was expelled from her body, she starts bleeding profusely from her head and dies. Mr. Merrin and Joseph exit the church to find out everyone around them was dead from the fighting except himself and Joseph.

He goes back to the person who had asked him to investigate the church in the first place and says that he didn't find what that person was looking for. When this guy thanks Merrin, he addresses him as Mr. Merrin. Merrin proclaims that he is no longer Mr. Merrin, but once again Father Merrin.

Dramatization: They have done a really good job of this. The whole story is dramatic, but not too dramatic. Almost the perfect mix. As you can tell by the plot, it is definitely dramatized.

Suspense: Oh yea. It's definitely there. The whole movie, you're on edge. You're sitting their thinking, "What the hell is going to happen next?" I jumped up a couple of times, and many of the girls sitting next to me were grabbing onto their boyfriends and screaming their lungs out, which was probably the worst part of the movie. I loved the movie, but dear god, try to get in with a more mature crowd than I got in with. It was still fun, though. Don't see the movie if you have heart problems.

Acting: Superb. Flawless. You couldn't ask for better acting. The actors each played their parts exceptionally, even the kid, which is usually rare. You could believe that all that stuff was happening. You could almost feel what the characters were feeling, and half the time you felt like just saying, "Don't do that."

Overall: 9.5/10

Many people seem to not have liked this movie too much. Fuck them. This movie was pretty awesome. Check this movie out when, and if you get the chance.