Schrader's Exorcist Vs. Harlin's Exorcist

I finally restarted my membership with Netflix after having been away from it for months. I got on their $9.99 a month deal where I get 1 movie at a time, but it is unlimited in how many movies I can rent in a month.

The first movie I rented after restartign wih Netflix was "Exorcist: The Beginning," which I have been meaning to watch for ages now that I have seen "Dominion."

Having seen both versions of the same movie, I can tell you several things: Neither version can hold a candle to the original, which itself was a one of a kind movie. Neither version is a great movie, and both suffer from cheap special effects that stick out in a very laughable way. Both versions may have fared better if "Exorcist" was not in the title.

But when it comes down to it, Paul Schrader's version is infinitely better and more interesting. Renny Harlin's version is obviously more along the lines of what the audience would expect, but it's not particularly compelling. It's full of cheap scares and a lot of noise, and it doesn't have any of the depth that Schrader's version had. Watching both movies, you can see the studio heads at work, how they think, and how they are afraid of how the audience will perceive what they ended up deciding to produce and release.

Harlin considers the original Exorcist to be the greatest horror movie ever made, and he said he wanted to pay homage to it. He failed. What happened to him anyway? He was once upon a time a terrific action director, and now he's basically a hack director, a hired man. This is the same guy who made "Die Hard 2" and "Deep Blue Sea" among other movies. Ever since he started making movies with his ex-wife, Geena Davis, everything has been downhill. Except for "Deep Blue Sea."