Casting Out The Demons

Paul Schrader's had something of a rough time recently. Forcibly ousted from Exorcist: The Beginning amid a pall of recrimination and more than a little mud-slinging, Schrader has had to watch every frame of his footage excised from the film after being replaced by director Renny Harlin. However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Appearing at the last Orange Word screenwriter's talk, Schrader revealed that the distributor is legally obliged to show his cut at a preview screening (sure to draw film critics in unprecedented droves) and he is currently in negotiations to assure an eventual DVD release of his film. Exorcist: The Beginning is something of an oddity, having been totally recreated rather than simply re-edited. Few of the first version's primary cast have remained for round two (two out of choice and one due to scheduling conflicts) and Harlin's re-written version is reportedly a very different animal to Schrader's original take, which eschewed outright horror for a historical character study of Father Merrin during and after WWII. The end result is a pair of $35 million pictures with the same lead actor and based on the same premise, "It's like a film school exercise," mused Schrader.