Watched the U.S.A.'s 2004 Exorcist: The Beginning (1:52:53). Lankester Merrin, an ex-priest, deploys himself to Derati, in Northwestern Kenya, to investigate a 1,500-year-old church that is being excavated. While exploring the church he discovers an underground passage leading to the ancient temple of Pazuzu, where human sacrifices were performed years ago.

An intelligent screenplay by Caleb Carr, an expensive production design, great cinematography, convincing special effects, and a cast of sensitive performers prevent this movie from being B-grade. Unfortunately things do happen, but mostly unexpectedly and largely by surprise (as opposed to suspense). The viewer is made to simply wait for strange occurrences without being able to participate in the mystery. The premise becomes clear only after more than half of the movie, before which it is difficult to tell what was going on. And, when an audience does not know what is going on, it becomes restless and bored. 

Like all 20th-century horror movies, this one resorts to the usual tricks of the trade: ugliness and gore, explorations at night rather than in the daytime, and cruelty to children and to animals. The casting of the doctor as a woman was a lame attempt to incorporate unnecessary romance-on-the-verge-of-sex and female nudity in the movie, most probably for commercial purposes. An all-male cast would have provided more tension and would have propelled the plot forward without frilled delays. In The Exorcist, of course, the female was Linda Blair, and I am now beginning to question why Pazuzu would prefer to possess females rather than males, since gods are typically chauvinist. There is also an attempt to render the screen in tones of brass and copper as was done in Louis Fletcher's The Exorcist: The Heretic.

In the end, the movie simply serves as an adequate prequel with logical continuity to The Exorcist via the graven image of Pazuzu. The imposition of Catholic rites on non-Catholic communities (to the Turkana in this movie and to the Mexicans in The Exorcist) nonetheless seems to indicate that exorcism is yet another instrument of religious imperialism. Indeed, when Catholics are unable to convert and control a community, their next step is always to exorcise them, which globalization has already made all too clear.