Father Lankester Merrin thinks that he has glimpsed the face of Evil. In the years following World War II, Merrin is relentlessly haunted by memories of the unspeakable brutality perpetrated against the innocent people of his parish during the War. In the wake of all the horror he has seen, both his faith in his fellow man and his faith in the Almighty have deserted him, and he can no longer honestly call himself a man of God. Merrin has traveled far from his native Holland in a desperate attempt to try to forget and escape all the evil that he had witnessed there. While currently in Cairo, Egypt, he is approached by a collector of rare antiquities and asked to participate in a British archeological excavation in the remote Turkana region of Kenya. They have unearthed something extraordinary and unusual…a Christian Byzantine church dating from the 5th century, long before Christianity arrived in East Africa, and in inexplicably perfect condition–like it had been buried immediately after it was completed. The collector wants Merrin, an Oxford-educated archeologist, to find an ancient relic hidden within the church before the British do. Interested, Merrin agrees to take the job. But beneath the church, something much older and malevolent sleeps, waiting to be awoken. When the archeologists start excavating, strange things begin occuring, and the local Turkana tribesmen who were hired to work refuse to enter the site. Things only get worse and worse, ultimately resulting in madness and death. Merrin watches helplessly as the atrocities of war are repeated against another innocent village–atrocities he had hoped and prayed never to see again. The blood of innocents flows freely on the East African plain, but the horror has only just begun. In the place where Evil was born, Merrin will finally see its true face.

Exorcist, The Beginning is an exceptional movie. It begins with a powerful scene of a battered 4th century priest walking through, and then finally viewing the massacre of a Christian army. Jump forward to 1949, the plot slows down for Merrin’s backstory and Sarah’s frustration with treating the mysterious illnesses that plague the village. These elements wove themselves into a great plot as history repeated itself in a gory and brutal fashion.

As the battle between the tribesmen and the British began, the ultimate battle between good and evil began in the bowels of the old church. While Sarah’s head didn’t spin around, her demon counterpart was just as terrifying and obscene as the 1973 classic. The cinematography was very good, as was the acting. Highly recommended.