A MAN POSSESSED PAUL SCHRADER ENJOYS ABSOLUTION AS HIS 'EXORCIST' PREQUEL SEES THE LIGHT OF DAY.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

``Star Wars: Episode III'' wasn't the only prequel to a '70s blockbuster opening this weekend.

``Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist'' arrives with little marketing or fanfare in a limited number of theaters. Still, its very appearance is an unprecedented movie event. It's the first time that what is essentially the same film made by a different director has been released by the same studio. The other prequel, ``Exorcist: The Beginning,'' came out last August.

And that's just the tip of the bizarreness.

``The story around the film has, in some ways, become bigger than the film itself,'' notes ``Dominion'' director Paul Schrader. ``Which is unfortunate. But it is a fascinating story, and an absolutely unique one in film history. It will be a talking point in film schools forever. And also, the easiest term paper: compare and contrast.''

The contrasts are striking. Schrader's version, the first one made, is a leisurely, intellectual meditation on the nature of evil and religious faith. ``The Beginning'' follows the same basic plotline but with much more emphasis on traditional horror movie shocks and gross-outs.

The different approaches reflect their directors' temperaments. Schrader was raised in a devout Calvinist community where he didn't even see anything as sinful as a movie growing up. Once he got the cinema bug, though, Schrader went on to become one of the most respected screenwriters of his generation, primarily for his smart integration of transcendent and profane elements in such Martin Scorsese films as ``Taxi Driver'' and ``Raging Bull.''

Schrader's own directing career has been less successful, though always interesting. Early films such as ``Hardcore'' and ``American Gigolo'' did OK, commercially and critically, but for more than two decades he's had to scramble to get independent financing for such interesting, if quixotic, works as ``Touch,'' ``Affliction'' and ``Auto Focus.''

``Beginning'' director Renny Harlin, on the other hand, is best-known as a headbanger action guy, whose work has suffered an evident decline from ``Die Hard 2'' through ``Cutthroat Island,'' ``Driven'' and the just-released bomb ``Mindhunters.''

The different versions came to pass when Morgan Creek Productions, the company that owns the ``Exorcist'' franchise, got a look at Schrader's prequel and deemed it too smart for the room ... and, worse, not scary enough. After several attempts by both Schrader and, after he was essentially fired, the production company itself to cut the film into a more marketable genre item, Morgan Creek's owner, James G. Robinson, decided to film the movie all over again with Harlin directing.

Both films tell the same basic story. Father Merrin, the elderly demon- dispatcher seen in William Friedkin's hit 1973 ``Exorcist,'' first encounters satanic spirit Pazuzu at an archaeological dig in late 1940s British East Africa. Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard plays the young Merrin in both films, and legendary Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro shot footage for both in Morocco and at Rome's Cinecitta Studios.

``In many cases, you see the same scenes,'' Schrader notes. ``With some of the same actors, same locations. Stellan gives two different performances. ... The feel of the two films is completely different.''

Ironically, Morgan Creek, which did not respond to comment requests for this article, had intended to make yet a different version of the film. Veteran director John Frankenheimer (``The Manchurian Candidate'') had been hired but became terminally ill during preproduction, and that's when Schrader was brought in.

``They were already in motion with this,'' Schrader says. ``They'd done some casting, scouted locations, did some production schedules, had a budget, script. The train had left the station, and that was appealing for someone who had spent years and years trying to get a film made.''

Of course, Schrader felt more like Casey Jones after it looked like Morgan Creek was going to shelve his film forever.

While admitting that he emphasized the more cerebral and spiritual aspects of the script (the credited screenwriters were ``Terminator 2's'' William Wisher and Caleb Carr, author of the best-selling novel ``The Alienist''), Schrader insists that ``Dominion's'' perceived commercial failings were not his fault.

``I'm not talking about the directing,'' Schrader says. ``I'm talking about the premise: It's about an afflicted boy getting well. That was in the script I was given. I emphasized certain themes. But when I finished the film and Jim thought it was not scary enough and told me to go back to the editing room and make it scarier, I told him there was no way to do that ...

``A horror premise is an innocent being tormented while the clock runs,'' Schrader continues. ``Here you have the afflicted person getting better. How do you expect to get horror machinery out of that? You've got a horror vehicle without an engine. And they kept trying to re-edit it to make it scarier, but they finally brought Renny in and changed the premise - the possession of a pretty young girl.''

Surprisingly, the more ``commercial'' version grossed about $42 million at the box office, about half of what it needed to to recoup its equivalent production costs and millions spent on promotion. Since he'd been fired, Schrader had suggested that someday, a double DVD release of both movies would turn a nice profit, and had stealthily encouraged a campaign through horror fan publications and Web sites to keep the idea percolating.

So some release of Schrader's version began looking financially attractive to Morgan Creek. To do that, though, the much re-edited film had to be returned to its original form. Big mistake.

``They didn't tell me they were doing this, but the editor they hired called me and said, 'Look, I've been hired to put together a version of your film and not tell you about it. I can't do that,' '' Schrader says. Armed with the knowledge that a cut of ``Dominion'' he could publicly declare wasn't his wouldn't sell very many copies, Schrader insisted that Morgan Creek let him finish it the way he wanted.

And so he did. Although he understands that ``Dominion'' isn't likely to shore up his minuscule bankability as a director, Schrader is nevertheless thrilled that the bigger part of his reputation has been salvaged.

``I can't really complain,'' he says. ``Now, this film is coming out and it's an enormous relief. It's like a millstone taken from my neck, because if you've made a $35 million film and it's thrown away, you can't convince anyone - not your wife, not your best friend - that it was any good. They just look at you like you're in some land of delusion.

``Now, people can see it. They can say whatever they want about it. But the millstone's off my neck.''

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(color) Paul Schrader, far right, director of ``Dominion,'' which had been shelved in favor of ``Exorcist: The Beginning''