Frankly, I was never a big fan of the original Exorcist, but horror movies have a right to be tacky. Good taste shouldn't cross your mind when you're opting for a little bit of blood spray. But it might be best not to watch while you eat. This film was a laugh more than it was scary, and I was never shocked by the religious or satanic elements of the movie. This film could never be as shocking the original, made in the '70s.

Exorcist: The Beginning is the fourth Exorcist movie and it's not up to the shivery original by William Peter Blatty and William Friedkin. Then again, what Exorcist sequel ever was? But right now, fans of The Exorcist will have to settle for this Beginning.

Father Merrin has renounced his Catholic faith and escaped his homeland, along with the horrific memories of World War II, setting up home in Cairo, Egypt, in 1949. He meets an antiques collector who wants Father Merrin to join an excavation in Kenya and recover the statue of a demon before the archeological team does.

Merrin soon discovers that this dig is no ordinary dig, because the excavation of an ancient Byzantine church is underway and an unspeakable force is driving mad the local community. The excavation site dates back to the 5th century, 1000 years before Christianity arrived in East Africa. The church is in practically perfect condition, as though it was buried as soon as it was built. And for good reason: Lucifer fell from the Heaven here and poisoned early Christianity with unspeakable evil.

On part of the site is the Trakana tribal village, whose residents fear the church, superstitious about what it contains. When Merrin enters the church he is immediately struck with the position of the icons and figures in the church. They all have cross pointing downward, as opposed to the traditional positions. We learn of a war between the two cultures, the discovery of dark tunnels beneath the church, and the apparent possession of one of the villagers. Can Father Merrin set this village to rights with his trusty book of rituals and rebuild faith?

Director Renny Harlin goes into visual overdrive in the first few minutes, spiced with upside-down crucifixes and bloody corpses on a 6th Century battlefield. And Harlin continues to pour on the gruesome tricks, decor and makeup as we watch Merrin wrestling with his own loss of faith and the satanic antics in a Byzantine church buried in that old battlefield.

The movie is a prequel to William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin in 1973. In The Exorcist, Merrin mentions a demon he once confronted in Africa, and The Beginning tells that story, explaining in the process how Merrin rebuilt his religious faith and restarted his career, exorcising demons from pre-teenage girls. Of course, the unprotected female always becomes the victim, turning a pure and simple beauty to an obscenity spewing ("Well, don't you wanna fuck me!"), almost comic thing, under the power of a most accomplished demon and a fallen angel, Lucif...well you know.