What about the special effects? What's up with that game? Stellan said that there was CGI in the film, but thankfully there was also some "effects" shot on the spot. For example, the Devil in the film is played by a man, not a computer effect...THANK YOU!! That's good news to my pointy ass! His last thoughts in regards to his character were that the man is full of guilt and has lost his faith. A young priest (Gabriel Mann) and a cute gal (Clara Bellar) help him to get his "ju-ju" back in time for him to duke it out with Belzebubba in the ring that we call life. Give him a good sucker-punch from me, Stellan! This drink is on you! NOTE: I need a smoke now.

Clara Bellar (Rachel)
"Glorious smile and hat"

(Clara Bellar has acted in "A.I." and "The First 9 1/2 Weeks" among other films)

When asked if she was the “love interest” in the picture, she replied that if the Merrin character wouldn't have been a man of the cloth, she would have been. This for me suggested that there may be some sexual tension between her and Merrin throughout the picture. If they're smart about it, there should be. Capitalize on the situation, yo! When asked about the first "When asked if she was the “love interest” in the picture, she replied that if the Merrin character wouldn't have been a man of the cloth, she would have been. This for me suggested that there may be some sexual tension between her and Merrin throughout the picture. If they're smart about it, there should be. Capitalize on the situation, yo! When asked about the first "Exorcist", she told us that she first saw the film when she was 12 with a group of girlfriends. They initially all watched a porno (okay...) and for her that was the real horror (must of been a Ron Jeremy offering). After the skin flick, they all watched "Exorcist" at 5 in the morning and of course, all got mucho spooked. Did working on a horror film day-in, day-out follow her home some nights? Bellar said that she did have lots of bad dreams when she hit the sheets after certain days of shooting. What those dreams were...only she knows. Maybe they were about Stellan wearing a dress,  high heels and drinking JD....

Lastly, she confessed to loving to work with Paul Schrader because he was an actor's director who trusted his players and gave them lots of room to breathe in their performances. She liked Schrader's experimental attitude towards directing his actors as well. Her last comments in regards to the film were: "It has a lot of depth and will challenge us as an audience."  I for one can't wait to be put through that ringer. I need a challenge! NOTE: Clara FEDEX me that hat...NOW! ;)

Antonie Kamerling (Kessel)
"The definition of a kool duder"


(Antonie Kamerling has acted in "The Runner", the upcoming Renny Harlin flick "Mindhunters", among others)

What I liked about Antonie Karmeling was his happy-go-lucky vibe. He was extremely sociable and came across as the type of guy that you definitely want to go "chick-hunting" with. He must pick up like a champ on the scene! He spent a lot time hanging with us at the craft table and I for one, found it a bit odd to be sipping juice with a Nazi in full gear standing right next to me. I kept waiting for that bullet to hit my melon. One thing I picked up on is that he craves to be a star (who doesn't?), which I could totally sense...hardcore. He wore that on his sleeve and I respected that.

The man is somewhat famous in his native Holland for his soap opera work, but this was his first "big" breakout on the American market playing the Nazi "baddie" in this flick. In regards to his role, Kamerling said that during rehearsal he played the "bad guy" thing to a hilt because it was so much fun to act up. But once shooting began, both he and Schrader decided that it would be more interesting if the “villain” acted as a layered human being that didn’t think he was the villain. They actually cut a line out of the script to retain that feel. Originally Karmeling's character of Kessell asked an innocent on whom he had a gun pointed, if he had kids. The innocent answered "yes" and Kessell blew his head off. That little exchange, deemed unnecessarily "mean", was snipped out to keep the character multi-dimensional. Good move!

I asked him if it was exhausting to tap into "hate" all day for the part. I mean, the guy is after all...a murderous Nazi. He answered that as a human being, he has hate in him too, so it wasn't so exhausting to plug into that. He added that researching the various emotions that the role asked of him was the exhausting angle and not the "hate" in particular. Karmeling's approach to the role was that he believed he was right in his actions and that the others were wrong. He had to believe that he was the good guy! That's actually one thing that was tossed my way through a lot of my many conversations with the cast and crew during this visit: the characters are very layered in the film; no good guys or bad guys, they all have a little bit of both in them. You know, a lot like REAL people? I'm hip to that! Thanks for the kool pic Antonie (we put on "mean" faces on purpose, btw) and keep kicking that "acting" ass!

Griet Van Damme (teenage Dutch girl)
"Should join me for a latte"


(Griet Van Damme has acted in numerous stage plays)

Although Griet has a small role in this movie (more akin to an extra than a role, I think), from what I’ve heard, it's still quite pivotal in regards to the big picture of it all. I'm being honest when I say that I was first drawn to miss Van Damme (no relation to that Karate dude) because of her incredible positive aura and her charming looks. Yup, I had a small "thing" for her...I am after all a man who constantly has the quest of finding his "ideal' mate in the back of his mind. After talking with her a bit, I found out that Griet is originally from Belgium, but doesn't speak a word of French (damn, I couldn't play that card on her; I speak French!). Her acting background is mostly on "stage" and she seemed very excited to be part of this production. I'm always charmed by actors who have yet to be jaded by stardom or "over-work". When you can read the excitement in their eyes, the gratefulness to be on set, it's pretty magical. Now in regards to her role, I don’t want to give away any plot turns, but will say this: her character is relatively connected to Father Merrin's "downfall" and she told me that she comes back later on in the film through dream sequences. Do we see her? Just hear her? That remains to be seen. I do strongly feel that  she should call me though, I really think it would be a great move on her part....think " latte" Griet, "latte", "latte", "latte"...
                                          

Ilario Bisi-Pedro (Turkana chief-, Sebituana)
"Passionate actor!"

(Ilario Bisi-Pedrorained has acted in "Dogs of War", "Dr. Who", among other films)

When stage-trained actor Ilario Bisi-Pedro sat down for a little chat with us, much like Griet, I couldn't help but be swayed by the man's enthusiasm and giddiness over working on this project. He was one HAPPY CAMPER and that made me a HAPPY CAMPER for him! Illario plays a Tukany chief in the film and let's just say that his character and his on-screen wife...receive a nice little surprise from Satan. Vague enough? I hope so. Illario went on to highly praise director Paul Schrader (the man is universally loved on this set), saying how he had never worked with a director that was so cool under pressure. Facing a sandstorm? The man was cool as ice. Shepherding over 150 extras for a particular scene? The man remained coolio. Ilario was flabbergasted by Schrader's "coolness" and described him as a truly "unique" individual. When asked to perform a piece of "Tukani" dialogue (he had to learn the dialect for the role) for our listening pleasure, Ilario got right into it, spat out some dialogue in "Tukani" with lots of passion backing it up. I was very impressed and almost got some popcorn, grabbed a seat on the ground in the hopes that he would continue for an hour and a half or so. Alas, he cut his speech short and the popcorn machine was broken...or so I heard. Thanks for the show Illario! Can't wait to see ya doing your thing in the film!

PAUL SCHRADER
THE "ACE" IN THE DECK

And the big moment finally arrived. For me, it was quite an honor to meet Paul "hip beret wearing" Schrader. The man has written some badass screenplays such as "Taxi Driver" and "Last Temptation of Christ" and directed jewels such as "American Gigolo" and "The Affliction" and in my opinion, was the main reason why "Exorcist: The Beginning" might wind up sucker-punching us all and turning out to be an AWESOME film. The man is tal-en-ted!! Now whether I'm right remains to be seen, but until then, let's check out what he had to say in regards to the film itself. We actually met with Mr. Schrader twice. Once, he took a break from shooting the Dutch Village scene to offer up some quick info and a second lengthier sit-down with the "Kool Cat" later on. Paul was in good spirits, sported an endearing sense of humor and gave us lots of info. He actually gave away the whole ending of the film (which sucks for me) but don't worry...I snipped it out of this report (I don't want to spoil it for anyone else). I broke down the more important things that Paul gave us for your reading pleasure below:

Let's play a game that I like to call: PAUL SAID

THE SETTING: Paul said that the film takes place in Kenya in the Turkana region (it was really shot in Morocco).

THE FATHER MERRIN CHARACTER: Paul said that Father Merrin loses his faith because of the "event" that goes down in the Dutch village in 1944. Merrin then heads to Africa as an archaeologist, hoping to forget the ordeal. Once in Africa (in 1947), he discovers a church that sets him back on the path to religion.

MERRIN'S FAITH: Paul said that finding the church is not what makes Father Merrin regain his faith, but finding  the devil...is. If the devil exists, then God exists. Good point, I bought it!

ON SKARSGARD: Paul said that he feels lucky to have the best Swedish actor of this generation playing a role that was created by the best Swedish actor (Max von Sydow) of his father's generation.

THE ORIGINAL EXORCIST: Schrader admits that you can't top the original "Exorcist", so he's basically just trying to do a film that can stand on its own. A film that will be worthy of its predecessor while staying away from the key ingredients that made the first one what it is (rotating heads, pea soup) to avoid comparison. He's doing something new that plays the "exorcism" game in its own unique way. He capped that off by saying that at the end of the day, he's really making four films rolled into one: 1) Father Merrin and the Secret of the Lost Church, 2) a John Ford/British outpost type of movie with the Turkanas standing in for the Indians, 3) an exorcist movie, 4) an introspective journey having to do with Farther Merrin's soul. Paul admitted that the latter was the most interesting aspect of the film to him. That's good news for me because it's also the aspect that I'm most fascinated with. I love character studies.

THE OTHER SEQUELS: Paul said that he watched the two Exorcist sequels before the shoot and that he had them in mind when shooting this prequel. But since he's doing a prequel, he obviously doesn't have to deal with the baggage that the other sequels would bring to a "regular" sequel. Merrin, at this point, doesn't even know where Georgetown is! So all he had to deal with was a particular line (referring to Satan) that Father Merrin said to Father Karras in the first Exorcist: "He's a deceiver." With a light laugh, Paul said that was easy to display so he basically had free reign on the rest of the story...which is the WHOLE film.

OTHER POSSESSION FILMS: Paul said that he also took a peek at the recent spat of "possession" films such as "Stigmata" and "Lost Souls" (both of which were box office duds) to see what wasn't working. In his opinion, those films didn't trust their story and characters and tossed a lot of "flash" our way instead. He opted to do the opposite.

M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN: Paul said that this prequel isn't a "creature feature" and went on to thank M. Night Shyamalan ("The 6th Sense", "Signs") who has come along to make low-key scares via character building, trendy again. He's hip to that throwback to "Hitchcock" kind of approach. Shyamalan's success was a big gun in helping Schrader convince "the suits" that in order to make money off the film, they should have character identification throughout and eventually "truly" scare the audience.

IS THIS FILM ABOUT THE EXORCIST MENTIONED IN THE FIRST ONE?: Paul said that "no, it wasn't", that this was a whole different exorcist. The one mentioned in the original went on for months, this one doesn't. A little note on that: during a previous talk, producer Wayne Morris told us that this prequel was, in fact, about the specific "exorcist" talked about in the original "Exorcist". My take on this clash of information is that I'll go with the guy who's actually in charge of telling the story (i.e. Schrader) over Mr. Morris.

WHY HE TOOK ON THE FILM: Paul said this is his first "studio film" and genre film since "Cat People". When he was approached with it, he saw it as a good opportunity to go back and play in the big ball park. Although his "niche" is mostly in depth character studies, Paul said that he'll find that movie within this movie. 

WHAT WAS KEPT FROM FRANKENHEIMER'S PRE-PROD: Paul said that he kept cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who he said it was an honor and privilege to work with, and that they used the same location in Morocco that was chosen during Frankenheimer's reign. On the flipside, when Schrader came in, the production designs went out, half the cast went out and the costumes went out.

THE SCRIPT RE-WRITES: Paul took out some lines in the initially very dialogue-driven third act of the script. He said that he looked at the script and felt like he could really kick it up to another level. The third act was, at first, a long exchange between Merrin and the Devil. Paul joked that he felt like he was back in his Catholic School sophomore dorm when he read it, you know talking about the origins of good and evil. He didn't see how 6 pages of theological "talk" could be interesting on screen (I agree). So he dimmed that out and that was the major re-write he did on the script.

PAUL'S CATHOLIC UPBRINGING AND THE FILM: Paul said that he was raised to believe in a real Satan and a real hell. He doesn't believe in the physical reality of those things anymore, but he still believes in their powers as metaphors and understands why they often come into play when it comes to human psychology and spirituality. At school, his minor was theology. When asked if his schooling informed the film, Paul said "It informs me and that informs the film". NOTE: Paul was raised very strict and saw his first film when he was 17. What that film was? I forgot to ask...damn!

WHAT IS HE GOING FOR WITH THE FILM: Paul said that in the first "Exorcist", they had God and Satan fighting over the corporal body of a 13-year old girl. He doesn't have that metaphor in this prequel, so he had to pull a few other tricks and flip the formula around. Now I know what the third act of the film is, but I can't let it out of the bag. Having said that, trust me when I say, that the "flip" in formula works like a charm. In my humble opinion, it gives the film quite a novel twist. That's that.

VISUAL EFFECTS IN THE FILM: Paul said that the were aiming for what William Friedkin did with the original in terms of visual effects: floor effects. He went on to say that "If you can see it, we can make it happen. I don’t have any scenes where you follow a drop of holy water traveling across the room, I don’t have any scenes you can't see or that couldn’t happen in front of your eyes". Having said that, he confessed that there would be over 200 CGI shots in the film, but followed that up with "but it's part of filmmaking now". He then gave us a great example: "You’re doing a pan across Morocco and your trucks are in the pan; it's cheaper to take them out afterwards, then to move the trucks".

HIS KNOWLEDGE OF CGI EFFECTS: When asked if he was up to speed with today's world of special effects, Paul said: "It's hard to be up to speed because the ground moves faster than you could run".

BLATTY AND FRIEDKIN: Paul said that he never met William Peter Blatty (writer of "The Exorcist" and "Exorcist III: The Legion") and that he might have met William Friedkin (director of the original) in L.A., but that he wasn't sure. He doesn't think that there's anything that needs to be discussed in regards to them and this prequel. He went on to say that in Blatty's introduction of the 25th anniversary edition of "The Exorcist" , he stated that the reason "Exorcist II: The Heretic" (the first sequel) failed was because John Boorman (the director) was a protestant and that only a Catholic or a Jew could do it right. Paul commented on that statement with a smile: "A Jew because the first one had been a success and having gone on record that a protestant couldn’t do it, I don’t know what other good advice Blatty could give me".

ANY BIG BUDGET FRUSTRATIONS: Being that Paul usually deals with smaller, more intimate films, he said that he surprisingly  hasn’t felt much frustrations tackling this big budget. He actually found it interesting to have all these big guns at his disposal during the shoot (2 cameras every day, 2 steady cams every day...) He went on to say that with this film he's doing young adult fiction like "Raiders of the Lost Ark", he finds them cool and fun to watch, but they're not really what he usually does as a director and nobody would normally think of hiring him to do something like this. So he's making a movie he wouldn’t normally make. He also jokingly said that he sometimes looks in the mirror and says "Who’s there?"

NODS TO THE FIRST ONE: Paul admits that the "Satan" icon in this film was a variation on the "Pazuzu" statue found in Iraq and subsequently used in the Exorcist films. He also took some of the demon faces from the original and incorporated them into this prequel. For example, in this prequel Father Merrin sees a demon face in the statue of St. Michaels during a dream sequence.

-----------------------------

And that's that for Mr. Paul Schrader. It was a huge honor for me to meet the man and as a veteran of the film biz, if anybody can make this prequel work...it's him! Through writing this report, I am getting even more and more pumped for this sequel/prequel. We need more mature horror films slapped our way. We get too much genre fluff nowadays, aimed at kids with low attention spans. I'm a grown man! CHALLENGE ME! KICK MY HEAD IN! Hopefully "Exorcist: The Beginning" will succeed in all that it aims to be. If it does, it should be the shite!

But the set visit is not over yet:

Coming soon: Interview with screenwriter Caleb Carr, more on-set pictures, Rome pictures, etc...

SET REPORT PART: 1  2  3

Crawl back to the The Arrow in the Head Homestead...