Synopsis

In 1947, former priest and archaeologist Lankester Merrin travels to Kenya to investigate a newly uncovered Byzantine church. The excavation awakens an ancient evil buried beneath the site, while violence, illness, and inexplicable deaths spread through the camp. As Merrin confronts the supernatural force, he must also face the wartime trauma that destroyed his faith and decide whether belief can be restored.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film is a prequel to The Exorcist (1973), taking place roughly 24 years before that story.

• The production began as Paul Schrader's Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. Morgan Creek Productions considered Schrader's completed version too psychological and insufficiently violent, then replaced it with a substantially rewritten and reshot production.

• Renny Harlin was brought in for the new version, with reports that nearly 90 percent of the finished film was reshot. Several characters and casting choices were changed during the process.

• Schrader's original version was eventually completed and released separately in 2005 as Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, giving the project an unusual legacy as two substantially different films built from the same production.

• The film was shot in Morocco and Italy, including locations in Casablanca and Rome's Cinecitta Studios.

• Stellan Skarsgard's Merrin is presented as a younger incarnation of the character previously played by Max von Sydow in The Exorcist.