Send this prequel back to hell

After wasting 114 minutes of my life with "Exorcist: The Beginning," I can only recommend that others not even bother watching it. Like the original "Exorcist"? It doesn't matter. Looking for a good lark to watch with your buddies over a few beers? Don't rent it. Watch "Blood Freak," "Basket Case" or something else with low production values and a high camp factor. \nMany would argue that "The Exorcist" series started to bury itself with the first sequel and these people would be right. "The Beginning," however, rockets the series in a whole new direction -- one where excessive horror clichés meet poor shock value and an incomprehensible plot.\nThe movie suffers from a variety of problems, ones that start with the opening credits and end with a strong urge to use the DVD as a Frisbee. Even the DVD menu is frustrating; in all their wisdom, the person who designed the menu decided to make each selection (centered around an inverted crucifixion scene) invisible until highlighted. Unfortunately, stumbling around the menu is infinitely more interesting than the film itself. The extras are weak too, as there is only commentary by director Renny Harlin and a behind-the-scenes featurette. \nAfter a baffling scene revolving around a massacre in medieval Africa, this "prequel" introduces us to a young Father Lankester Merrin (Stellan Skarsgård), a former-priest-turned-alcoholic-turned-the same character we've seen in every movie involving a man of God losing his faith. He is commissioned to find an artifact in a recently unearthed African church. His entire character is given away in the opening five minutes of dialogue, down to the "I will explain who you are to show my understanding of you" line from his mysterious employer.\nIt only gets worse from there.\nFor the next 45 minutes viewers are treated to a foul offspring of the new "Mummy" films and the "Tomb Raider" marketing machine with a little "Indiana Jones" thrown in for good measure. With a pedigree like that it can't strive to be much, but "The Beginning" really shows us how a movie's tradition can be ruined in under two hours.\nThe last 15 minutes are a bastardization of the original "Exorcist" reserved for only the worst of the worst. In that short amount of time, Harlin and the hack hired to write the film take the series' central character, the demon Pazuzu, and turn him into a one-liner-spouting, serial-killing tripe machine 10 times worse than the average camp counselor murderer. It's disturbing to see something so contorted. Part of the horror in "The Exorcist" came from the fact that the monster was chained down and still able to harm people. Apparently, Harlin thought setting the thing free to chase people down hallways and jump from behind corners would magnify the terror. He was wrong. Instead we get an antagonist so generic it's impossible not to laugh. \n"Exorcist: The Beginning" is what happens when unimaginative people with no eye for subtlety get in front of and behind cameras and decide to slap together a movie. It lacks even one redeeming quality and obviously only uses "The Exorcist" name to sell DVDs -- which is especially important since the film ran theatrically for about 18 minutes nationwide before people started burning down theaters. If you do end up seeing it, don't say I didn't warn you.