WHEN Father Merrin, the reluctant hero of "Exorcist: The Beginning," begins proclaiming, "Lord, have mercy on them" over and over, it's likely that audiences of this stillborn prequel will feel that he is addressing them personally.

This movie's infamous production history - the first director (John Frankenheimer) died during pre-production, the second director (Paul Schrader) was fired, and a third (Renny Harlin) was brought in to reshoot the whole shebang - makes a far more gripping yarn that anything that transpires on screen in this slow, unscary and silly would-be-shocker.

Three writers, including novelist Caleb Carr ("The Alienist"), share credit - or blame - for the barely coherent story, in which we meet up with exorcist-to-be Lankester Merrin (Stellan Skarsgard playing the role originated by Max Von Sydow in the 1973 classic) in 1949 Cairo.

Merrin, who has renounced the cloth because he was forced by the Nazis to single out resistance fighters for execution in World War II Holland, is working as an archeologist.

He accepts a commission to steal a relic from a completely intact, 1,500-year-old Byzantine church that the British are excavating in a remote region of Kenya.



When he arrives, strange - but not particularly fascinating or scary - things start happening.

Blood turns up everywhere, unconvincing-looking, computer-generated hyenas tear apart a child, a baby is born covered in maggots, and British troops are being called in to put down the rebellious natives.

Even more scary, a Holocaust-survivor nurse (Izabella Scorupco), with whom Merrin has a brief fling, applies a flesh-colored Band-Aid - in 1949! - to an apparently possessed native boy (Remy Sweeney).

Still, Merrin insists, "If you need someone to perform an exorcism, I'm not your man."

We know he's not going to stick with this line, but when Merrin finally steps in for a fallen priest (James D'Arcy) and begins an exorcism on a ridiculous Regan clone during the last 20 minutes, the scene was greeted with gales of laughter at a preview screening last night.

Surely, this was not the intended effect.

The acting is serviceable at best, the direction unfocused - and the special effects and makeup cheesy-looking.

This is surely the most dreary-looking film ever shot by the great Vittorio Storaro ("Apocalypse Now").

While there is no shortage of groaners - "Sometimes I think the best view of God is from Hell" springs immediately to mind - "Exorcist: The Beginning" in the end is merely very bad, not epically awful like John Boorman's "Exorcist II: The Heretic" or Harlin's "Cutthroat Island."

The producer has threatened to release Schrader's cut of the movie this fall.

Lord have mercy indeed.