Stellan Skarsgård, James D’arcy,
Izabella Scorupco
Producer
:
James G. Robinson
Director
:
Renny Harlin
Genre
:
Horror
Duration
:
112 mins
While passing through Cairo during
a sabbatical from the priesthood following World
War II, Father Lankester Merrin (Stellan
Skarsgard) receives an offer from Semelier
(Ben Cross), a collector
of rare antiquities, to join a British archeological
excavation in the remote Turkana region of Kenya,
where a Christian Byzantine church has been unearthed.
Although Merrin has lost his religion (he
left the church after being forced by the Nazis
to commit atrocities against people of his parish),
the skilled archeologist accepts the mission out
of curiosity: The pristinely preserved church dates
back more than 1,000 years before Christianity even
reached the East African plain. Once there, Merrin
anxiously heads to the excavation sight and enters
the partially buried church to discover it has been
vandalized or so he thinks; a large wooden cross
has been broken and hung upside down. He also encounters
Dr. Sarah Novack (Izabella
Scorupco), who runs a local hospital and
informs the men that the last man in charge of the
excavation had gone mad and was now in a sanitarium
in Nairobi. The mystery thickens when a local boy,
Joseph (Remy Sweeney),
shows signs of satanic possession. The Turkana blame
the mysterious church for the unexplained supernatural
activity, including a woman's delivery of a Satan-like,
maggot-covered still born infant. Soon tension mounts
between the Turkana and the British troops stationed
there.
