While the William Wisher and Caleb Carr story line and character motivations are easier to follow, the Schrader variation is awfully dull, with scant evidence of the sort of things that make horror movies attractive -- like mounting suspense and spine-tingling creepiness and, oh yeah, the element of horror. Instead Schrader, who took on the production after original director John Frankenheimer fell ill, serves up a discourse on that ages-old battle between God and the devil over the human soul with all the sustained tension of a Discovery Channel program. Trading his collar for a sturdy pair of boots, Merrin has been working as an archaeologist in British East Africa, where he has unearthed an ancient Byzantine church that has been preserved in its entirety.

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