After Paul Schrader was sheepishly ushered into the Warner Brothers screening room for an unprecedented personal appearance to introduce his new film, “Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist,” he said “I didn’t think this day would ever come.” He announced that he was “very happy with the film,” and welcomed us, with a smirk, to “Paul Schrader’s lesson in comparative film studies.”

What we would be comparing “Dominion” to was “Exorcist: The Beginning,” a movie directed from the same screenplay by Renny Harlin. The story of the two “Exorcist” prequels is by now well known. Mr. Schrader was by Morgan Creek Productions to direct a script by William Wisher and Caleb Carr, which told the back-story of Father Merrin, the priest who exorcised the demon in the original “Exorcist.” Working with a relatively low budget of $30 million, Mr. Schrader shot the material he was given, and turned in his picture.

On viewing the results, a Morgan Creek bigwig was unhappy with the film’s commercial prospects. In a move that shocked the industry, a rewrite of the original script was ordered, and Mr. Harlin was brought on board to re-shoot the movie from scratch. Much of the original cast signed on, including the star, Stellan Skarsgard, and huge amounts of tacky CGI were quickly processed.

Hysterical, inept, and kept away from the eyes of critics, the $50 million “Beginning” bombed. Poetic justice had been served, but the infamous original was left in limbo. No one imagined that a studio would throw away a $30 million movie, no matter how noncommercial, and rumors began to circulate that it would surely be released on DVD if nowhere else.

After screening it at the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film early this year, Morgan Creek, in association with Warner Brothers, has decided to give the film a limited release. Better late than never – much better, as it turns out. “Dominion” isn’t simply an improvement over Mr. Harlin’s film – that’s easy – but a tough, thoughtful, surprisingly elegant work of cinematic classicism.

As might be expected from the director of “Affliction,” writer of “Taxi Driver,” and author of “Transcendental Style in Film,” Mr. Schrader’s “Exorcist” prequel isn’t your average fright flick. In fact, it isn’t even remotely frightening, and thus could be judged a failure of the genre.

As an art film with horror tropes on the theme of spiritual struggle, however, “Dominion” succeeds as something far more rarified. Mr. Schrader is practicing mature, assured, contemplative American filmmaking. Clint Eastwood has lately been hailed as the last of the Hollywood classicists, but little in his oeuvre has the clarity and poise of Mr. Shrader’s beautifully modulated images.

The two versions of this tale tell very similar stories; they even include some of the same shots. Yet the differences are immediately apparent. Mr. Harlin begins with a gruesome, utterly superfluous tableau of bad CGI. Mr. Schrader begins with strong, honest storytelling. It is World War II and a Nazi commander has gathered the population of a Dutch village into a snowy courtyard. “God is not here today,” the Nazi declares, and orders Father Merrin to select 10 among them who will be killed.

The events of that afternoon will drive Father Merrin from the priesthood, and “Dominion” will be the story of his arduous reconciliation with God. We pick up his story several years later in British East Africa. Merrin has become an archaeologist and is investigating the enigmatic discovery of a Byzantine church in the middle of the desert. He is joined by the young Father Francis (Gabriel Mann), the local doctor (Clara Bellar), and a roving pack of demonic hyenas.

Exploration of the church, inexplicably uncovered in pristine condition, shows it to have been built on top of an ancient temple devoted to human sacrifice. Where traditional Christian architecture reaches for the heavens, this structure is designed to hold something down. Once penetrated, it begins to send out bad mojo: babies are born covered in maggots, a herd of cattle goes totally loco, a disfigured local boy (Billy Crawford as Cheche) makes an unnaturally rapid recovery.

The presence of a tense British military squadron complicates matters. As the spooky doings escalate, the locals grow agitated and violence threatens to erupt. “Dominion” stirs with intimations of a colonialism critique, but the theme is never elaborated. Mr. Schrader’s familiar obsessions with faith, guilt, and redemption take center stage as Merrin grapples with metaphysical dilemmas and the very real presence of an evil entity gaining power. “God let us choose between good and evil,” he muses. “I chose good. Evil happened.”

Mr. Shrader restricts his visual vocabulary to the absolute basics – establishing, medium, and close-up shots. In tandem with legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, he considers everything with patience and sensitivity. To see the difference between the two “Exorcist” prequels, you only need study their use of production design. Mr. Harlin’s spatially spastic eye focuses on where to stage his tawdry slasher-flick jolts; Mr. Schrader is sensitive to texture, volume, and layout as a fully coherent atmosphere for his characters to inhabit.

Formal qualities aside, “Dominion” isn’t without its shortcomings. The scattering of special effects aren’t especially sophisticated, though I was enraptured by the simple, low-fi color treatments in the apocalyptic weather that storms through the finale. The structure is glitchy, the pacing prone to listlessness, and the plot doesn’t quite parse. Like many a film maudit, “Dominion” demands you synch to its wavelength and forgive the rough edges.

But those who find themselves in sympathy with the method will be amply rewarded. Sometimes a single idea can make a movie interesting, and “Dominion” has more than one. The most compelling line I’ve heard in an American movie all year is Merrin’s notion of faith as something needed to survive evil, not conquer it. When the demon at last materializes, he doesn’t taunt Merrin with obscenities, but the altogether more terrible pride of Satan: “I am perfection.”

Far from perfect, “Dominion” is triumphantly personal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for swivel-headed upchucking demons. But Mr. Schrader’s idiosyncratic vision is a minor miracle.