Ralph Sarchie is a New York detective investigating a case of attempted murder, in which a woman threw her newborn son into the lions' enclosure at the zoo, causing the child a skull fracture. At the same time, the detective manages to thwart an episode of domestic violence by a man against his wife. Additionally, a Latin American family contacts the police because they say there is something strange in their basement, and Sarchie, sent to the location of the report, discovers the decomposed corpse of a man. The attempted infanticide, the domestic violence, and the corpse in the basement all seem to be episodes connected by a common matrix, as the various subjects in question were part of a military team in Iraq during the most recent Middle East conflict.
Scott Derrickson has a career dedicated to the demonic.
If we exclude the not-so-lucky remake of "Ultimatum to Earth," indeed, the future director of the Marvelian "Doctor Strange" has an enviable amount of horror films with a demonic character in his filmography. We start with the successful "Hellraiser 5: Inferno" (2000), one of the best sequels of the cult directed by Clive Barker, we continue with "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" (2005), based on the true story of Anneliese Michel and quickly becoming a reference point for exorcism cinema. Then comes, in 2012, "Sinister," produced by BlumHouse, which, although moving away from the structure of the demonic film to embrace almost more the "haunted houses" genre, brings to the scene a terrifying demon that
is linked to its reproduced image. But now comes "Deliver Us from Evil," which seems to be almost a mix of the first two films by Derrickson, as it combines a police thriller structure (like "Hellraiser 5") with themes and images typical of exorcism cinema.
The starting point for "Deliver Us from Evil" is "Beware the Night" (also the working title of the film), a book written by the real ex-detective Ralph Sarchie in which he recounts his adventures discovering the diabolical dimension that lives among us. In the manual written by Sarchie, who seems to have actively contributed to the making of the film, the story of the war veteran possessed by the devil is told as well as other episodes in which the man encountered after leaving the badge and becoming interested in demonology.
With the attempt to make a cinematic book-investigation, Derrickson, who also took care of the screenplay together with Paul Harris Boardman, had already started working on the script in 2004, when Sarchie's book was optioned by Jerry Bruckheimer. Since then, there have been several drafts until the desire to make a film that was a
mix of "Seven" and "The Exorcist," and so it was. Only "Deliver Us from Evil," unfortunately, does not have the narrative and stylistic charm of Fincher's film, nor the strength and unease of Friedkin's masterpiece.
Rather, Derrickson's film is a thriller/horror that is too conventional and commercial and does not manage to repeat the "miracle" obtained with "The Exorcism of Emily Rose."
The beginning is moderately promising, and if the prologue set in Iraq, with a small team of American soldiers engaged in discovering the ruins of a mysterious sanctuary, strongly recalls the prologue of "The Exorcist," suggesting exotic atmospheres, then the rest is a very dark police drama with supernatural tones. The dish is quite appetizing because dealing with the demonic theme with the tones of the police thriller is a peculiarity of very few, including "The Exorcist III," "The Touch of Evil," and "Days of Wrath." However, the path that "Deliver Us from Evil" follows is not entirely convincing, and it is noticeable how Detective Sarchie's investigation is quite disjointed and lacks a compelling and engaging construction. The film, in fact, presents itself as an accumulation of scenes without a particularly distinctive connection that all aim at the horror atmosphere. And in this, the film succeeds wonderfully, because Derrickson knows how to scare the viewer, but it seems as if there is no connection between one scare scene and another, and the police framework, at some point, is simply forgotten.
"Deliver Us from Evil" lives on key scenes, has a rather fast pace, and when it needs to scare the viewer, it manages to devise more or less canonical but almost all effective tricks (the girl and "the thing" that scratches under her bed offer beautiful moments from a horror film). The problem is that the film was not supposed to be this way, because it promised more. It promised to be an alternative point of view on the exorcism/demonic genre and instead ends up settling on the usual clichés, including a long final exorcism that uses all, but really all, the topoi of the genre.
That said, here and there, there are also bizarre ideas worth remembering, such as the diegetic use of The Doors' songs as a means of demon manifestation, but overall "Deliver Us from Evil" creaks. And it doesn't help either the very standard characterization of the protagonist, played by Eric Bana, with trauma in the past and guilt because he neglects his family, even if then there is the character of the exorcist priest, Father Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez), who stands out from the schemes, albeit resulting in little credible.
In short, all in all, "Deliver Us from Evil" leaves a bitter taste in the mouth and has the flavor of a missed opportunity. Maybe Bruckheimer, who is one of the symbols of contemporary Hollywood that is more crash and commercial, had too much say, but the fact is that Derrickson's film exhausts its potential in a few minutes, becoming then a pop-corn movie with easy scares and too inclined to the already seen.
Surely it will not enter the annals of the genre.
Rounded-up vote.
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