The Horror Show
Deliver Us from Evil
by Scott Derrickson
New York City has repeatedly been the setting of suspenseful thrillers and eerie horror featuring gruesome murders, horrific crimes, and hardcore cops. Deliver Us from Evil is an entertaining combination of all these; mixing demons with criminals, detectives with exorcists, and police interrogations with dramatic exorcisms. Have I said too much?
Eric Bana is a very satisfying presence in the movie living up to all stereotypes and standards of a typical NYC cop. The second protagonist, young and attractive Édgar Ramírez in the role of Father Mendoza, is also a great surprise considering other priests that we’ve been introduced to in similar movies like The Rite, The Exorcism of Emily Rose or The Last Exorcism.
With a very atmospheric setting depicting the rainy and dark side of New York, cinematography seems to be a big asset in Deliver Us from Evil, since the storyline itself has been massively overused. It can be so easily described with just a few words: demon, possession, exorcism, Italian background, unfaithful cop in disbelief, popping dark veins or creepy satanic voices. Do any of these sound familiar?
In more detail, a series of unrelated crimes trouble officer Sarchie, who seems to have a hard time balancing his career and family. An absolutely deranged mother who tries to kill her two-year-old son in the Bronx Zoo, the dead body of a painter found in the basement of an Italian family, and a creepy man with a hood that appears to be a link in these two incidents will start driving him crazy.
Then comes Father Mendoza, an unconventional and interesting character. He is an ex-junkie, drinker, and smoker who happens to know more than meets the eye and whose methods seem to contradict the cynical cop’s ways.
It all comes down to faith and soon enough Mendoza and Sarchie will come face to face with the true evil that hides inside an innocent man’s body. The clock is ticking though, since the demon has targeted our lead man and his entire family. But when police forces unite with the Church, miracles happen.
What’s good about this movie is that there is no long introduction and pointless time-killers. Bana and Ramírez form a very compatible duo that pleases the female eye – at least that’s what I sensed from the girls around me - and stands strong under the given circumstances.Olivia Munn is there to please the male eye but unfortunately her role as Sarchie’s neglected wife is particularly limited.
Despite the cinematography and very convincing cast, Deliver Us from Evil reeks of clichés that if you are anything like me, you are probably fed up with. Neck cracking, blood coming out of the possessed man’s mouth and deep hellish screams are of course present and how couldn’t they be after all. It takes a skilled cop with a good hunch to bring all the pieces together and solve the puzzle, but also there’s plenty of machismo complementing Bana’s scenes.
In other words, even though the plot is not particularly groundbreaking or new, director Scott Derrickson (also worked on Sinister and The Exorcism of Emily Rose) knows how to deliver a good and enjoyable product and his previous work proves the point.
Maria Kriva, HMS
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