Deliver Us From Evil: Movie Review

Deliver Us From Evil: Movie Review

Cast: Eric Bana, Joel McHale, Edgar Ramirez, Olivia Munn, Sean Harris
Director: Scott Derrickson

In the latest horror based on true events / inspired by true events to hit the cinema, Eric Bana stars as tough and wearied New York cop Ralph Sarchie.

Relentlessly working the night shift with his partner Butler (a quippy Joel McHale) on the perpetually rainy Bronx streets, Sarchie is called in to deal with a case that appears to have Satanic overtones after a series of incidents appear to have a demonic link.

Dismissive of any religious beliefs and scoffing at these claims, Sarchie finds himself pairing up with a priest Mendoza (Ramirez) as they dig deeper into the case of three former Iraqi veterans and a series of inscriptions that appear to be at every crime scene.

Soon though, Sarchie finds the case is closer to home than he would like.

Deliver Us From Evil is a lazy formulaic horror, which employs every available cliche to try and proffer up new scares.

Dark grimy streets? Check. Perpetual gloom and rain? Check. Children's toy looking shifty in the bedroom? Check. Dark basements where torches / any form of lights fail? Check. A protagonist with lapsed religion? Check. A priest who's fallen from grace? Check. Moments of creepiness and jump scares predictably sign posted from a mile off thanks to an overly bombastic OST? Check.

Every single trope and soundtrack trick is rolled out during the 2 hour run time and every po-faced moment falls flat on its face as this fight against evil begins to try to bite. The problem is there's no real pull - even the fate of a supporting character who's given a bit of life fails to hit any emotional mark as the horror starts to try and bite.

While Bana tries his best with the material handed to him, the film ends up being derivative of everything you've seen before and so wildly grounded in nothing at all that it has no unique selling points. That's despite culminating in a jail cell exorcism that could have had been so much more thanks to its relatively original premise.

Perhaps really, it should be a case of Deliver Us From Deliver Us From Evil in this formulaic horror; a lack of originality, a distinct feeling of no emotional connection and a story that's dragged as far as it can be on its fragile premise leaves you wishing you could be exorcised of everything that's just unfolded in front of you.

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