MOVIE REVIEW: DELIVER US FROM EVIL


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A woman at the zoo is throwing her baby into the lions den. An abusive husband attacks police officers when they try to enter the house. A strange noise that is coming from the basement terrifies a suburban family. New York Police officer Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana) believes that all these events are connected. But when a local priest Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez) enters the scene Sarchie is not ready to accept the devilish nature of the happenings. Until the facts become too hard to ignore.

Director Scott Derrickson helmed some of my favourite horror films Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister, but while Deliver Us From Evil is a very scary ride, it does not bring anything new to the genre. There's a grizzly atmosphere of a city in constant rain, there are lots of jump scares and some heavy gore, but where is it all going? The third act is so cliche that you are not just feeling that you have seen it somewhere before, but have seen exactly this same movie scene.

It is understandable why Eric Bana had chosen the role - playing an atheistic cop who is little by little opening his heart to God could be an interesting challenge if the script was any good. Uniting random events across the city is also an interesting idea, but then we are being treated by the same elements of a typical possession movie - we get creepy music box, demonic toys and little girls in bed haunted by evil ghosts. Don't get me wrong, I love all of the above, but watching another excruciating exorcism scene? It was a little more that I could bear.

Both Bana and Mendoza are first class actors, but they are not enough to pull off this stunt. The real demon that possesses this film is predictability, so do yourself a favour and deliver yourself from it's evil claws.  

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