8
(demonic possession defeated by the power of Christ)
4
(violence, gore, disturbing images, very strong language)
7
(worth seeing more than once)
Once more Scott Derrickson delivers a frightening trip into the dark reaches of the soul with "Deliver Us From Evil" making the average modern horror flick look like it has no idea what terror actually is. While other other horror writers are used car salesmen trying to sell frights with a rust bucket put together with torture scenes painted over with blood, Derrickson is like a sinister masseuses working his fingers deep into the tissues of your mind to leave you with a sensation you feel down to the core of your very being.
Ralph Sarchie is a New York police officer with a sixth sense for finding trouble. Usually this amounts to nothing more than an exciting adrenaline rush for his partner, but this time he's stumbled into an evil so intense it will redirect the entire course of his life.
A woman throwing her child into a ravine, a man beating his wife senseless in front of their child; just run of the mill crimes showing the evil people can do to each other, right? Father Mendoza suspects something far more dangerous, demonic possession, but Sarchie has outgrown such superstitious beliefs. Despite the difference of opinions about the source the pair join together in a search for a man who is, one way or another, bringing evil into the lives of everyone around him.
"Deliver Us From Evil" feels larger than past films by Derrickson. We tour dark streets of New York with Sarchie and his partner, descend into underground ritual chambers, and investigate various crime scenes. While no less worth seeing some of Derrickson's past films have felt confined; this one is wide open.
Eric Bana stars as Sarchie and brings a high level of respectability to the role. He's a good cop, a caring but distant husband, a neglectful father, and a troubled soul. He runs through a gambit of emotional situations which he sells flawlessly.
Edgar Ramirez plays Father Mendoza, a priest who is a far cry from the stereotypical priest in many ways. He takes a character which could easily come across as too hard to believe thanks to trying too hard to make him edgy and creates a personality that shows human failings combined with with genuine piety. He is a man who knows a great deal about the spiritual world and is comfortable enough with knowing he's in God's hands to not feel like he has to put on a facade of false righteousness.
These characters feel realistic which is surely helped by the fact that the whole story is based on Sarchie's accounts of real-life events and was filmed with input from him. If these events are even partially real that makes the tale that much more frightening!
This movie doesn't have the quiet terror of "Sinister." What it has instead is intense demonic interactions and disturbing looks at the results of violent evil. Think back to exorcism scene in the "Exorcism of Emily Rose" and spread that feel to a much larger portion of the movie overall. The emotion of the demon toying with the priest, the worry that is present when a demon-possessed man targets Sarchie's family, the loss of those who fall at the blade of an evil man, the soul-smothering darkness that seeps up from Sarchie's past: these are moments and themes that draw the viewer into the characters in ways that many movies, especially horror flicks that have nothing more than shock-value to fall back on, fail to achieve.
Criticisms are few and minor. A few of the minor actors aren't as good as I might have hoped for. We lose an important character, and I feel like we don't spend enough time working through the emotions of the loss. The last one is personal preference. I hate the music of The Doors and didn't care for hearing their songs although I have to admit that thematically it does work effectively.
Morality
This is a visually disturbing film. Bloated corpses split open, animals are shown to have been sacrificed to the evil spirits, bodies are mangled, and the demonically influenced cause brutal injury to those they attack. While the movie doesn't rely on gore or violence this isn't one for the the queasy.
Strong language includes numerous F-bombs and other such language.
Sexuality is minimal amounting mostly to a story of an illicit affair between two people.
Spirituality
Perhaps the thing that I love most about this movie is that there is so much to consider spiritually. I can't cover all of the points of consideration here so I'll lay out a few prominant ones and then wax philosophical about a couple more.
The plot is centered around demonic possession. Ritualistic curses open the doorway to the evil spirits, but while most movies might have the heroes having to erase writing or burn an object the only way to defeat this evil is by the power of Christ. Father Mendoza, in service to God, is the only hope for stopping this evil (with Sarchie's help, of course).
A major component to dealing with the demons is being clean before God. Sarchie has allowed sins to darken his life and must acknowledge and repent of them in order to keep the demons from being able to use them against him.
Not only does this show the importance of the spirit of repentance, it opens conversations about grace. Mendoza tells a story of sin in his own life. He had been worried about what would happen when it came to light, but humble confession brought healing to his soul through grace.
Sarchie, in his disillusionment with religion, asks the question of where God is when there is such evil in the world which Mendoza answers with one of the more profound lines from the movie. Don't you want to watch the movie now to see how Mendoza answers the question?
As someone who already believes in grace and the need to repent, I appreciate these messages, but they are not what I personally find the most powerful elements here. Sarchie has seen great evil in the world as a result of his job. As bad as it has been it's still evil that can be explained by the darkness in the hearts of people. Mendoza tells him he has never experienced “primary evil,” only secondary, which Sarchie takes as nothing more than superstitious nonsense.
As I've considered the tricks of the Devil at times in my life I have wondered why he doesn't step in more directly more often (something similar to what atheist friends have asked me about God). The explanation can perhaps best be put into words via a quote you might recognize.
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist." (From "The Usual Suspects" probably adapted from a similar line written by poet Charles Baudelaire.) C.S. Lewis spends a bit of time considering this in his book "The Screwtape Letters."
Frequently the Devil only allows us to see enough evil to wonder why God isn't doing something about it. If he's just sitting back allowing this to go on then he either doesn't care as much as people like me claim he does or he doesn't exist at all. Where is God when all this evil is going on?
What the Devil DOESN'T want is for too many people to see him in action because if he erases all doubt from the mind that there is a supernatural evil at work then it becomes far too easy to accept the reasoning that if the Devil exists so must God. "Deliver Us From Evil" pulls back the curtain to give a glimpse at the comparison between evil that makes us question God and that which assures us of the reality of him.
Final Thoughts
I would classify "Deliver Us From Evil" as a Christian movie in the sense that it was created with the involvement of followers of Christ and in the messages it sends about the reality of the spiritual realm (though you certainly don't need to be a Christian to get something out of it if you like scary stories of demonic possession). It is not what I would call a “safe” movie which means it will surely be attacked by the pious elite for the darkness it portrays. Many Christians will avoid it because of its disturbing nature, its intense scares, or maybe just due to the persistent F-bombs. And, you know what, that's fine. Scott Derrickson strikes me as someone not interested in preaching to the choir, and if Christians want to reject his work for that, I won't beat them up for it. I can't join their criticism, though. This is my second favorite movie of the year (beaten only by "Days of Future Past" which has been my favorite X-Men story since I was a kid). It's brilliant, engaging, and highly thought-provoking. If you can handle the scares, and especially if you enjoy tales supernatural horror even if you don't take the subject matter as seriously as I do, this is absolutely worth seeing.
Buying Guide
Blu-ray details coming soon.
Details
Video
Audio
Packaging
Extras