Deliver Us From Evil (2014)

Synopsis: While investigating a series of strange and disturbing domestic crimes, New York City police officer Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana) becomes persuaded that the supernatural is responsible. He teams up with Father Mendoza (Édgar Ramírez), a priest who has previous experience of exorcisms. Together they confront their own faith and beliefs as they prepare to face a powerful demon.

I should declare that I still haven’t forgiven Scott Derrickson for what he did to one of my favourite films with his 2008 remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still. Nevertheless, I took an open mind into Deliver Us From Evil, especially knowing that he had made a pretty good fist of his earlier foray into demonic possession with 2005’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose. His new film is a bit of a mash up of the 1973 eponymous grand-daddy of the genre, The Exorcist by way of 1995’s grisly thriller, Seven with just a touch of 1982’s Poltergeist added. In other words, it’s got a bit of everything. And yet, in the end, it doesn’t really amount to all that much.

There’s quite an interesting idea that emerges in the early part of the film that connects the manifestation of evil in the possessed to animals and to animalistic behaviour, most graphically depicted in their obsessive digging and clawing (and of course a bit of Linda Blair style growling) but by the time we get to the pointy end of the story, that idea has been well left behind. There’s another idea more central to the story which suggests that certain susceptible personalities who see a certain set of Latin words can effectively open the doorway between worlds and let the demons in. Again, the idea of the doors gets lost along the way and, worse still, draws a very silly long bow to somehow connect it to songs by the band The Doors. Is the idea that Jim Morrison really was the devil? Whatever it’s meant to mean, it doesn’t really add anything useful to the story.

Ramírez is strong as the unorthodox Priest. In both character and performance he is much more complex than Bana who is solid and surly as the Cop. Both actors manage to pick their way through their fair share of clunky exposition (more than once, Bana has the line ‘So what you’re saying is...’) until they manage to find some more compelling moments where they consider the nature of God and faith and, of course, evil. But even these moments seem to lack a philosophical depth that might have elevated the film to a more considered meditation on its themes.

But perhaps the film’s biggest sin (excuse the pun) is that it just isn’t all that scary. It’s not that there aren’t any heart-stoppers or spine-tinglers. It’s just that they are almost all generated through filmic devices and trickery, rather than emerging from the thematic ideas of the film. The relentless use of claustrophobic close ups, the dim, spooky lighting in almost every scene, the sudden cuts to scary faces, the bone-shaking bass notes of the soundtrack – all these things might be good for a fright, but they don’t resonate with the story or effect us more deeply than as a fleeting sensation.  All these years later, my skin still crawls and my heart still breaks at the moment in The Exorcist when Regan looks at Father Karras and out of her puke-smeared mouth comes his mother’s voice...  ‘Why you do this to me Dimmy?’ Try as it might, Deliver Us From Evil fails to deliver that kind of substance to support the superficial scariness its story offers.

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