Deliver Us From Evil Review

There weren't many horror films this year that truly caught my attention in terms of promotional footage except for a small handful of titles. Out of all of these movies, I was honestly expecting Annabelle to be this year's top horror film for me primarily because of the overall success that was James Wan's The Conjuring. Surprisingly, this honor went to a much smaller film with Deliver Us From Evil becoming not only the best horror film of 2014 so far, but the only one to truly deliver what its trailers promised. Not only is it a solid film overall, but it also breathes new fresh air into the now overly exhausted paranormal sub-genre of horror.

So, how exactly does Deliver Us From Evil stand out from such a crowded market as far as trying out things a little different? Personally, I believe centers on what the movie does with its setting and characters. In your typical exorcism film, you are placed in an innocently presented (or glaringly creepy looking) family home where bizarre events occur and supernatural terror ensues. This formula has been done by a plethora of filmmakers, so what Deliver Us does refreshingly to combat this arguably tiresome pattern is its unique approach to placing the audience in a police crime-thriller scenario more so than your traditional haunted house premise. Our protagonist Ralph Sarchie (played by Eric Bana) is a veteran NYPD sergeant trying to process and understand a case that so happens to involve the paranormal. However, because the sergeant is a complete skeptic in the realm of supernatural beliefs, the film focuses on his journey of slowly discovering the truth behind the paranormal via the investigation of the case.

What was surprising for me was the notable feeling of realism that the performances brought to the situation. Every actor for the most part brings some sense of weight to these characters which is something that I rarely get to say about a horror film. Now, I won't say that the acting is necessarily top notch or anything, but it's the delivery of the dialogue and emotions that really pushed and grounded the story perfectly to fit the central themes being explored. Father Mendoza (the priest who helps Ralph on his case) is played exceptionally well by Édgar Ramírez and is possibly my favorite priest character in this entire genre of horror (which is saying a lot for such a very small film). There's just something very interesting about a priest with a dark and sinful history who eventually found God and decided to go out of his way to exorcise evil. That description alone makes him one of the most fascinating characters that I've ever seen in a horror film, but as I mentioned before, the credit should really lean towards Edgar's performance here.

In terms of the story itself, we're basically handed over your typical run of the mill tale of some ancient evil making its way to an innocent family causing havoc. Now although this cliched concept does indeed play an important part in the film, the main focus of the story is on the sergeant not only trying to solve this mysterious case, but find his role in the grander scheme of things. Again, we're met with this sense of a realistic approach to the supernatural where instead of being constantly thrown into situations of paranormal events taking place, we're looking through the perspective of an officer of the law attempting to comprehend everything. What this does effectively is give the overall narrative a nice character journey layer of having the protagonist discover that the world around him is a lot more bigger and interesting than he was thought to be believe. I really enjoyed this element of the story and would love to see more films with this type of approach in the future of horror cinema.

Now speaking about this as a straightforward horror title, I honestly couldn't recommend this to anyone with the specific label of being worthy of checking out as I never really felt genuinely terrified throughout the movie. It follows your typical exorcism movie trajectory in terms of having a slow but interesting first and second act progressing towards a climatic good vs evil battle. However, I was hoping for something a little more impactful regarding the potential scares that could've come from what they set up. Now if I were to sell this as an interesting horror crime-drama instead, this is where I feel Deliver Us From Evil showcases its entertainment value effectively enough. With the uniqueness of its setting, character focus, and surprisingly genuine feeling performances, I do believe Deliver Us From Evil is a film worth looking into once you have the right expectations in mind.

Rating: 7/10