Deliver Us From Evil (2014)
Written By: ML
Edited By: Grave Reviews Staff
Film Information
Director(s): Scott Derrickson
Writers(s): Scott Derrickson, Paul Harris Boardman
Producer(s): Jerry Bruckheimer
Date Released: July 2, 2014
Cast:
Eric Bana as Ralph Sarchie
Édgar Ramírez as Mendoza
Olivia Munn as Jen Sarchie
Sean Harris as Mick Santino
Joel McHale as Butler
Chris Coy as Jimmy Tratner
Olivia Horton as Jane Crenna
Lulu Wilson as Christina Sarchie
Rating = 3/5 Graves
***May contain some spoilers***
Synopsis
The back-story begins with 3 marines at war in Iraq in 2010 and discovering a cave where they experienced something horrible. Fast forward to 2013, the story focuses on the life of Sargeant Ralph Sarchie and his partner Butler as they go about their duty as cops. They came across evil when they received a call about domestic violence. Their encounters did not stop there. Father Mendoza came and explained that the arrested suspects might be possessed. The connections reveal that one of the marines named Santino saw something evil in Iraq and began opening a demonic portal together with the others by showing them weird writings on the wall. Sarchie saw this message and started hearing weird noises as well. His family gets involved and his faith gets tested as they battle the primary evil wanting to get out to the world.
Gore Factor
As with all exorcism movies, there is a great deal of blood, gore, neck bending and limb twisting in this one. At the start and as the movie progresses, there are a lot of jump scares here and there. In almost all of the dark scenes or when the lights suddenly turn off, you can anticipate a good scare. One scene that will catch viewers unaware is during the review of the surveillance camera footage where a bloody face pops out of their monitor. Aside from that, the makeup of the possessed is real gory especially the nails and the body carvings on Santino. There’s also a dose of blood and brutality when Santino slashed Butler on the stairs and when Sarchie killed the pedophile in the flashback.
The Grave Review
The good thing about this movie is that there is not just one, but 3 people being possessed at the same time compared to most exorcism movies which only feature one. Another good thing about the movie is the fact that the six stages of exorcism were explained thoroughly by Father Mendoza during the actual exorcism in the prison cell.
This is probably the quickest exorcism ever performed in a movie. In terms of actual expulsion of demons, this is a good thing. But in a horror movie, audiences are expecting more action between the exorcist and the possessed. The demon named Jungler didn’t give Father Mendoza and Sarchie a hard time. The movie did not focus that much on the other possessed and only targeted the source of it all. Not to mention that the exorcism happened abruptly towards the ending.
Given the title Deliver Us From Evil, audiences would be expecting a rough battle between the exorcist and the possessed. Even Father Mendoza was not given proper character development. His story was only told in random car conversation.
Overall, this exorcist movie had that increasing tension and interesting story line but lacked showing more evil. There are a lot of loopholes and unanswered questions. Though it was said to be based on actual events, the way it was presented was not that mind-blowing.
For the foregoing reasons, Grave Reviews gives Deliver Us From Evil (2014) three graves out of five graves.
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