Proclaiming your newest horror movie is based on true life events isn't anything new for movie studios, to my mind it reaches back to 1979's The Amityville Horror, but with the recent run of 'based on real life events' horror movies, including The Conjuring and The Quiet Ones, I for one am getting sick of getting hit over the head with this trend.
The latest movie to proudly proclaim the spooky goings on you see are rooted in the real life is Deliver Us From Evil, based on New York police officer Ralph Sarchie's (played here by Eric Bana) account of a case where he came face to face with demonic possession. Coming from director Scott Derrickson, who brought us the similary 'based on a true story' The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister (one of the finest horror movies in recent memory in my opinion), Deliver Us From Evil at least tries to do thing a little different from the norm, being a police procedural as opposed to straight horror movie for the most part. It is a noble effort at folding two genres into each other, but one that unfortunately fails to be in anyway engaging.
You get the feeling, with it's constant downpour of rain, buddy cop pairing between Sarchie and Joel McHale's Butler, and gruesome crime scenes, that this desperately wants to be Seven, and if the supernatural elements were done away with it, this could have been a serviceable clone of David Fincher's classic. But as it is, the two genres clash in a big way. Treating the possession, and the murders that come out of it, like a case to be solved makes the story move at a snail pace. It also desperately wants to stay grounded and realistic, even throwing in an unneeded sub-plot about Sarchie's home life, that the supernatural elements become ridiculous by comparison. Even how the stakes are raised for our hero, making him fully embrace the strange goings on he is witnessing, in the final act feels totally out of place, hammering home how unbalanced this movie is. The introduction of Edgar Ramirez's Jesuit priest, and renegade exorcist, only makes matters worse, piling on the misery in an effort to say "Hey, look!! He's a heroin addict turned priest. How edgy are we!?" There is not one likable character in this movie. The acting is not bad, in fact all the actors handle themselves perfectly, but every character is so dour and serious, that the movie is painful to sit through.
I have no doubt a police procedural and horror movie mash up can work, but Deliver Us From Evil is not an example of that. A slog to get through, with an unbalanced story and scares that are negligible, this is one movie to give a miss.
The latest movie to proudly proclaim the spooky goings on you see are rooted in the real life is Deliver Us From Evil, based on New York police officer Ralph Sarchie's (played here by Eric Bana) account of a case where he came face to face with demonic possession. Coming from director Scott Derrickson, who brought us the similary 'based on a true story' The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister (one of the finest horror movies in recent memory in my opinion), Deliver Us From Evil at least tries to do thing a little different from the norm, being a police procedural as opposed to straight horror movie for the most part. It is a noble effort at folding two genres into each other, but one that unfortunately fails to be in anyway engaging.
You get the feeling, with it's constant downpour of rain, buddy cop pairing between Sarchie and Joel McHale's Butler, and gruesome crime scenes, that this desperately wants to be Seven, and if the supernatural elements were done away with it, this could have been a serviceable clone of David Fincher's classic. But as it is, the two genres clash in a big way. Treating the possession, and the murders that come out of it, like a case to be solved makes the story move at a snail pace. It also desperately wants to stay grounded and realistic, even throwing in an unneeded sub-plot about Sarchie's home life, that the supernatural elements become ridiculous by comparison. Even how the stakes are raised for our hero, making him fully embrace the strange goings on he is witnessing, in the final act feels totally out of place, hammering home how unbalanced this movie is. The introduction of Edgar Ramirez's Jesuit priest, and renegade exorcist, only makes matters worse, piling on the misery in an effort to say "Hey, look!! He's a heroin addict turned priest. How edgy are we!?" There is not one likable character in this movie. The acting is not bad, in fact all the actors handle themselves perfectly, but every character is so dour and serious, that the movie is painful to sit through.
I have no doubt a police procedural and horror movie mash up can work, but Deliver Us From Evil is not an example of that. A slog to get through, with an unbalanced story and scares that are negligible, this is one movie to give a miss.
