Deliver Us from Evil
2014 · Directed by Scott Derrickson
Original language: English
- thriller
- crime
- horror
The story
When a frightening wave of violence sweeps through New York City, troubled cop Sarchie fails to find a rational explanation for the bizarre crimes. However, his eyes are opened to a frightening alternate reality when renegade Jesuit priest Mendoza convinces him that demonic possession may be to blame for the gruesome murders. Together, they wage a valiant supernatural struggle to rid the city of an otherworldly evil.
What it’s like
Gritty, low-lit New York nights: sodium-orange streetlight, wet asphalt, cramped apartments and dim precinct rooms, shot with a handheld, restless camera that stays close to its characters and lurches into sudden dread. The palette runs cold blues and sickly greens against warm, dirty yellows, with flashes of harsh flashlight beams and shadow-swallowed corridors. Sound design leans on rumbling low drones, abrupt stingers and long stretches of urban hum that give way to unsettling silence. Its vibe is bleak, jittery and tense, the kind of night-shift unease you feel after the city has gone quiet. It suits a late evening alone with the lights off, or a dark-weather watch when you want to be rattled rather than soothed. Pacing is brisk and procedural, with a gradual shift from street-level police work to something more ritualistic and frightening, and the emotional arc follows a weary cop and a haunted priest reluctantly trusting one another. Intensity is high: frequent, graphic violence and gore, disturbing crime scenes, sustained creepiness, and possession imagery that is intense and unsettling, with no gentleness on offer. It is for viewers who enjoy grounded crime thrillers that slide into outright supernatural horror, and who can handle brutal imagery.
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