"Deliver Us From Evil" Movie Review

        Deliver Us From Evil is directed by Scott Derrickson and stars Eric Bana, Edgar Ramirez, and Olivia Munn. It is about two police officers who start to find that some of the crime they are finding is connected, and when things start happening to one of the officers, they seek help from a priest (Edgar Ramirez) to stop what is going on.

            I really enjoyed this movie overall. From the beginning, it is very interesting. From then on, it continued to invite in new things to make it more interesting. And the film also has some very creepy horror elements. There is some disturbing imagery and there are some tension-building scenes. There were times when an image would pop up on the screen for less than half a second. The images themselves were creepy, but it was even creepier that we did not get a chance to absorb the entire image, so we missed some of it.

            But the film could have been scarier. Scott Derrickson also directed Sinister, which I am a very big fan of. He is very good with directing horror, but here, there were not enough chances for him to show that. And some of the times when he could have shown it, false scares were used. Someone hears movement… They slowly go toward it… It is getting louder… …It was a bird! There are some jump scares in this movie, but not too much, so I will allow that and not take off any points for the film. But there are some lame scares here that really do not work. Though, sometimes Derrickson can make them work.

            The horror scenes are very well directed here. A lot of the tension has to do with what arrangement of shots Scott Derrickson decides to use. Derrickson is also very good with the visual elements of the scares.

            The plot here is very original. There are some little clichés here and there, but the actual plot itself is very different. That helped the enjoyment a lot. That was what helped keep my interest and what helped me want to know what was going to happen next.

            The little clichés I was talking about are in some of the scares. There is some dialogue that is clichéd, and the construction of the scenes is somewhat clichéd. But there is one cliché inside of the plot. It has to do with the main character. He is a police officer that does not believe. Things start happening to him. You know exactly what direction that is going in, and it goes in that direction.

            While the main character does have a cliché in the construction of him, at least he does have development. It took a while, but I eventually got invested into his character. He was the only one with development. His partner was there for comic relief. The family was there so he could have a family. The priest is probably the only other character that is actually essential to the narrative.

            There is a twist-type plot turn directly before the third act starts and this twist-type plot turn was very interesting. There was a thing I liked and I thing I did not like in it. Things started happening to the main character earlier on in the film. Those things were unclear. This twist-type plot turn tells us about them. Some of it was cool and I liked it. Though, one thing ruined the scariest element of the film. It stopped that element of the film from being scary at all anymore.

            At one point, the film stops being a horror film and turns into a thriller. Because of this, there are some action scenes. Those action scenes are poorly directed. Scott Derrickson is not an action director, so I understand why the action scenes are not the best directed action scenes of all time. But the action scenes are poorly directed. The style of the action is quick-cut editing. For every movement one person makes, there are three cuts. I had no idea what was going on. Therefore, the action was not good at all.

            The last ten or twenty minutes of this movie follow the same end formula as many other horror movies out there. I will not say what type of scene it ends with, but it would not be hard to guess. For what type of scene it is, it definitely could have been scary, which it was not. Though, I will say that it was different from other scenes in the same style that other movies have.

            Overall, I guess I did like the film. Though, I would not recommend paying the money to see it in the theater. It is not worth it. It is an alright movie. There are things I liked about it and things I did not like about it.