Review of Deliver Us from Evil (2014) by Thatsterlinkid — 09 Jul 2014

So here I am, just getting back from a week long cruise to the Bahamas with one thought in mind: "I really wanna see Transformers again, but in IMAX.". Unfortunately that didn't fly because I'm a firm believer in majority rule and upon the mention of "Deliver Us From Evil", my buddies jumped at the opportunity for something new as opposed to something we already liked. Usually I'm all in for a horror movie, and if you know me you know that I'm a huge horror buff. I love it, no, thrive on it! Games, movies, television... Comics? Maybe. Though regardless of my horror obsession and the weird need to be frightened every once in a while, I'm getting sick of the demonic possession movies. This is especially the case with those that are "Inspired By [insert name or event here]", which is exactly what this film is. Honestly, I'm beginning to think that all of these "Inspired By" stories come from schizophrenics who are paid by film writers to go on about what they 'saw'.

"Deliver Us From Evil" has a pretty strong start, at least. Kicking things off in Iraq during 2010, we follow a squad of soldiers who find their way into a tomb that is supposedly riddled with a demonic presence. This is great, but then 3 years go by and we're dropped onto the pursuit of these men from our protagonist, Sarchie (Eric Bana) who is working as a cop called in to a domestic violence case. Upon arriving to the scene, things get even more interesting as an action-packed chase goes down that leads to the downfall of this film: an omega slow pace with really bad and predictable jump scares. Like, the majority of this movie is Sarchie slowly walking around an area with weird noises going on, which you know is over when they attempt to drop a scare on you. When Sarchie isn't walking, he's talking in an attempt to build interesting dialogue that gets washed out by hallucination's and the oh so annoying "Did you see that?" or "Did you hear that?".

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting a good story and a movie taking it's time to become good, but there's nothing more disappointing than a movie that never quite gets there. "Deliver Us From Evil" tries, but with so many plot-holes covered up by jump scares that were forced on the audience a bit too soon, it feels like nothing more than $10 that could have gone towards something much more deserving. The worst part from my personal experience at least, is the fact that both my friend and brother fell asleep for a few minutes during the movie. The two people who not only voted to see it, but you never take to movies with you because they talk the whole time fell asleep! Yeah, it's 'that' slow.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend checking this movie out until you can do so without paying for it. Whether you choose to watch an online bootleg, wait for Netflix, or have a friend who's sucker enough to rent/buy it, just save your time and money here. This is especially the case if you've seen at least 2 demonic possession movies this year already, because nothing much changes here besides this film having one of the most interesting exorcism's I've ever seen. If you've got some extra money to sling around and are still a bit curious then by all means, go check this out... But I warned you.

Rating: 2.