Review of Deliver Us from Evil (2014) by Christine H — 22 Jul 2014

Sigh, it could have been decent.

Despite its flaws I loved Sinister. The creepy atmosphere, elements of tension, great acting, and spooky concept made a great movie. But this movie doesn't really follow through. While Deliver has some talented performances who do right by their well designed characters, the film fails to introduce the audience to an interesting concept. The film constantly switches focus as Derkison throws a bunch of ideas at you that all fall flat. To make matters worse the scares add almost NOTHING to the film. Jump scares can be good, if their done right. But a lot of this movie is just waiting for a jump scare, and you NEVER want to do that to your audience. It may startle them but theirs nothing satisfying about something like that, its just for sustenance. The only tome Deliver was able to build tension was through the only part of the movie that I actually enjoyed. (spoilers) Near the end a man in a hooded jacket starts to stalk the main characters family. seeing this character who had been the main subject of the film finally start to do SOMETHING was actually pretty cool, and Derikson's ability to creat dark and spooky atmosphere really helped this. This was followed by an action sequence between the hooded man and the main characters partner and over it made for a very intense and likeable battle. Not perfect, but it's one of the only places this film shows any hint of originality, and shows what the film could've been (END SPOILERS).

Overall its not an awful film, but it could've been better, there are scenes where the potential briefly shines through, but it's gone before you know it.