Deliver Us from Evil

Plot

In Iraq in 2010, a four-man Marine team is closing in on a firefight across an open desert area. One of the Marines takes a round to the head. The other three close in on the firefight. They apply suppressive fire and move in on the threat towards a tree line. Night has fallen as they move through the trees. One Marine shoots off a flare. The team notices several nocturnal species and observes possible hostile forces running ahead of them. They quickly pursue and one Marine throws out a grenade, rendering the hostiles injured. One hostile gets up and is quickly neutralized by a Marine. As they assess the situation, one Marine turns on a flashlight and finds an open stairwell into the ground. One pulls security and two descend. PFC J. Tratner activates a bodycam as they investigate. As they make their way to the bottom of the stairs, they notice a foul smell. They seem to have found some sort of room, and their lights as well as the bodycam go dark. Screaming ensues.

In The Bronx in 2013, veteran NYPD Special Operations Sergeant Ralph Sarchie and his partner Butler patrol the 46th Precinct. A domestic disturbance call comes in over the radio. Sarchie finds out that the male at the address is a former Marine.

At the site of the complaint, Sarchie and Butler encounter the former Marine, Jimmy Tratner, whose wife has been badly beaten. They also notice deep scratches on the floor. Tratner flees. Sarchie catches up and makes the arrest. The officers assume that Jimmy is mentally ill or high on drugs.

Sarchie and Butler are called to the Bronx Zoo after a woman has thrown her toddler into the moat surrounding the lion enclosure. They find the woman in the lemur pen. She is furiously scraping at the ground and rapidly recites the lyrics to "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". Sarchie notices a commercial painter inside the lion enclosure. He enters to interrogate the man, but is attacked by the lions and barely escapes.

When the deranged woman, Jane Crenna, is transferred to a mental health facility, a Jesuit priest, Mendoza, arrives at the family's request. Another domestic disturbance call comes in; a family of three has been staying in the living room after a series of strange disturbances. There is one area of the house where light bulbs instantly burn out and candles will not remain lit. The family explains that there were two painters working in the basement, where most of the disturbances occurred. In the basement, Sarchie discovers the decomposing body of one of the painters, David Griggs. At Griggs's decayed apartment, they find business cards for Alphonsus Painting company as well as a picture of Griggs with Jane Crenna and the child that she threw at the zoo. In another picture, Griggs is pictured in his Marine uniform with Jimmy and a third Marine, Mick Santino. They realize Santino must have been the painter at the zoo.

Cast

Eric Bana as Ralph Sarchie, a New York City street cop who has put his faith in religion behind him, only to find himself entangled with the devil.

Édgar Ramírez as Mendoza, the Spanish priest who teams with Ralph.

Olivia Munn as Jennifer "Jen" Sarchie, Ralph's wife, who also has a tie to the case.

Sean Harris as Mick Santino/Jungler, a Marine possessed by demons, who ends up targeting Ralph and his loved ones.

Joel McHale as Butler, Ralph's partner, a tough, experienced, albeit sometimes a bit egotistical, cop.

Chris Coy as Jimmy Tratner

Dorian Missick as Gordon

Lulu Wilson as Christina Sarchie, Ralph's daughter.

Scott Johnsen as David Griggs

Daniel Sauli as Salvatore

Antoinette Lavecchia as Serafina

Aidan Gemme as Mario

Jenna Gavigan as Lucinda

Oliver Wadsworth as Marvin

Mike Houston as Nadler

Olivia Horton as Jane Crenna

Rhona Fox as Zookeeper

Valentina Rendón as Claudia

Production

On September 4, 2012, director Scott Derrickson signed on to direct Beware the Night, a paranormal cop thriller film he co-wrote with Paul Harris Boardman, with Screen Gems producing. On November 12, Jerry Bruckheimer signed on to produce the film with his Jerry Bruckheimer Films production company, which had begun developing a treatment of the Sarchie book with Derrickson and Boardman years earlier. David Ayer, Bryan Bertino and Bruce C. McKenna also worked on the screenplay before Bruckheimer went back to Derrickson and Boardman's script. Screen Gems set a January 16, 2015, release date and announced it would start filming on May 20, in The Bronx, New York City. On November 13, 2013, Sony Pictures changed the release date from January 2015 to July 2, 2014. On December 7, the film was retitled Deliver Us from Evil.

The film features a completely original plot by Derrickson and co-writer Paul Harris Boardman, while it draws on certain passages of Sarchie's book. Mendoza's explanation of primary and secondary evil is culled from the book's preface. Many of the details from the scene where Sarchie and Butler encounter the family living in one room of a haunted house are taken directly from the first chapter of the book.

Casting

Initially, Mark Wahlberg was set to star. On November 9, 2012 The Wrap posted that Eric Bana was in talks to join the film, playing the lead role as a New York cop. On April 9, 2013 Bana confirmed his role in the film as a Catholic cop, and Olivia Munn and Édgar Ramírez were set to co-star as the cop's wife and a priest respectively. On May 28, 2013 Joel McHale and Sean Harris also joined the film; McHale played Bana's partner, a tough and experienced cop. Dorian Missick joined cast on June 5 to play the role of the cop Gordon. Other cast members include Chris Coy, Rhona Fox, and Valentina Rendón.

Filming

Principal photography began on June 3, 2013 in New York City. After wrapping up filming in New York in the end of July, production moved to Abu Dhabi at the start of August 2013. Production filmed scenes at the Liwa Oasis desert in Abu Dhabi. According to Empire State Development Corporation, Deliver Us from Evil spent more than $19 million in New York state over the course of its 34-day shoot in New York City and on Long Island. The production paid $7 million to New York residents, hiring some 700 cast and crew as well as more than 400 extras.

Marketing

On December 23, 2013, the first photo from the film was released. The film's first trailer was released on YouTube on March 7, 2014, followed by another international trailer on April 10. On May 14 another trailer was released.

Release

The film was released on July 2, 2014 in 3,049 locations in the United States.

Home media

Deliver Us from Evil was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 28, 2014. It was released on Netflix on February 2, 2018, but the film was removed from the streaming services on the same date. It was re-released on Netflix on September 1, 2019.

Critical reception

The film holds an approval rating of 29% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 133 reviews, with an average rating of 4.7/10. The critical consensus states: "Director Scott Derrickson continues to have a reliably firm grasp on creepy atmosphere, but Deliver Us from Evil's lack of original scares is reflected in its shopworn title." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 40 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.

Writing for Variety, Andrew Barker's review called it "a professionally assembled genre mashup that's too silly to be scary, and a bit too dull to be a midnight-movie guilty pleasure". Critic Peter Keough of The Boston Globe wrote that the film is atmospheric but "the story soon devolves into variations of many movies we have seen before". Bilge Ebiri of New York Magazine called it "a thoroughly generic exorcism film" and concluded, "There are some half-decent scares ... But the film's real problem is that it's somehow both one-note and convoluted." Ben Sachs wrote in The Chicago Reader that Derrickson "demonstrates a knack for atmosphere but little sense of pacing". Of the film's atmosphere, Sachs wrote that "some sequences are effectively spooky" but "just as many feel uninspired". Moira Macdonald of The Seattle Times described it as "a pretty routine and occasionally silly demonic-possession flick, which distinguishes itself by making us wait so long for the exorcism that heads may be spinning in the audience as well". Macdonald added, "Some of it's shivery, but a lot of it is familiar from similar movies." Rafer Guzman of Newsday wrote, "Thanks to a fine cast, solid direction by Scott Derrickson and an idiosyncratic soundtrack by The Doors, the movie's mandatory cliches – Latin invocations, gurgling demons – are far more tolerable than usual." Bill Stamets in The Chicago Sun Times stated, "Director Scott Derrickson and his co-writer, Paul Harris Boardman, deliver a routine procedural with unremarkable frights".

Box office

Deliver Us from Evil did well at the box office. It had earned $2.8 million on its opening day. In its opening weekend, the film earned $9.5 million ranking at number four at the box office in the United States, behind the box office champion, Transformers: Age of Extinction.