Mike McCahill 

Deliver Us From Evil review – supernatural cop drama overrun by forces of cliche

Scott Derrickson tries to get the police procedural to go demonic, but this is thin stuff, writes Mike McCahill
  
  

Deliver Us From Evil
Test of faith … Deliver Us From Evil. Photograph: PR

Scott Derrickson folded demonic possession into courtroom drama with 2005's The Exorcism of Emily Rose; here he attempts the same with the police procedural, and winds up battling two cliches for every one. Derrickson approaches his task seriously – countless rain-snuffed lightbulbs enable the gloomiest horror since Seven – and casts smartly: ever-dependable Eric Bana is the Bronx cop tailing Scariest Living Actor Sean Harris. Yet the material soon betrays its thinness: Édgar Ramírez's priest preaches holy exposition, while Bana's family await third-act imperilment. My faith, tested by use of the Doors as a Satanic conduit, vanished for ever the instant a possessed piano bashed out Pop Goes the Weasel.

 

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